Resilience in Business

What is resilience, and how is a company's resilience measured? Scholars define organizational resilience as the ability to not only survive a hardship, but also to emerge stronger and better prepared to face new challenges in the future. All businesses experience adversity, but relatively few are able to transform these experiences into a catalyst for growth. Members of resilient organizations are also hopeful and confident in their abilities to cope with hardship and view challenges as opportunities to make their organizations better. This case includes the stories of four Virginia companies that employed different strategies for overcoming difficult situations, as told by the current leaders of these businesses. Taken together, these stories provide a range of examples of different approaches to leading through and learning from adversity. Excerpt UVA-OB-1080 Rev. Dec. 22, 2015 Resilience in Business What is resilience, and how is a company's resilience measured: By how long it has been in business, or by the severity of the obstacles it has had to overcome? By the strength of its balance sheet, or by the flexibility of its operational structures? Scholars define organizational resilience as the ability not only to survive a hardship, but to emerge stronger and better prepared to face new challenges in the future. All businesses experience adversity, but relatively few are able to harness those experiences as catalysts for growth. Members of these resilient organizations are hopeful and confident in their ability to cope with hardship, and view challenges as opportunities to make their organizations better. This case includes the stories of four Virginia companies that deployed different strategies for overcoming difficult situations, as told by their current leaders. These leaders were interviewed in 2015, but their stories extend back much further, showcasing a range of approaches to leading through—and learning from—adversity. Givens Books As a bookstore, we have been enormously challenged by the growth of the Internet and e-books. We feel that we have met these dangers head on and taken measures to ensure our survival. By making the grounds outside and the store design inside unique and their shopping experience extremely positive, it has become a favorite shopping place for a wide range of people from a large geographic area. . . .