Viewing offline content

Limited functionality available

Dismiss
Deloitte Middle East
Annotations
  • Services

    What's New

    • Deloitte175

      Join us for a celebration of 175 years of making an impact that matters.

    • Building the Resilient Organization

      2021 Deloitte Global resilience report

    • 2020 Global Gender Impact Report

      A collection of Butterfly Effect stories highlighting how our Deloitte professionals are positively impacting the lives of women and girls around the world

    • Audit & Assurance

      • Assurance
    • Consulting

      • Strategy, Analytics and M&A
      • Customer and Marketing
      • Business Operations
      • Human Capital
      • Enterprise Technology & Performance
    • Financial Advisory

      • Mergers & Acquisitions
      • Forensic
      • Real Estate
      • Turnaround & Restructuring
    • Risk Advisory

      • Strategic & Reputation Risk
      • Regulatory Risk
      • Financial Risk
      • Operational Risk
      • Cyber Risk
    • Tax

      • Global Business Tax Services
      • Indirect Tax
      • Global Employer Services
    • Deloitte Private

      • Family Enterprise
    • Legal

    • Sustainability

  • Industries

    What's New

    • Deloitte perspectives

      Leadership perspectives from across the globe.

    • Deloitte Insights App

      Our thought leadership and Dow Jones news, now at your fingertips

    • Future of Mobility

      Learn how this new reality is coming together and what it will mean for you and your industry.

    • Consumer

      • Automotive
      • Consumer Products
      • Retail, Wholesale & Distribution
      • Transportation, Hospitality & Services
    • Energy, Resources & Industrials

      • Industrial Products & Construction
      • Mining & Metals
      • Oil, Gas & Chemicals
      • Power, Utilities & Renewables
    • Financial Services

      • Banking & Capital Markets
      • Insurance
      • Investment Management
      • Real Estate
    • Government & Public Services

      • Civil Government
      • Defense, Security & Justice
      • Health & Social Care
      • Transport
    • Life Sciences & Health Care

      • Health Care
      • Life Sciences
    • MENA Sovereign Wealth Funds

    • Technology, Media & Telecommunications

      • Technology
      • Telecommunications, Media & Entertainment
  • Insights

    Deloitte Insights

    What's New

    • Deloitte Insights Magazine

      Explore the latest issue now

    • Deloitte Insights app

      Go straight to smart with daily updates on your mobile device

    • Weekly economic update

      See what's happening this week and the impact on your business

    • Strategy

      • Business Strategy & Growth
      • Digital Transformation
      • Governance & Board
      • Innovation
      • Marketing & Sales
      • Private Enterprise
    • Economy & Society

      • Economy
      • Environmental, Social, & Governance
      • Health Equity
      • Trust
      • Mobility
    • Organization

      • Operations
      • Finance & Tax
      • Risk & Regulation
      • Supply Chain
      • Smart Manufacturing
    • People

      • Leadership
      • Talent & Work
      • Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion
    • Technology

      • Data & Analytics
      • Emerging Technologies
      • Technology Management
    • Industries

      • Consumer
      • Energy, Resources, & Industrials
      • Financial Services
      • Government & Public Services
      • Life Sciences & Health Care
      • Technology, Media, & Telecommunications
    • Spotlight

      • Deloitte Insights Magazine
      • Press Room Podcasts
      • Weekly Economic Update
      • COVID-19
      • Resilience
  • Careers

    What's New

    • Millennial Survey 2022

      Gen Zs and millennials are striving for balance and advocating for change.

    • Candidate Profile

      After applying for a job in this country, you can access/update your candidate profile at any time.

