Resilient Thinking – Protecting Organisations in the 21st Century, Second edition Since the release of the first edition in 2012, a lot has changed in the world of risk and organisational resilience. Global conflict, political realignments, environmental disruptions, pandemics and disease outbreaks and cyber attacks are a plethora of threats that have and will continue to endanger the stability of the world. Alongside these risks and issues, technological and societal change is ushering in a new age of opportunity and progress. What can organisations and individuals do to prepare for an unexpected future? To prepare for the unexpected future, organisations need to be resilient, and this requires: Understanding the current, emerging and future environments and contexts; People who are knowledgeable, confident and capable in building and maintaining resilience in the organisation and themselves; and A sensible approach to the use of guidance, frameworks and initiative. Phil Wood’s much expanded and updated second edition explores, develops and enhances the concepts discussed in his previous book in granular detail, analysing our understanding of where we have been, where we are now, and where we should be going to develop resilient organisations.

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface
• About the Author
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction to the second edition
• Chapter 1: A world of difficulty
  • Thinking about the context
  • Slow and rapid onset – Changing pace
  • The flimsy connections that hold us together
  • COVID-19 and Russia
  • Communication in the interdependent world
  • Information and perceptions in society – Technology, messages and management
• Chapter 2: Looking to our future
  • The future and resilience
  • Predictable and unpredictable
  • Thinking about impacts
  • How far ahead can you see?
  • Do you want to see?
  • Try facing realities – An example
  • Bias, prediction and organisational failure
  • Forecasting disadvantages
  • Looking ahead
  • Scenario studies and strategic foresight
  • Summary
• Chapter 3: Organisational resilience – Principles and ideas
  • Definitions
  • Ability
  • An organisation
  • Anticipate and prepare
  • Respond and adapt
  • Incremental change v sudden disruptions
  • Sudden disruptions
  • Survive and prosper
  • Shock absorption
  • VUCA
  • Functions and components – And conflict
  • Criticality in organisations
  • Systems
  • Time
  • Phases of response and recovery
  • Phase attributes
  • Impact analysis and response
  • Preparedness
  • Barriers and accelerators of capability
  • Consequence perception changes – Changed environment?
  • Business fit
  • Money matters
  • The structures of resilience
  • Thoughts on plans and people
  • People as a problem
  • Looking in the right direction
  • Persuasion and sales
  • Summary
• Chapter 4: The spaghetti bowl of resilience
  • The secret art
  • Challenges and silos
  • Thoughts on resilience planning
  • Parts of the whole
  • Making the parts coherent
  • The business context
  • Summary
• Chapter 5: Crisis
  • Thinking about crisis
  • Crisis in context
  • A crisis case study – RMS Titanic
  • Crisis influences
  • Levels of understanding
  • Standard responses
  • Roles and capabilities of effective crisis responders
  • Summary and conclusion
• Chapter 6: Organisational behaviour influences
  • Organisational risk and impact preparedness
  • Why most organisations are unprepared
  • Resilience management – Capability and culture
  • The selection and allocation of resource for resilience
  • Attributes of prepared organisations
  • Human factors in organisational resilience
  • Failure, cause and effect
  • Hierarchies and power
  • Compliance and deference
  • Self-analysis
  • Spooks and snipers
  • Summarising organisational behaviour
• Chapter 7: Breaking free from conventional thought
  • The twenty-first century checklister
  • The failings of experience
  • Continuity of operations
  • The stovepipe and the silo (again)
  • Thinking your way out of it
  • The concept of creative dissent
  • Summary
• Chapter 8: Problems and responses
  • Facing problems
  • Thinking
  • Event and incident blending
  • Thinking like your problem
  • Risks
  • The pond and the pebble
  • A thinking strategy
  • Research and what it revealed
• Chapter 9: Conclusions
• Further reading