Resilience e Rexistence
During the last Strega Award Sandro Veronesi , winner of the 2020 edition, taught us a new word: emmenalgia (from the Greek verb emmèno) which means to remain firm, to persevere, to continue strenuously to the bitter end, to oppose, to resist.
This word represents a very broad dimension of human nature and, therefore, can also be successfully applied to questions of strategy and organization.
Resisting seems to me a good concept to be contrasted with the concept of resilience, the meaning of which we have abundantly learned.
Should the business strategy (profit/non-profit) be resilient or should it be resilient? What to choose? What's the best strategy?
These are questions of great strategic depth, especially in this historical moment.
Honestly, every organization should give its own answer in relation to its way of seeing the near future.
In my opinion there is no universal recommendation, but the crucial point that I think it is important to underline is the rigorous mediation and the passionate dialectic between the resilience and the resistance of the strategy: in fact, I do not think it appropriate to take one's strategic management to extremes, but success consists in seeking the right tolerance and the right level of compromise to remain broadly consistent with one's story and vision. In fact, I believe that the good level of compromise to pursue between resilience and resistance is being coherent and being far-sighted.
As? Quite simply (so to speak) one should identify the level of tolerance of the fundamental elements that make up one's consolidated competitive advantage.
In my opinion, the organization should be more resistant to long-term objectives and vision, quality standards and certifications, relations with the environment, employees and suppliers, values and behaviors that could affect reputation. Instead, it should be more resilient on the methods and contents of communication, on changes in consumption, on the adoption of new technologies, on the expansion of sales channels, on investments in research and development.
This research should have the ultimate goal of finding, for each individual component, the balance point between what can become resilient and what must remain resistant.
In the wake of the famous Clash song – “Should I stay or should I go now? / If I go, there will be trouble / And if I stay it will be double / So come on and let me know” (1981, Combat Rock) – to facilitate this reasoning and change process there are two valid strategic tools that can be used: risk management, risk analysis e business continuitycontinuity planning. Both offer rigorous prospective assessments of the robustness and sustainability of resilient and resilient choices.
All the Best!
