Resilience has become quite the buzzword these days. The term originated back in the 1970s in the field of ecology, and since then others have been refining and expanding to personal, organizational, societal systems. Resilience is essentially the ability of a system to bounce back from unforeseen shocks, and that ability depends on:
- the measure of change the system can undergo and still remain the same,
- how capable it is of self-organization, and
- how well can it learn and adapt
Now while resilience is certainly a good goal for any system, we will never achieve resilience if we continue our fragmented, siloed, independent way of life. We need to start acting like a system if we’re ever going to reap the benefits.
The problem: Compartments, not connections
Our society is slowly coming to the realization that everything is connected and interdependent. Crises are occurring more frequently – from bank crashes to droughts and hurricanes – prompting individuals, corporations and governments to consider how actions ripple outwards to create unintentional effects.
Yet most of us spend our waking moments in fragmented, siloed, disconnected lives and organizations. Interconnection is still relegated to theory, not part of daily routine. Our education system and MBA programs drill students on facts, subjects and specialties, not relationships and systems. Chain booksellers and big data slice the book market into ever-smaller niche categories that don’t reflect the complex nature of our actual lives. Healthcare specialists treat isolated aspects of systemic diseases without addressing the full complexity of the human body. Like a fish unaware of the water in which it swims, we take this pervasive worldview for granted even while we bemoan its side effects.
Yet a look at Asian culture reveals a fundamentally different way of seeing the world. Eastern philosophy and society are more holistic, with a focus on relationships, context and interconnection. Language reinforces these differences: Chinese characters are pictograms, the meaning of which must be interpreted through context, whereas in the West our language is built on modular letters and words. We are philosophical descendants of the ancient Greeks who celebrated individuality, autonomy, and personal control. Our ancestors invented logic, categorization and modularity, and our modern civilization is built on these premises (for more on this topic, see my previous post, Wired for Failure.)
So we’re at a real disadvantage in today’s highly complex society. The big issues of our day – poverty, climate change, spiraling healthcare costs, declining global competitiveness – require a new way of thinking, one that doesn’t come naturally to us.
Bridging the gap through intentional coherence
Miriam-Webster defines coherence as (a) systematic or logical connection or consistency, and (b) integration of diverse elements, relationships, or values. The benefits of coherence manifest across a wide range of topics:
- In the realm of science, coherence is what gives a laser its power. While regular light is fragmented and diffuse, lasers emit almost perfectly coherent light; all the photons emitted by a laser have the same frequency and are in phase.
- In the corporate world, a coherent brand and business (like Apple, Patagonia or Method) creates strong competitive advantage. Booz & Co analysis showed that more coherent capabilities are correlated with higher profitability.
- Brain scans show a high level of brain-wave coherence in experienced meditators, which is associated with more integrated and effective thinking and behavior.
- Water, properly channeled over time, is powerful enough to carve out the Grand Canyon. A waterjet produces a coherent pressurized water stream – 30 times the pressure of a car wash – that can slice through steel.
We can learn much from the natural world about coherence. Bodies, brains, ecosystems, and swarms all instinctively operate in a deeply interconnected and unified way. Yet in the social realm, coherence doesn’t just happen; intentionality is required. Human beings uniquely have volitional consciousness: we choose what we want and how we go about getting it. Our ability to align our actions to our values, collaborate with others, or consider our impact to the environment is not automatic.
Like light and water in their everyday states, we humans can operate in a fragmented, diffuse, and ultimately powerless way. Lack of coherence can create a stuck, stagnant situation or, at worst, a self-reinforcing negative spiral that spawns personal and organization dysfunction and a host of social ills including poverty, hunger, poor health, ecological destruction, and more.
Yet like light and water properly channeled, creating intentional alignment can produce the power to transform even the most difficult problems. By operating in a collaborative, cohesive manner towards shared outcomes, we get “all the wood behind one arrow” to create a positive self-reinforcing spiral. We discover and manifest our collective strength and power. Applying coherence is finding the middle way between independence and interdependence – moving from silos towards systems without disregarding the fact of our deeply embedded cultural tendency of self-interest and self-determination. Consider it a way to bridge the gap between today's disfunction and tomorrow's resilience.
I’ll cover the 8 guidelines for creating coherence in the next post. Stay tuned.