Integral Resilience and Successful Organizations
Integral resilience within organizations is based on the BHI model which highlights the primary role of Heart in the development of successful organizations. In this context “success” is broadly defined to include traditional benchmarks and metrics of success (i.e. profitability, market share, high productivity, innovation, productive alliances and other collaborative relationships, etc.) but also other parameters including employee health and wellness, the creation of community value, more far sighted risk assessments, and wiser decisions—all of which are closely tied with enhanced BHI competency. Integral resilience reflects a basic premise of BHI, namely that traditional and BHI-centric benchmarks may at times require tradeoffs, but in most cases are synergistic and create new opportunities and possibilities.
BHI Advantage™ is consistent with recent research that positive corporate cultures mitigate stress, foster better employee health, raise productivity, reduce absenteeism and turnover, build durable trusting alliances—all of which translate into superior outcomes under traditional metrics.
The strongest data to date on the effectiveness of Integral Resilience are from the negotiation and alliance field. The mechanism is clear. A key behavioral skill in negotiations is to stay out of “need” or the delusion that we will die or some terrible misfortune will befall us if we fail to get what we want. This attachment to such a disempowering story line rapidly affects a broad range of other behaviors, which cloud our judgment and impair our ability to make farsighted and wise decisions, including: an intolerance for uncertainty and ambiguity, a propensity toward untested assumptions and reckless impulsive actions, and an inability to accept ‘no’. The rapid benefits of building integral resilience, which is another way of describing a reduction in neediness, can be verified and the skill easily communicated sharing Action Logs and Field Notes, as introduced in Piloting Through Chaos.
Companies that systematically cultivate integral resilience as part of their corporate cultures will naturally see it influence every important corporate function—leadership, strategy, collaborative relationships, product development, marketing and sales, innovation, employee relations, and so forth. Resilient companies naturally look for opportunities to “create shared community value” which Harvard Business School Professor Michael Porter urges is an essential element in corporate competitiveness.
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