The Resilient Organization: How Adaptive Cultures Thrive Even When Strategy Fails

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE A "RESILIENT" ORGANIZATION?

It means you are not a prisoner of past performance, good or bad; you don't rely on the right leader alone for success but build the capability to be resilient into the organization. You constantly rehearse the culture of anticipating and responding to change, and you innovate even when you don't yet need to. You don't just survive, you thrive--amidst challenge and opportunity.

This essential guide, written by a renowned expert in global resilience strategy, shows you how to be smart about success and failure. With these field-tested forward-focused tools, you can:

• SURVIVE SHOCKS AND SETBACKS
• TURN THREATS INTO OPPORTUNITIES
• ANTICIPATE CHANGE BEFORE IT HAPPENS
• ENSURE YOUR SUCCESS IS SUSTAINABLE

As a bonus, the book features Postcards from the Resilient Edge, a powerhouse selection of frontline lessons from leading corporations that demonstrate ways you can marshal skill and master luck to take control of your organization's destiny.

THE DEFINITIVE GUIDE TO THE NEW RESILIENCE MOVEMENT

One of the most powerful trends born of the New Recession, resilience has become the operative word for business leaders and entrepreneurs facing an unpredictable market. On the forefront of this movement, global innovator and strategy consultant professor Liisa Välikangas has created a step-by-step system of proven survival strategies you can put into action immediately.

Whether you need to bounce back from a downturn, take the fight to new competitors, or change your game plan at a moment's notice, The Resilient Organization shows you how to rethink your current strategies--and rebuild your company’s foundation--using four basic tools . . .

• INNOVATION with high impact and low overhead
• DESIGN that is robust, sustainable, and evolvable
• ADAPTABILITY to changing circumstances
• STRENGTH in the face of adversity

By creating a culture of resilience in your organization, you'll be prepared for any challenge the future might hold. The Resilient Organization's fascinating case studies provide real-world examples of resilience in action: how to recover faster from hardships, how to experiment on new opportunities in a timely manner, how to avoid repeating bad business decisions, and when to scrap old strategiesthat just don't work anymore. Using the timetested principles of resilience, you can find golden opportunities in any situation--whether it's tough competition, reduced resources, or a roller-coaster market. If you're strategically resilient, you not only survive crises, but you can turn these crises into opportunities.

LIISA VÄLIKANGAS, PH.D., is professor of innovation management at the Aalto University School of Economics (formerly Helsinki School of Economics) in Finland. She is the cofounder and president of Innovation Democracy, a nonprofi t global organization dedicated to supporting local innovation and entrepreneurship. Her research on innovation, strategy, and organization has been published in Harvard Business Review, MIT/Sloan Management Review, and The Wall Street Journal. With Gary Hamel, she coauthored the Harvard Business Review article "The Quest for Resilience" and cofounded the Woodside Institute, a research organization dedicated to advancing management innovation. Professor Välikangas currently divides her time between Helsinki and California.