    • Job Search

    • Students

    • Experienced Hires

    • Executives

    • Life at Deloitte

    • Alumni

    • Diversity and Inclusion

  • XE-EN Location: XE-English  
  • Contact us
  • XE-EN Location: XE-English  
  • Contact us
    • Dashboard
    • Saved items
    • Content feed
    • Profile/Interests
    • Account settings

Welcome back

Still not a member? Join My Deloitte

The journey of resilient leadership

by Punit Renjen
  • Save for later
  • Download
  • Share
    • Share on Facebook
    • Share on Twitter
    • Share on Linkedin
    • Share by email
Deloitte Insights
  • Strategy
    Strategy
    Strategy
    • Business Strategy & Growth
    • Digital Transformation
    • Governance & Board
    • Innovation
    • Marketing & Sales
    • Private Enterprise
  • Economy & Society
    Economy & Society
    Economy & Society
    • Economy
    • Environmental, Social, & Governance
    • Health Equity
    • Trust
    • Mobility
  • Organization
    Organization
    Organization
    • Operations
    • Finance & Tax
    • Risk & Regulation
    • Supply Chain
    • Smart Manufacturing
  • People
    People
    People
    • Leadership
    • Talent & Work
    • Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion
  • Technology
    Technology
    Technology
    • Data & Analytics
    • Emerging Technologies
    • Technology Management
  • Industries
    Industries
    Industries
    • Consumer
    • Energy, Resources, & Industrials
    • Financial Services
    • Government & Public Services
    • Life Sciences & Health Care
    • Tech, Media, & Telecom
  • Spotlight
    Spotlight
    Spotlight
    • Deloitte Insights Magazine
    • Press Room Podcasts
    • Weekly Economic Update
    • COVID-19
    • Resilience
    • XE-EN Location: XE-English  
    • Contact us
      • Dashboard
      • Saved items
      • Content feed
      • Profile/Interests
      • Account settings
    11 minute read 02 December 2020

    The journey of resilient leadership Building organizational resilience

    11 minute read 02 December 2020
    • Punit Renjen United States
    • Punit Renjen United States
    • Save for later
    • Download
    • Share
      • Share on Facebook
      • Share on Twitter
      • Share on Linkedin
      • Share by email
    • Value-creating discoveries on the trail of market disruptions
    • Mindset shifts to navigate the path to resiliency
    • Collective agility: Co-designing the journey with the whole system
    • Embracing seven elements of a resilient organization
    • Connecting for a resilient world

    Resilient organizations rapidly and successfully cycle through three phases—Respond, Recover, Thrive—not just for COVID-19 but for every crisis. Here are four actions to improve organizational resilience.

    “Travelers, there is no road; you make your own path as you walk.”

    —Spanish poet Antonio Machado1

    In 2020, resilient leadership has been tested in the extreme, and the challenges continue. As I write this, many countries around the globe are contending with the resurgence of COVID-19 and the prospect of continued, new, and extended lockdowns—against a backdrop of social, political, and economic upheaval that makes the terrain even harder to navigate.

    Learn more

    Learn more about connecting for a resilient world

    Connect with our COVID-19 client PMO for help at covidclientpmo@deloitte.com

    Go straight to smart. Get the Deloitte Insights app

    This crisis is taking its toll on organizations and individuals. In October, Deloitte and Fortune surveyed more than 125 CEOs in the global Fortune CEO community who revealed that their four greatest challenges during this difficult year have been maintaining employee well-being, sustaining innovation, addressing declining revenues, and engaging customers (see figure 1, from the Fortune/Deloitte CEO Survey2). Ninety percent of these CEOs have taken action to support their employees’ mental health over the past six months.3 Meanwhile, many organizations’ customers are in a similar frame of mind. In the most recent biweekly Deloitte State of the Consumer Tracker, consumers in 15 of the 18 countries surveyed globally identify as health-anxious rather than health-hopeful.4

    While promising results from vaccine trials—perceived by global CEOs as the highest priority on the path to recovery5—encourage us to set our sights on a “better normal,” progress has been more looping than linear. Regardless of where each of our organizations is on the journey from Respond to Recover to Thrive, virtually every CEO I interact with agrees on one thing: The journey involves an ever-accelerating pace of change.

    Achieving a better normal is not just about having a better map; it’s about having the nimble team, resources, and systems that enable us to thrive before, during, and after change (especially adversity). It’s about having a resilient organization.

    In our article on the Recover phase, we said:

    Resilience is not a destination; it is a way of being. A “resilient organization” is not one that is simply able to return to where it left off before the crisis. Rather, the truly resilient organization is one that has transformed, having built the attitudes, beliefs, agility, and structures into its DNA that enable it to not just recover to where it was, but vault forward—quickly.

