In an earlier post on Organizational Resilience and Adversity Quotient, i mentioned the Organizational Resilience Survey which i had developed. It contains twelve statements according to the C.O.R.E. model. There are three statements that measure each of the Control, Ownership, Reach and Endurance dimensions. The statements and the respective dimensions are listed below:
| Control | 1. Focus on what they can do to deal with the adversities instead of focusing and complaining about the issues beyond their control. |
| 2. Maintain a can-do attitude even when the challenges are overwhelming. | |
| 3. Seek support from others when handling problems or challenges that are beyond their control. | |
| Ownership | 4. Take responsibility for any mistakes they made. |
| 5. Take ownership in resolving problems even if they did not cause them. | |
| 6. Clearly and objectively evaluate who or what have caused the problems. | |
| Reach | 7. Still be able to give their full attention and energy on other areas not affected by the adversities. |
| 8. Not allow the adversity at work to negatively affect their personal lives. | |
| 9. Not neglect other essential roles or responsibilities during the period of adversity. | |
| Endurance | 10. Continually motivate and rally others not to give up. |
| 11. Exhibit tenacity and perseverance even when the situation is bleak. | |
| 12. Remain hopeful that the adversities will pass eventually. |
The survey was given out during a seminar that consists of HR, Training and Operations Managers who formed part of the senior management team in their own companies. There are 30 useable responses collected from a total of 13 companies. 3 of these companies are Multi-National Companies (MNCs) and 10 other companies are Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). The respondents were asked to rate each statement according to the likert 5-point scale of Strongly Disagree; Disagree; Neutral; Agree; and Strongly Agree. They were asked to recall how their companies responded in times of adversities when rating each statement.
The results showed that the lowest scoring C.O.R.E. dimension is O – Ownership. The lowest scoring statement is the statement – “Take ownership in resolving problems even if they did not cause them.” 30.0% of the respondents disagree or strongly disagree with this statement and only 36.7% of the respondents agree or strongly agree with the statement. These suggest that when facing adversities, people in these organizations exhibit a tendency of “passing the buck” and lack the sense of ownership and responsibility to resolve problems regardless of who or what have caused them in the first place.
The highest scoring category is R – Reach. It suggests that most organizations have stronger ability to prevent adversity in one area from spreading to another. They are better in compartmentalizing problems, disallowing the problems to paralyze other areas of operations. The highest scoring statement is under the Control dimension – “ Seek support from others when handling problems or challenges that are beyond their control.” 6.7% of the respondents disagree or strongly disagree with this statement and 80.0% of the respondents agree or strongly agree with the statement. It suggests that people within the organization are able to recognize adversities that are beyond their control and readily seek help and support from others who may have the expertise to address the challenges.
How would your organization fair in terms of resilience? Is “Ownership” something which most organizations fair poorly in?
Everyone A Leader 