Everyday Practices for Organizational Resilience

Resilience at work isn’t only about how much each of us can handle. It’s also about how our systems anticipate challenges, respond to them, and make space to recover and learn. 

What changes when we start asking, “How resilient is our organization?” instead of only, “How resilient am I?”

Resilience is often framed as an individual trait, but it’s also a property of our organizations - how they anticipate disruption, respond to it, and support recovery. 

In this Practicing Connection practicast, Erin and Jessica unpack what organizational resilience is, where the idea comes from, and how it shows up in our everyday work lives. 

Drawing on Shanna B. Tiayon’s four-phase framework: anticipatory, preparatory, responsive, and recovery, they share a simple set of reflection questions you can use after a hectic week, a tricky meeting, or a small crisis. 

You don’t need a formal role or a big debrief to try it; just choose one phase, ask one question, and start noticing the change.

Links and resources from this episode:

• Shanna B. Tiayon, PhD article: "What Does Organizational Resilience Look Like?"
• Handout: Four Phases of Organizational Resilience 
• Join our LinkedIn group: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/12879756/ 
• Send us a message: practicingconnection@oneop.org 

Transcript

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: [00:00:00] Organizational resilience helps us create workplaces that can bend without breaking, places that protect people's wellbeing, while still navigating change, uncertainty, and even crisis. 

Hi everyone, welcome to this week's Practicing Connection practicast. I'm Erin. Today we're exploring organizational resilience: what it is, where it comes from, why it matters for you and your organization, and one simple practice you can try with your team. 

My co-host, Jessica Beckendorf, will walk us through that practice in a bit. Hi Jessica. How are you?

JESSICA BECKENDORF: I am great. I am so interested in the conversation we were just having outside of this recording, about boredom, and how I've never been bored, and I'm super curious. Maybe there's some connection to our group and we can explore it in the future. 

But I am feeling super, super curious about that now, and I can't wait for the two of us to talk more about that in the future. I didn't really [00:01:00] add a lot to the conversation here, but I'm - I've never been bored.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: I cannot imagine that. I love boredom, because that's where my most creative things happen, when I'm bored.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Mm-hmm. And maybe we're thinking of boredom differently, like maybe boredom is meaning something different to us,

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Yes. Okay. Sorry guys. We will circle back later, I'm sure. But I love that. Yeah. Okay, sounds like you're energized by talking to people. So let's keep talking. 

What is organizational resilience? What does that mean? Tell me more.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: I would say that when most of us hear resilience, we think about individual grit or bouncing back from stress, but specific to individuals. 

Organizational resilience shifts the focus from, ‘What can this one person endure?’ which sounds like a terrible question, to, ‘How does the whole organization anticipate, absorb, and recover from [00:02:00] disruption?’

And I say organization here, but I'm also talking about community groups, volunteer groups, coalitions, any time there's a group of people who are working together on something: how do they anticipate, absorb, and recover from disruption? 

So instead of asking people just to like, “Tough it out,” we're asking whether our structures, our policies, and our group culture or organizational culture help or harm us when things get really difficult. 

One way I really like to think about organizational resilience is about how the system bends without breaking, so that the people within it don't have to carry all the strain. It asks questions like, “Did we see the risks early on? Do we have backup plans? Do we learn from our mistakes?” A bigger lens is what makes it so powerful.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Okay. Wow, that sounds great. I certainly think most of us have worked in places that call people [00:03:00] ‘resilient’ when what they actually mean is, ‘still standing after being overworked.’

JESSICA BECKENDORF: And overwhelmed.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: And overwhelmed. And there's this idea that that's something laudable. And I think it is cool when people are able to persevere through hard things, but it's also sad if we see someone persevering through a hard thing and then we do nothing to support them. 

So it sounds like organizational leadership is a little bit about how do we show up better for each other structurally? Am I, am I on the right track?

JESSICA BECKENDORF: You are, and you're actually reminding me right now of a training I took early in my career. So this was, hmm, probably two decades ago, where I went to a time management for public employees. At the time I was working at a local government, and it was a really great training.

But one of the things that came out of it is, how do public employees often get rewarded when they're doing a really [00:04:00] good job? And the answer was, ‘It's with more work.’ 

And so, yeah, what you're saying is making sense to me. And I wanted to bring this topic up on the podcast after reading an article on the Greater Good Magazine site.

The article was by Shanna B. Tiayon. The article is titled, What Does Organizational Resilience Look Like? And in the article, the author describes organizational resilience as, ‘The strength of the organization's structures, decisions, and leadership behaviors that reduce the frequency and impact of crises.’

I love this because it's all about building conditions where crises are possibly less frequent and especially less damaging.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Yeah, that sounds great.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Yeah. The author breaks organizational resilience into four parts: anticipatory, preparatory, responsive, and recovery. Anticipatory is about noticing early warning signs. [00:05:00] Preparatory is about putting supports and plans in place. Responsive is how you actually act during a disturbance. And recovery is what you do after the disruption passes, how you let people in systems reset and learn instead of just kind of pushing forward as if nothing happened.

And I do think it's very common for organizations to just keep pushing forward as if nothing happened. I've seen it many times. One of the things that struck me about this framework is how much it reminded me of the framework we talked about in the past, from the Tamarack Institute, called the Asset-Based Community Recovery Framework for Communities.

They're similar models, but they deal with a different scale, right? The Tamarack one deals with community scale, and this framework is dealing with an organizational scale. Honestly, I think that both can be applied at both of those scales, but I just thought,  there's support out there for organizations, for communities to assess and recover from crises. 

And [00:06:00] whatever one resonates the most with you, you've got multiple options.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Yeah, this is exciting. I love how practical this framing feels. Those four categories feel really great to me, and I guess I'm curious about, where does the idea of organizational resilience come from? Resilience feels like such a buzzword. Does it come from that buzzword?

Does it have deeper roots? How did they land at ‘resilience’?

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Yeah, it definitely has deeper roots. Organizational resilience draws from fields like disaster management and organizational psychologies, places where people have studied why some organizations navigate shocks like financial crises, supply chain disruptions, natural disasters, or sudden changes in demand.

And what they found is that resilient organizations don't just, quote-unquote “bounce back” by working harder. They do their best to anticipate risks.

They have thought out strategies. [00:07:00] They maintain flexible resources, and importantly, they learn from what happens, right? They don't just keep going after something happens. 

And then more recent work also emphasizes learning and communication. Things we talk about quite a bit on the podcast, like psychological safety, open information sharing, and reflective practices, because those things help organizations adapt thoughtfully rather than just reacting in panic.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Okay, so this is also about being smarter and more intentional as a group, as a collective. What kind of impact does using this framework have on people and workplaces?

JESSICA BECKENDORF: I love that you asked this question. This is where the real impact is evident. As you might imagine, organizational resilience is tied to better performance during crises and less chaos for the people who are working within the group or the [00:08:00] organization. 

Resilient organizations are also more likely to maintain essential functions to adapt their strategies when things go off track, instead of just breaking down or overreacting. And they also tend to have better communication, more clear decision making and more trust among the members. There's also some evidence that when organizations employ good planning, clear roles and supportive policies, employees experience less burnout and emotional exhaustion during crises.

So it not only helps an organization continue operations to employ, you know, these four different phases of organizational resilience, but it can help protect people's mental health, because the system is designed to absorb more of the shock, instead of the people having to individually absorb it. 

So I also want to be really clear: you don't have to have a big title or a leadership role to contribute to organizational resilience. You still have [00:09:00] influence, you can shape how your team runs meetings, how they handle conflicts, and how they learn from mistakes. Those small choices can quietly model resilience for the broader organization.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: I love that bringing it down to a team level makes it feel much more actionable and much more accessible for someone who maybe isn't in a formal leadership position.

Speaking of action, we talk about practices on this podcast. So Jessica, can you talk us through the practice that you brought today?

I'm excited. I wanna hear how to do this. This sounds great. I have been a person who has, in other jobs, I have absorbed stress that maybe could have been in an organization, and I want to hear how we can do that. Like, that sounds great. Let's go.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Great. Well, this practice combines elements of after-action reviews, which is a way of reviewing an action or a [00:10:00] project after it has occurred, in a very nonjudgmental way. 

but this practice combines that style with the four phases of organizational resilience that I mentioned earlier: the anticipatory preparatory, responsive and recovery.

It was designed as a way to bring an organizational resilience lens into everyday moments that you already have, no matter your position at your organization or in your team. 

So to start, think of a recent disturbance of some sort. Maybe it was something like, it's just a hectic week. You had 24 hours of meetings. I've had that myself. Maybe you have told me before that my schedule gives you hives sometimes. 

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Yeah. You have so many back to back meetings. It makes me die on the inside. Okay, so we're talking about hectic weeks.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Yeah. So maybe it was a hectic week. Maybe it was a tricky meeting, you know, there's a little tension in the meeting, or it was really rushed. Maybe it was a last minute request that was difficult [00:11:00] to deal with, or it was even a small crisis.

So think of a recent disturbance, and then move through the four phases with a few questions that I'll share in a moment. You don't have to answer all these questions, we give you a variety of questions so that you can pick what is most relevant to your situation. Just pick the one that resonates or the ones that resonate for you and are appropriate for the situation.

So, the questions for the anticipatory phase: this is about did we see it coming, right? You're looking at identifying what the early signals were. So you might ask yourself, “What early signs did I, or we, have that this could become challenging, where we identified that this could become challenging?” Maybe you might ask, “What did I notice but not say out loud?”

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Mm-hmm.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: “If I could rewind, what small signal would I pay more attention to next time?”

So these questions can help you build the skill of noticing [00:12:00] weak signals and speaking up sooner, which really helps build anticipatory resilience. 

Preparatory phase: This is about assessing, “Were we set up well?” You're looking to uncover how prepared you were. So you might ask, “What supports or resources made this easier?” Things like information, relationships, processes, tools. “Where did I or we feel unprepared or under-resourced?” And then, “What is one thing I could put in place right now?” Maybe it's a checklist, a template, a connection with a key person to be better prepared for next time. So even small shifts in preparation can make a really big difference for the next challenge. 

And then the responsive phase, this is about, “How did we act in the moment?” It's about assessing how you and others responded when the thing was happening. So here you might ask, “When did our response feel clear and coordinated?[00:13:00] What helped that happen? When did things feel chaotic or reactive? What was missing in those moments?” And then, “How did I show up under pressure? What am I proud of and what would I like to do differently next time?” 

I wanted to emphasize here, not because I'm putting it all on the individual, but I want to emphasize it because you don't have to be in a leadership position and trying to solve this thing for your whole team. You could also model for your team members by making small shifts yourself, right? So this helps you learn from your real behavior under stress, not just your intentions. 

And then finally, the recovery phase. “Did we actually recover and learn?” So this phase is about learning from what happened after the situation. You might ask, “Did I or we get any time or space to recover after this, or did we go straight to the next thing? What would meaningful recovery have looked like for me and for [00:14:00] others involved?” And then, “What is one small adjustment I can make going forward?” Maybe it's a boundary, a short debrief with someone or with yourself, a check-in so that recovery and learning aren't skipped next time.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Okay. Those were great questions. There were a couple that I had to mute because I was doing like a, “Ooh, that's a good one” noise. And I was like, “No, I want people to hear the questions, not me responding to the questions!” 

I also think something I really appreciate about these is that they're very flexible. You know, there's a lot that you can get into with these questions. So for someone who's listening, and thinking, “That feels like a lot,” what's the smallest possible way to try this out?

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Yeah, that's a good question. And like I said, you don't have to answer all of those questions. But the smallest version is to pick one phase and one [00:15:00] question. 

So for example, after a particularly hectic day, you might ask, “What early sign did I ignore today?” For me, because I have some experience with this one, that might be that, “I said yes to following up on some items today before noticing that my calendar was full.” Or after a big meeting, so maybe you were facilitating, which requires a lot of energy and preparation, or maybe it was just a difficult meeting you might ask, “What would recovery look like for me after this? 

And both of these examples can start to shift how you think about your organization and your role in it, and how you show up in it too, right?

So, if you ask yourself, “What would recovery look like for me after this?” If you're facilitating a big meeting, you're in charge of planning that meeting or bringing everyone through the discussion. And that takes a lot of emotional and mental labor for you. Don't allow anything to be scheduled for right after that meeting. Maybe you just need some [00:16:00] down time.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: We love buffer time.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Yeah. Buffer time. I love this, buffer time. That's what I mean by that. And then I want to emphasize, right, those are two very individual things that you can do, but you can also bring one of these questions gently into existing spaces, right?

You could ask some of these questions during a meeting while discussing a recent project or issue. You don't have to make it a big formal session where you're gonna go through all four phases. You can just kind of seed a bit of this thinking into what's already happening.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: I love that. That feels very accessible.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Yeah.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Awesome. Okay. Well thank you so much for walking us through this, Jessica. I found this really encouraging, I'm excited to get started using some of these questions, and I'm hoping other people are too. 

So we're going to make a handout that you can link to in the show notes, so you don't have to re-listen to this podcast every time you want to engage with these [00:17:00] questions.

Hopefully you guys are all as excited as we are. Thank you everyone for listening. Consider trying this with something that's already on your plate, a project, a meeting, or a challenging week, and see what you notice. 

We'd love to hear how it goes and what you learn. You can share with us by emailing practicing connection@oneop.org. We'll be back next week with a new episode. Until then, keep practicing.

CREDITS: The Practicing Connection Podcast is a production of One-Op and is supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, US Department of Agriculture and the Office of Military Family Readiness Policy, US Department of Defense under award number 2 0 2 3 4 8 7 74 3 3.