Category: Organizational Resilience

Internal or External Auditors or Both?

Business Continuity Plan Audits can be done by internal or external individuals. There is value in each approach. In either case, the person(s) conducting the audit should be competent, impartial, and objective. When internally done, the auditor should not be from the group and should not be responsible for any of the activities being reviewed [...]

Sunday February 6th, 2011 in Business Continuity Management, Organizational Resilience, Risk Management, Training and Exercises | Comments Off

Tying Bonuses to BC Plan Goals

If an auditor determines that some license was taken in reporting of status on previous audits, it should be included as a data point in the current audit.  Generally, keeping within the scope of the audit parameters, an auditor can identify non-conformance as factual, regardless of previous attempts to smooth over data or report more [...]

Sunday February 6th, 2011 in Business Continuity Management, Organizational Resilience, Training and Exercises | Comments Off

Compliance Programs Only As Effective as the People

I’m not a fan of vast regulations. It seems, though that when corporate leaders make mistakes, or willfully fraud, a regulation is born that is often necessary. Compliance programs are only as effective as the people implementing them. Yet, what ‘goes around’ seems to ‘come around’ and eventually it appears that most, if not all, [...]

Wednesday August 4th, 2010 in Business Continuity Management, Organizational Resilience, Risk Management | Comments Off

A Framework for Competitive Intelligence

Between 2008 and 2018, health care will generate more jobs than any other industry (approximately 3.2 million), primarily as a result of the aging population; healthcare occupations are also among the fastest growing with over 50% new occupations being in health care.[1] The question is, will one Colorado hospital be in business to participate in [...]

Monday July 19th, 2010 in Business Continuity Management, Organizational Resilience, Risk Management | Comments Off

Silo Oranizations and Risk

Silos are basically large vertical buildings that separate and store material on a farm. When referring to  organizations, a silo means that one department is not necessarily considering how their function impacts another within the same company. The larger the organization typically the more silos. Within a company, even a small company, silos can be [...]

Thursday July 15th, 2010 in Business Continuity Management, Organizational Resilience, Risk Management | Comments Off

Succession Planning Plays a Role in Business Continuity

When we think of the topic of risk management we may not immediately think of succession planning. I believe the two topics do go together. Unfortunately, in my experience, risk and managing a crisis are rarely part of a leadership curriculum. Succession planning is a strategy to prepare today’s employees and managers to be tomorrow’s [...]

Sunday June 27th, 2010 in Business Continuity Management, Organizational Resilience, Risk Management, Training and Exercises | Comments Off

Training a Resilient Nation

“So building a resilient nation doesn’t come from a top-down, government-only, command-and-control approach; it comes from a bottom-up approach; it comes from Americans connecting, collaborating; it comes from asking questions and finding new solutions. And it comes from all of us as a shared responsibility.” Secretary Janet Napolitano, 29 Sept 2009 [1] Community & Regional [...]

Wednesday May 12th, 2010 in Organizational Resilience, Risk Management, Training and Exercises | Comments Off

Risk Reduction: Building Confidence with NGOs

The United Nations disaster risk reduction guidebook (2007) offers a detailed accounting of how a variety of relief and support groups are actively working to help reduce risk during and after a disaster. Much of the focus is on the young people, children, and others who are not able to typically take care of themselves [...]

Wednesday May 12th, 2010 in Organizational Resilience, Risk Management | Comments Off

Community Support by Businesses During Disasters

It is important for all businesses to evaluate their impact on the community should they face a situation when then cannot continue providing their goods and services. The primary reason for this importance is that the citizens and community at large become dependent on these goods and services to survive. For example, when a day [...]

Wednesday May 12th, 2010 in Organizational Resilience | Comments Off

Supply Chain Risk vs Benefit

One of the most interesting facets of supply chain management is the dichotomy of risk versus benefit analysis. The very same strategies that can help a company rein in costs, consolidation and single sourcing, can also be sources vulnerability that can inhibit business resumption following a major disruption or disaster. Martin (2003) and Bosman (2006) [...]

Wednesday May 12th, 2010 in Organizational Resilience, Risk Management | Comments Off

Employee Theft

Lenard (2010) suggests that there are three factors that [can] lead to employee theft Motive Rationalization Opportunity [2] The economy can cause people to do things they might not have considered before providing motive.  With that motive comes the rationalization that stealing from a big company won’t hurt the company; they may think that they [...]

Saturday May 1st, 2010 in Organizational Resilience | Comments Off

Safe and Secure Work Environment

A resilient organization is able to work through and recover from a major crisis or disaster in a positive manner. One of the many contributing factors which makes an organization more resilient is a safe and secure environment. When a company has taken steps to mitigate and reduce exposures to unsafe practices and to increase [...]

