An organization’s resilience can’t be measured in advance. Crises, by definition, emerge not only from unfamiliar, disruptive, and unexpected events, but also when the immediate consequences of such events get entangled and intertwined with the complex dynamics of the organization.

Organizations are intricate systems with various components interacting in diverse ways, making it impossible for any member, even directors and the CEO, to have a complete picture of the organization, despite all efforts to collect data and information. Consequently, all members inevitably focus on partial observations of what happens and fill in the gaps of unobserved reality with their own beliefs and assumptions.

This “decoupling” between individuals’ beliefs about the organization and the realities elicits difficult-to-predict organizational responses that become an integral part of the crisis. An exacerbated and even more unpredictable situation emerges, and the resilience of the organization is revealed only as the organizational response unfolds.

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