    What are the key executive actions on this transformation to resilience?

    • Beliefs: Explore and leverage value-creating opportunities on the trail of the pandemic’s disruption.
    • Attitudes: Model and lead your executive team and organization through the essential mindset shifts to navigate the path to resiliency.
    • Agility: Embrace collective agility by convening a cross section of stakeholders to codesign the answers to company-critical challenges.
    • Structures: Ensure that specific C-suite members are accountable for the seven key elements of a resilient organization.

    When organizations, people, institutions, and society collectively thrive, the outcome is a resilient world. It is intentional—not accidental—and we can shape the future by building resilient organizations.

    “Resilience … is about how we acknowledge, respond to, and rise above chaos, and how we act on the other side of that disruption.”6

    —Kevin Sowers, president of Johns Hopkins Health System and executive vice president of Johns Hopkins Medicine

    Value-creating discoveries on the trail of market disruptions

    COVID-19 has demonstrated how history moves in fits and starts of great, eruptive change.7 Today, concurrent epidemiological, economic, social, and environmental discontinuities are individually disruptive and collectively amplified as seismic shifts in business and society.

    Resilient leaders know that responding to disruption with agility is about more than survival. It’s about uncovering value. Discontinuities create obstacles, but also open new paths for discoveries and value creation. Market structures, business models, ecosystem relationships, and customer needs are dramatically reshaped, and the winners script the future. The same has been true during the COVID-19 market disruption (see figure 2).

    Resilient responses to market disruptions

    Mindset shifts to navigate the path to resiliency

    In our previous article on the Recover phase, we described the important mindset shifts that resilient leaders and their organizations must embrace in the journey from Respond to Recover. Turning your organization’s focus to Thrive requires another set of such shifts with a further focus on the future (see figure 3).

    Mindset shifts as leaders focus on Thrive

    The situation pivots from a tenuous interim normal to actively pursuing a better normal. Leaders must therefore chart their organization’s strategic destination as it emerges into Thrive. Our Fortune/Deloitte CEO survey signaled key elements of that better normal: 96% of CEOs said that diversity, equity, and inclusion are strategic priorities, and 78% expect a consistent focus on sustainability and carbon reduction.16

    The leadership attitude shifts from reinventing ways of doing business in the interim to a pioneering ethos, one in which you focus on inspiring and empowering the team to follow you.

    During the Recover phase, the focus shifted from internal to market-facing. Now, however, we shift to market-making: How might we better contribute to the evolution in our existing markets? What new markets are emerging for us to own? Seventy-four percent of the CEOs in the Fortune/Deloitte CEO survey expect the crisis to create significant new market-making opportunities.17

    Planning shifts from medium-term scenarios that ensure financial and operational viability to true, longer-term strategic visioning—methodically designing and embarking on the journey to the Thrive destination.

    Management shifts from sustaining or surviving during Recover to building the resiliency and agility to return to business as unusual. The case for agile management is made by the 85% of global CEOs who said the crisis has significantly accelerated digital transformation and the 40% who are redesigning their supply chains.18

    Collective agility: Codesigning the journey with the whole system

    We often consider agility as describing a single unit—whether an individual or an organization—moving quickly and nimbly to adapt to change. Yet today’s major issues require entire systems to be agile and adaptable. For example, systems of attitudes, institutions, and behaviors have allowed and exacerbated racial inequity. Climate change has accelerated due in part to actions and reactions across a vast network of natural and manmade systems.

    These are whole-system challenges that cannot be solved piecemeal; they require whole-system answers. Today’s resilient leaders build resiliency by convening the full ecosystem to collaborate and define the journey together. In other words, it’s about collective agility.

    As my colleagues have seen in their work with various client organizations, the accelerated delivery of viable vaccines demonstrates this type of collective agility across a whole system of stakeholders. These might include: pharmaceutical companies; government organizations such as the European Medicines Agency (approvals), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (vaccine handling, distribution, and tracking), and supply chain coordination (US distribution through “Operation Warp Speed”); pharmaceutical distributors; multiple for-profit and not-for-profit health care systems; and multiple retailers with pharmacy services.