Saturday May 1st, 2010 in Organizational Resilience | Comments Off

Can Corporate Governance Affect Reslience?

Larson proposes a “Basic Resiliency Model” where employee resiliency is a modifier to risk and organizational change and therefore productivity (and performance) is less impacted by the changes. The value of this model, if true, is that a company can create an environment that promotes resiliency and avoids the loss in productivity during ever increasing [...]

Sunday April 18th, 2010 in Organizational Resilience | Comments Off

Nike and Crisis Management

In 1996, Nike was embroiled in a scandal when allegations were brought to light regarding child labor used in offshore factories around the globe. In 1997, Nike was in violation of OSHA standards in Vietnam with workers allegedly exposed to toxic fumes. [1] At the time, Nike CEO Phil Knight issued a statement identifying the [...]

Sunday April 18th, 2010 in Organizational Resilience, Risk Management | Comments Off

Issues Management

Crisis readiness and issues management is absolutely possible before a crisis. Also, both methodologies can be evaluated after the crisis has passed. Issue management-IM can be defined as the preparatory activity that occurs before a crisis occurs. IM can be characterized as providing well-informed scenarios and signal detection and is a management process consisting of [...]

Sunday April 18th, 2010 in Organizational Resilience, Risk Management | Comments Off

Crisis Leaders – Make the Decision – Now!

Of the wide variety of attributes that make a good crisis leader (communicator) I like integrity, trust, and accountability. The ‘cool head’ during times of trouble can also be a great asset. The concept of leaders having a willingness to make decisions and not waiver is another important talent. I don’t watch TV, just can’t [...]

Thursday April 1st, 2010 in Emergency Management, Organizational Resilience | Comments Off

Qualities of a Good Crisis Leader

Crisis–A Leadership Opportunity Crisis team leaders should possess and demonstrate qualities that support the overall success of the organizational (team) mission. Of the dozen or so key qualities that permeate the readings, I consider these the most critical: Caring Communication Decisive Integrity Presence Trust I’ve always been a big believer of integrity and its critical [...]

Monday March 29th, 2010 in Organizational Resilience | Comments Off

Changing Organizational Culture

When changing an organization’s culture, we will encounter resistance. Resistance comes in many forms, but particularly from an individual’s or group’s fear of: new things or unexpected outcomes questioning whether they have the skills to continue to perform rank and privilege changes how they will be compensated and long-term financial impacts how they or their [...]

Monday March 22nd, 2010 in Organizational Resilience | Comments Off

Conversation on Public Sector Resilience

Colleague: “So do you think that the majority of public sector organizations are centralized? Andy: We can probably agree that the public sector includes all branches and departments of the government at the federal, state, and local levels; higher education and public school systems, and certain civil organizations, publicly supported non-profits, and particularly, all emergency [...]

Tuesday March 16th, 2010 in Organizational Resilience | Comments Off

‘Circle’ – Group Share and Develop and Resilience

‘Circles’ are an important part of a decentralized organization.  Circles refer to the concept of groups of people getting together for a common purpose. Brafman and Beckstrom consider circles to be one of the fundamental legs of the structure of a decentralized organization. [1] In the public sector, I rarely see any evidence of the [...]

Monday March 15th, 2010 in Organizational Resilience | Comments Off

Does Decentralized Help Resilience?

In my experience with the public sector I have found most organizations to be ‘spider’ type arrangements. ‘Spider’ refers to  organizations which are predominantly commanded and controlled in a traditional top-down fashion. There is one person in charge, a CEO, and there is a hierarchical structure. Decisions are usually made from a central point of [...]

Monday March 15th, 2010 in Organizational Resilience | Comments Off

Organizational Reslience – Not a New Concept

Organizational resilience is not a new topic. The concept has been around for many years and may date back to 1626 coming “…from the Latin words resiliens and resilire, meaning to rebound”. [1] What is new is the way it is being applied. [2] Many companies use emergency management, business continuity, and organizational resilience interchangeably. [...]

Sunday March 7th, 2010 in Organizational Resilience | Comments Off

Adapatation – Key to Resilience

Nelson says that a resilient organization achieves  its core objectives under all conditions. [1] Understanding and anticipating what ‘all’ means can be critical and is probably a daunting task. I propose that we (an organization) cannot anticipate all conditions, stresses, or unforeseen impacts to our business. Therefore, we should prepare in a proactive way to [...]

Sunday March 7th, 2010 in Organizational Resilience | Comments Off

Self Resiliency

Have you ever left home, travelled a few minutes or a few miles and realized you left your cell phone/pda back on your desk?  What did you do, turn around and get it or continue on your way? If you’re like me, you might have reacted like this: First – I get a little tinge [...]

Sunday March 7th, 2010 in Organizational Resilience | Comments Off
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