Simply resilient, resiliently simple

The third in a series of January blogs about Resilience.

The capacity to bounce back after a set back: resilience is such a hot topic across the business world.

In our last blog we drew attention to the human dimension of resilience. This week, we are giving the philosophy and practice of simplicity a mention.

Dangerous lip service…

A quick scan of books and articles about resilience suggests a handful of concepts, systems, processes, “things”, characteristics and behaviours that make up the resilience “check list”.

Surprisingly, simplicity doesn’t feature.

We seem to have constructed such a complex world for ourselves that resilience measures, where they exist, can also have a sense of complexity about them. So much so that, throughout an organisation, lip service can often be paid to them. “Why should we spend time and money doing that?”

And when we say our world is “complex” we often forget that this sense of “complexity” is in large part a mental construction. We are expert at telling ourselves the “complex world” story. It has gone viral. Everyone is telling this story to one another!

Leading simply, simply leading…

What would it be like if there was a different story being told? A simple one? One you could write or draw on a single sheet of A4? Or tell in a few moments? What would it be like to have clarity of purpose? Simplicity of practice?

How much easier could this make your day-to-day experience? More fruitful your endeavours? What could this do for your capacity to bounce back from a set back?

So, who is making your life simpler? Who is attending to your bounce-back-ability?

Who is creating and telling the “simplicity story”?

Dave
Dave Stewart
Managing Director
The Fresh Air Learning Company Ltd