Why it’s so amazing to be different
To some in the resilience profession, I stick out like a sore thumb. But I know that; I am happy with being different. It is so amazing to be different. I am not the average ‘image’ of today’s, resilience professional. That is simply because, I am not.
Today, the global resilience industry is just that; it’s global. Its magnitude is immense. It doesn’t matter what field of play you want to be in within the resilience spectrum; it’s growth and strength continues to rise. BCM The Movie: The world is not enough
It is an amazing time to be a resilience professional
However, some people still believe resilience remains a ‘nice to have’ rather than a must have. Some people still don’t understand it. The resilience profession remains dedicated to trying to help organizations and business leaders to accept its value more.
To want resilience rather than just believe they need it
Does BCM have delusions of grandeur?
I write articles which are unconventional to the norm. Everyone else is writing academically or using expected subjects as the basis for their great expertise and opinion sharing. We need their continued approach because, we have gotten use to it. They do an amazing job.
But my intuition told me the profession and more importantly, people, needed another approach. We need to have some difference.
I have the audacity to say business resilience should be and needs to be more simple, to help all businesses understand, regardless of their size and turnover appeal. I make ‘hand-held’ selfie video blogs to question the validity and appeal of the ‘bog standard’ promotional films the profession uses to ‘scare and entice’ others to buy the product.
I even wore a jumper and a cardigan (not at the same time) in my video clips to ‘break the tradition of the ‘staged, cold and corporate’ theme we have used so relentlessly over the years.
‘Never, in the field of history’ has a cardigan, become so ground breaking in the resilience world!
“That’s one small step for a cardigan,
one giant leap for resilience”
What’s the point?
Firstly, I do not need permission from any of my peers or establishments across the world to tell me what or how to do it. I ‘conform’ and show my credentials and those of my own organization. I and we, are very competent and capable. We speak the resilient languages.
But business resilience has an image problem. It is ‘expense rather than investment’. It has lost it’s true identify to a corporate world and become shrouded in networks, flowcharts and algorithms. Elaborate carpeted events, lecterns and power points that project a report rather than resonate a new way of thinking.
People are people
People are at the heart of resilience because resilience is mainly an emotional requirement. That is where its origins came from. Long before businesses and corporate world’s existed; even way before IT was invented. That land that time forgot.
People wanted to and needed to survive long
before IT came along with dangerous data
We are truly blessed to live in a world today where technology enables resilience to be shared instantaneously. We are fortunate to see the next and future generations of resilience professionals identify that this is a ‘new, exciting and rewarding career’ to go into. People and children see resilience issues each and every day and they want to know what to do. They want to and need to learn.
“Dad, I want to work in resilience!”
“That’s great sweetheart. Is that next door to McDonalds?”
Some of the fear factor has gone and in the right format, we can help to engage and educate those beautiful people to be more resilient in the future. But to achieve this, we must not re-create and ‘dress’ resilience in the same old, formal attire.
Please don’t get me wrong; I am not saying suits and ties and business wear is dated because it is not. There is a time and a respectful place for it. But these can also become barriers to the way people communicate and learn today and in the future. So is the way we explain and share resilience as a key life and business capability.
Some may believe I am crazy and maverick because I am unorthodox in my approach. This creates a bit of fear factor perhaps to those very people. They don’t like. I can’t change the way they feel. And I will not win corporate establishment awards in the future for my approach and take on resilience in 2017. Such awards will undoubtedly follow their normal pathway and destinations at those excellent, sponsored events.
But my personality and passion for resilience, in life and business, is best portrayed through my own strengths. My ability to communicate with people and not be afraid to be singled out, dismissed or ignored by my profession. I tell a story of the journey.
I am able to break down complicated things and make them easier to understand and be achieved. I do it in a different way and I believe there is room for me to do it.
I do what I do for the benefit of helping other people become more aware of resilience and to help them access it more. I can do that in my T-shirt and jeans if they want me to.
I am not a resilient maverick; I just am.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR – An international business resilience leader, