Resilience

Resilience operates at multiple levels. Our focus is on individual, collective and community/institutional resilience. At all levels being resilient implies being able to survive and thrive in the face of tough challenges. Beyond that, each kind of resilience has very different characteristics and drivers.

Individual resilience

Individual (personal) resilience is an asset that helps us to remain healthy and effective in good times and bad. It is not a fixed set of traits reserved for superheroes – it’s the normal process and outcome of managing life’s challenges. Everyone can improve their ability to manage life in a resilient way, by understanding their own unique starting point and by drawing strength from working through difficult situations. Others can support this process, but the main responsibility for developing personal resilience lies with the individual.

Collective resilience

Whether the context is a corporate team, a civil society organisation or a youth development programme, collective resilience enables a group to recover, grow and achieve success in the face of adversity, through their individual and collective efforts. Good leadership and a collaborative culture are central to this, enabling the group to access and shape the resources they need to remain positive and effective when times are tough.

Organisational resilience

There are two main elements to organisational resilience. The first relates to people and includes the personal resilience of leaders and the collective resilience of teams. The second relates to the general management of a wide range of risks and includes planning for natural disasters and threats to IT systems. While our main focus is on the former, balanced leadership is clearly central to both kinds of organisational resilience.

Community resilience

This is the capacity of a community to adapt successfully to disturbances that threaten its function, viability or development. We specialise in supporting the design, delivery and evaluation of resilience-building youth development programmes that address social hazards including conflict and marginalisation.

Our services include:

Design, delivery and evaluation of resilience-building interventions for teams, organisations and communities; customised resilience modules for development programmes; collective/team resilience risk assessments; resilience coaching for managers and teams; development of resilience measures; selection and assessment; leadership development.