Conferencia en DRIE Ottawa, Canada

Dear colleagues,
Just a few words to present the conference on Organizational resilience in the Ottawa Chapter of DRIE. http://www.drieottawa.org/presentations.php

Thanks to Frank Slater, Grant Lecky and the lot of friends and professionals I found there.
Ottawa will deserve some more visits for sure.
Jose Miguel

INTIF-STROIKA (A massive Intifada with a popular Perestroika’s smell?): Is the first step of a new Arab world, then a new world too? or just a bluff?

One more Black Swan.

We cannot stop collecting them all since the unexpected fall of the Soviet Union, the Tsunami, the Earthquake in Haiti, the last worldwide economic crisis, etc.

This approach reinforces Nicholas Taleb’s theory and as a summary we can affirm that the best way to be prepared for any black swan (whatever is the effect or the origin) is to be prepared for becoming a resilient organization.

Investing on it, is a must.

Different interpretations can be obtained from that point. From the Organizational point of view, is pretty clear we need to train our selves as much as we can in the domain of known likely “failures areas”. Basically, because we cannot “predict” the rest: the unknown nor the unexpected.

Observers all over the world are now trying to imagine (do not say predict please) which would be the final effect of this Tunis’ butterfly effect that is spreading to Egypt and Yemen these days, may be Algeria later. Keep watching.

Depending on the collateral effects of these mentioned ones and the way they will evolve, the rest of the Arab world could become a very different one in several months, even weeks.

That is the smelling we have now an this “INTIF-STROIKA”: a kind of massive Intifada with a perestroika’s touch effect.

There is a big difference these days, and you know what I am talking about. While the Gorvachov’s effect was widely and heavily support by the rest of the world and that catalyzed the final result into a quick chain reaction in all Russian satellites; these days we are missing a similar support from the rest of the world for this Arab democratic rebellion.

Is more sympathy than support? I hope and wish with all my heart, for the well being of the humanity as a whole, that this lack of effective support does not transform our young and ”looking-for-freedom-Arab-revolutionaries” into an anti-world feeling because of this lost/missed opportunity, or even worst, into the advantage of those who play with destabilization in a world that needs more freedom.

Connecting the political arena with the Resilience….The translation for the private sector is pretty obvious after any of these black swans has arrived:

A resilient organization will be much quicker than the rest of the competitors to obtain a better position in a complicated environment.

In the middle of any crisis any corporation tries to ensure survivability and sustainability. Let’s imagine there is one Corporation or Enterprise that is good enough to obtain a competitive reaction, significant enough from the point of view of time. In this moment to be as much quickly recovered as possible, gives the board the strength to be able to invest time and resources, not in crisis but in exploring areas of interest, in evaluating the new scenario and that means: the greatest advantage over the market, time.

This is the basis for an organization to be trained as a resilient one, be able to give management and advisors time for new ideas and at the same time will extent our benefits in the domain of the market.

If due to any reason, major companies have to be dealing with an unexpected crisis, the quickest ones will be in such an advantage that the impact will maximize their investments in resilience quicker than a new and successful product. Just think about the public effect of every company becoming supply chain “restricted” due to an event while one or two are not. Competitors will take advantage “just if they are ready for that event”.

Coming back to the INFISTROIKA situation there is there some think for thought:

• Is good enough to have suddenly a new opportunity as a new emergent market like the “New Arab world” could become? I am sure it is,
• Are we ready to think about strategies to be implemented when such an opportunity is in front of us? I am afraid that is not yet the case.

Most of us, we prefer to stay in front of the TV watching and looking for the prophecy to be self accomplished:

-“I told you a month ago, this was going to happen”.

Yes, you told me but:

- What did you do, the last month, to put yourself into the best possible scenario before the rest of the world does?

 Think on that…..