Resilience and Viability is NOT Sustainability.. it is a masquerade

During the course of the last few days I have become aware of the confusion surrounding "Viability" "Resilience" and "Sustainability"  Requisite Organisation likes definitions and so naturally this is an issue and here is why;

Resilience – “the ability to succeed over an extended period of time.” Resilience is  linked to strategy and execution, flexibility and being adaptive to changing environments, technologies and market needs.  Being a Requisite Organisation means you have a greater chance at being viable over the longer haul. Resilience is directly linked to Time Span of Decision making and the Work Theme of Strategic Intent. 

CEOs and MD's accountable at the Work Theme of Strategic Intent (Work Level V) are charged with the unique value add of direction,  viability and resilience.   CEOs at all levels are accountable for direction and viability but this may be measured year to year or even over the life of a three to five year strategy.

The reason that resilience is added to the accountability of a CEO or MD for  a Level V enterprise is that it has normally have been in existence for a decade or more, hence it has been resilient in adapting itself successfully to different changing landscapes (economic, social, political and technological).

 A level V complex structure takes time to evolve, it has a history, it has values and well known brand/s.  Resilience does not have the more short term connotations of viability.  That is also one of the reasons why Strategic Intent has a Time Span of Decision Making between five to ten years.  It needs to be viable and (the magic of the and) resilient.

But is I hate to say, resilience is not synonymous with Sustainable.

Sustainable is different from being resilient.  Sustainable means leaving no carbon footprint and doing no harm to the environment through conducting your business.  It means you put back what you take out and there is zero sum from environmental capital perspective.

For example - mining companies talk about being sustainable when they develop virgin jungle and develop ore ports in deep water natural harbours.  They can never redo that damage.  What they are doing is ensuring viability by finding new ore bodies.

Sustainability Programmes are actually Resilience Programmes.

Being resilient is not sustainable.  You can be resilient without being sustainable.  Few if any consumer based companies are sustainable.  True sustainability initiatives in organisations seldom go beyond the Practice Work Level III and most often are aimed at  direct action tasks.

However there is a growing awareness of this and we can all do our part in encouraging real sustainability and calling it when we see resilience masquerading in its place.