A true crises erupts unexpectedly and for many people that means an inability to respond quickly and effectively. A true crisis is existential. A law firm dissolves because of a split of opinion along power lines. A series of key personnel departures leaves a business division empty of visionary leadership and it loses its competitive marketplace position. Too often a culture of focusing on short-term problems and assigning blame creates a blindspot to noticing the absence and critical need for focusing on long-terms resilience and innovation.
A series of smaller problems—revenue drops, key stakeholders leave, internal conflict goes unresolved—can cause leaders to assume a singular focus on on short-term solutions, which often hide instead of solve the problem. Solutions grounded in avoidance and appeasement responses tend to have little lasting effect. When this happens, the level of organizational vulnerability escalates and even a minor disruption can turn into a significant crisis, from which it becomes impossible to regain stability and get back on course.
It may seem as though there is no alternative to prioritizing short-term fixes, but this is a consequence of binary thinking. Although at the start, it takes time to develop a set of leadership competencies to shift the normative patterns of a stable, but unhelpful culture, the mistake of neglecting the broader strategic vision needed for future stability can lead to a cycle where immediate issues mistakenly seem to be addressed, but underlying vulnerabilities remain.
Long-term resilience involves investing in leadership development. It means paying attention to the drivers of stability and developing people with the competencies of resilient and innovative problem-solvers. It means building a culture that can adapt and thrive despite challenges. Organizations that focus on resilience are better equipped to sustain performance and adapt to new threats and the quickest path to creating a culture of a resilient organization is starting with the people leading that organization.