    Such collective agility invites a vertical and horizontal cross section of the system to codesign the strategic destination, new business models, and the route. The advantages of such collaborative codesign include:

    • Requires less buy-in: Rather than an isolated group of executives developing a strategy they must sell to stakeholders, the participants who are engaged in codesign have their fingerprints on the solution. They have a vested interest in its success, becoming cascading sponsors for the strategic decisions and their successful implementation.
    • Ensures an outside-in perspective: Intentionally engaging stakeholders outside the organization reduces the likelihood of narrow answers to challenges requiring a broader perspective. Leaders who can leverage the innovative thinking and resourcefulness of their stakeholders will be better positioned to recover, and ultimately to thrive.
    • Accelerates decision-making: Many strategic development processes take place serially, requiring more time to make decisions and shuttle diplomacy to reconcile differing views. Assembling representatives of the whole system to codesign together enables the strategic work to be done in parallel, thereby reducing elapsed time and improving the organization’s ability to respond to rapidly emerging market conditions.

    To achieve these benefits, we engage a cross section of an organization’s whole system in executive accelerators such as collaboration labs in which the participants codesign the answers to some of the most perplexing, company-critical issues.

    Collaborative codesign is especially important amidst the COVID-19 crisis: It can be both cathartic and energizing for people. Teams have been worn down by the seemingly endless uncertainty, familial strain, health threats, and ambiguous loss19 that has characterized this extended period of the virus.20 The very act of inviting them to imagine a successful, thriving future state and the path to get there can be a source of hope and encouragement, restore a feeling of control in the present, reduce stress, and sustain them.

    Embracing seven elements of a resilient organization

    Based on our conversations with Deloitte’s clients and client-serving executives around the globe, we’ve found that the vast majority of organizational needs cluster into one of seven categories: strategy, growth, operations, technology, work, capital, and society. We’ve interpreted these needs as seven elements of a resilient organization, and defined an outcome-based aspiration and focus for each (see figure 4).

    Seven elements of a resilient organization

    Each of these elements needs to be strong independently. Taken together, the seven elements operate within a cohesive, interdependent web that reinforces each of the parts and enhances the adaptability of the organization.

    We engaged with over 1,000 C-suite executives; analyzed their insights, questions, concerns, and initiatives around the journey to resiliency; and evaluated the highest-priority actions that leaders were taking in each of the key elements. We mapped these actions to their typical C-suite owners—those roles that had primary or secondary responsibility for the actions—to create a high-level playbook for the resilient organization (see figure 5).

    Resilient organization playbook

    Connecting for a resilient world

    At an institutional level, value-creation discoveries, mindset shifts, collective agility, and the seven elements bring together resilient organizations and their ecosystems into an interconnected web of resiliency and strength.

    At an individual level, five of the most common traits in resilient leaders are adaptability, preparedness, collaboration, responsibility, and ethics (see Deloitte’s forthcoming annual Resiliency Report, a survey of more than 2,200 C-suite executives in 21 countries to be released in January 2021). All five involve connecting: Adaptability quickly connects resources to meet today’s challenges; preparedness connects tomorrow’s resources to potential future scenarios; collaboration connects the whole system; and both responsibility and ethics connect individuals, organizations, institutions, and society.

    Our mandate as resilient leaders is connecting for a resilient world.

    The preposition “for” is small but powerful. Amidst this crisis and other great societal challenges, we are reminded yet again that we have not arrived. Guided by purpose, we are seeking for a resilient world in the future.

    Acknowledgments

    The author would like to thank Brenna Sniderman for expert input on content and connections to other Deloitte insights; Jennifer Lee for shaping/coleading our approach to helping clients become resilient organizations; Elisabeth Sullivan for shaping the narrative; Junko Kaji for her production guidance and insights; Brooke Prouty McNaul, Romain Dechamps, Kaustubh Dubey, Raj Tilwa, Bonita G., and Aravind Raj S for insightful research; and Blythe Hurley and Molly Woodworth for expert production and design.

    Cover image by: Alex Nabaum

    Endnotes
      1. Antonio Machado, “Traveler, your footprints,” in Mary G. Berg and Dennis Maloney (trans.), There Is No Road (New York: White Pine Press, 2003). View in article

      2. The Deloitte Chief Executive Program, “Fortune/Deloitte CEO Survey: October 2020 highlights,” 2020. View in article

      3. Ibid. View in article

      4. Deloitte State of the Consumer Tracker, Deloitte Insights, accessed November 30, 2020.  View in article

      5. The Deloitte Chief Executive Program, “Fortune/Deloitte CEO Survey.” View in article

      6. The Wall Street Journal/Deloitte, “Health care leaders elevate the role of resilience,” November 2, 2020. View in article

      7. Joseph Agassi, “Continuity and discontinuity in the history of science,” Journal of the History of Ideas 34, no. 4 (1973): pp. 609–26. View in article

      8. Harry McCracken, “How the telephone failed its big test during 1918’s Spanish flu pandemic,” Fast Company, April 3, 2020. View in article

      9. Ibid. View in article

      10. Michael G. Jacobides and Martin Reeves, “Adapt your business to the new reality,” Harvard Business Review, September–October 2020. View in article

      11. Deloitte, Deloitte Retail Volatility Index: How 100 years of conventional wisdom is being disrupted, 2016. View in article

      12. Ibid. View in article

      13. Ibid. View in article

      14. Deloitte State of the Consumer Tracker.  View in article

      15. Experience of colleagues of the author. View in article

      16.  The Deloitte Chief Executive Program, “Fortune/Deloitte CEO Survey.” View in article

      17. Ibid. View in article

      18. Ibid. View in article

      19. Punit Renjen, The perseverance of resilient leadership: Sustaining impact on the road to Thrive, Deloitte Insights, August 6, 2020. View in article

      20. Mahmoud Jabari, “4 lessons for a radical rethink of leadership in the post-COVID-19 era,” Forbes, October 15, 2020. View in article

    Show moreShow less

    Topics in this article

    Leadership , C-suite , Strategy , Chief Executive Officer (CEO) , Chief Financial Officer (CFO) , Resilience

    Combating COVID-19 with resilience

    For a broader set of Deloitte insights into responding to COVID-19, please visit our dedicated COVID-19 website.

    Learn more
    Get in touch
    Contact
    • Bill Marquard
    • Global COVID-19 client response PMO
    • Deloitte Consulting LLP
    • covidclientpmo@deloitte.com

    Download Subscribe

    Related content

    img Trending

    The heart of resilient leadership: Responding to COVID-19

    Article 2 years ago
    img Trending

    The essence of resilient leadership: Business recovery from COVID-19

    Article 2 years ago
    img Trending

    The perseverance of resilient leadership: Sustaining impact on the road to Thrive

    Article 1 year ago
    img Trending

    COVID-19 and the undisruptable CEO

    Article 2 years ago

    More on COVID-19

    • Will they, or won’t they return? Addressing the postpandemic labor force deficit Article1 year ago
    • The path ahead Article1 year ago
    • United States Economic Forecast Article2 months ago
    • The long and short of short-time work amid COVID-19 Article1 year ago
    • New architectures of resilience Article1 year ago
    • COVID-19 insights Collection
    Punit Renjen

    Punit Renjen

    Global Chief Executive Officer

    Punit became Deloitte Global CEO in June 2015. He was re-elected in 2019. Deloitte operates in 150 countries, with more than 350,000 professionals and 2020 revenues of $50.2 billion. Punit is also a member of the Deloitte Global Board of Directors. As CEO, Punit developed and executed a global strategy that resulted in Deloitte becoming the leading professional services organization in the world and recognized as the strongest and most valuable commercial services brand. During his tenure, Deloitte has led its competitors in revenue growth and impact, becoming the largest of the Big Four while also the leader in audit quality.  Under Punit’s leadership Deloitte launched WorldClass—a global effort to prepare 100 million underprivileged people for a world of opportunity—based on the belief that when society thrives, business thrives. Recently Deloitte made a commitment to be net zero by 2030 under its WorldClimate initiative. Punit is deeply committed to advancing diversity and inclusion at Deloitte through measurable actions toward gender balance across the organization and within its leadership ranks.   Prior to his current role, Punit served as the chairman of Deloitte LLP (Deloitte US) from 2011–2015. He also served as CEO of Deloitte Consulting from 2009 to 2011. Over the course of his career, Punit has been recognized by numerous organizations for his leadership, business acumen and commitment to societal impact. In 2022, Punit was recognized by the Economic Times as “Global Indian of the Year.”  In 2021, the US-India Strategic Partnership Forum (USISPF) recognized Punit with its Global Achievement Award in honor of his corporate leadership in fighting Covid-19. In 2020, Punit was awarded the Oregon History Makers Medal in recognition of his business leadership. Additionally, he was named by EMPower to their list of Top 100 Ethnic Minority Executive Role Models 2020 and the Indiaspora Business Leaders List recognized Punit as one of over 50 executives from the Indian diaspora. Previously, he has been awarded the NACD Directorship 100 award, the Haryana Gaurav Samman and picked as one of the top 25 consultants. Outside of Deloitte, he is a member of the Business Roundtable, the International Business Council of the World Economic Forum (WEF), and the WEF Alliance of CEO Climate Leaders. Previously, he served as the chairman of the United Way Worldwide.  Punit was born and raised in India. He moved to the United States on a Rotary Foundation scholarship to attend Willamette University. He has served on the Willamette University board of trustees. Willamette University awarded him an honorary doctorate in 2019 and cited him as a distinguished alumni. He is married and has a son.

    • punit@deloitte.com

    Share article highlights

    See something interesting? Simply select text and choose how to share it:

    Email a customized link that shows your highlighted text.
    Copy a customized link that shows your highlighted text.
    Copy your highlighted text.

    The journey of resilient leadership has been saved

    The journey of resilient leadership has been removed

    An Article Titled The journey of resilient leadership already exists in Saved items

     
    Forgot password

    To stay logged in, change your functional cookie settings.

    OR

    Social login not available on Microsoft Edge browser at this time.

    Connect Accounts

    Connect your social accounts

    This is the first time you have logged in with a social network.

    You have previously logged in with a different account. To link your accounts, please re-authenticate.

    Log in with an existing social network:

    To connect with your existing account, please enter your password:

    OR

    Log in with an existing site account:

    To connect with your existing account, please enter your password:

    Forgot password

    Subscribe

    to receive more business insights, analysis, and perspectives from Deloitte Insights
    ✓ Link copied to clipboard
    • Contact us
    • Search Jobs
    • Submit RFP
    Follow Deloitte Insights:
    Global office directory Office locations
    XE-EN Location: XE-English  
    About Deloitte
    • Newsroom
    • Deloitte events
    • Middle East matters blog
    • Press releases
    • Press contacts
    • Corporate Responsibility & Sustainability
    • Report an ethics complaint
    Services
    • Audit & Assurance
    • Consulting
    • Financial Advisory
    • Risk Advisory
    • Tax
    • Deloitte Private
    • Legal
    • Sustainability
    Industries
    • Consumer
    • Energy, Resources & Industrials
    • Financial Services
    • Government & Public Services
    • Life Sciences & Health Care
    • MENA Sovereign Wealth Funds
    • Technology, Media & Telecommunications
    Careers
    • Job Search
    • Students
    • Experienced Hires
    • Executives
    • Life at Deloitte
    • Alumni
    • Diversity and Inclusion
    • About Deloitte
    • About Deloitte in the Middle East
    • Privacy
    • Terms of use
    • Cookies
    • Avature Privacy

    © 2022. See Terms of Use for more information.

    Deloitte refers to one or more of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited, a UK private company limited by guarantee (“DTTL”), its network of member firms, and their related entities. DTTL and each of its member firms are legally separate and independent entities. DTTL (also referred to as “Deloitte Global”) does not provide services to clients. Please see About Deloitte to learn more about our global network of member firms.