Part 6 of 6 of the Organizational Resilience Blog Series
Our framework is based on academic research and in-house interviews with leaders across a wide range of industries (e.g., tech, medical, non-profit) conducted by LifeLabs Learning’s Impact Lead Joie Lim, M.S., who is developing specialized expertise in Organizational Resilience.
There’s no question that businesses have had to do more with less in the last two or more years. Resources are scarce, budgets are strapped, and with all of the reductions in force, fewer people are available to do the same amount of work.
There’s a reason some companies have prevailed despite these limitations, however. This brings us to the sixth and final pillar of Organizational Resilience: Bricolage. Bricolage is a term coined in the art industry that refers to the ability to construct or create work from a diverse range of readily available media.
In Organizational Resilience, Bricolage refers to how organizations use the materials they already have on hand to create solutions on the spot.
Bricolage can happen on an organizational and individual level, so let’s dive into both.
Organizational Bricolage: Re-Imagining Products & Re-Purposing Talent
1. Re-Imagining Products
Resilient organizations constantly scan market conditions to understand their customers’ biggest current (or future!) pain points through market research and analysis (covered in Rapid Responsiveness). However, creating new products isn’t always possible, especially with limited resources. In most cases, making small adjustments to current products is a much lighter lift.
For example, Lego almost went bankrupt in 2003 because the market was saturated with new technology. While doing its best to keep up with the rapidly changing environment, Lego over-innovated and exhausted too many options.
To turn it around, Lego decided maybe it wasn’t as much about creating different shapes and sizes as it was about re-imagining their already-established product. They redesigned their whole innovation strategy, which is when they collaborated with the likes of Harry Potter and Star Wars, resulting in a record 19% growth in revenue to $5.21 billion in 2015.
Sometimes, it’s not about re-creating the wheel but rather about re-imagining what it could look like.
2. Re-Purposing Talent
The last four years have been ripe with reductions in force (RIFs). Companies are relying on the bare essentials of talent to get them through and primarily only hiring revenue-generating talent. Going through a RIF isn’t cheap. Aside from severance packages, Bloomberg investigated some indirect costs of layoffs and found they typically lead to reduced productivity, potentially losing $50,000 per month for every 100 remaining employees. Layoffs can also result in a higher resignation rate, and for companies with over 10,000 employees, replacing staff can cost upwards of $75 million.
That’s all to say: resilient organizations do what they can to mitigate these costs and hold on to their top talent.
For example, back in 2020, when every business was in full crisis mode, LifeLabs Learning experienced underutilization, with more and more companies going through layoffs. Facilitators had a lot more time on their hands, so the company used their skills to support revenue-generating activity: reviewing new products, editing blog articles, conducting market research, leading task forces on projects, and doing internal skill-ups for the team.
Additionally, LifeLabs Learning offered facilitators part-time work, reducing its overhead while keeping its talent. So, when the market bounced back (and it did), the company had the resources it needed to deliver.
Individual Bricolage: Empowering Teams Through Coaching
If you’re a manager, you can use the power of coaching to increase Bricolage on your team.
Coaching is a skill any manager can use to enable better thinking in their teams. When teams think more critically on their own, it frees up time for managers to work on the areas that impact the business the most.
If you’re unsure how to coach your teams, check out our Coaching Skills workshop – it provides a simple framework that can handle even the most complex challenges and is easily applicable in times of change and volatility.
So there you have it, the last pillar of Organizational Resilience! If you want to check out the full series with all five pillars, read on here.
>> Want to speak to a LifeLabs Learning consultant about bringing resiliency skills to your organization? Schedule a free 30-min L&D consultation call here!
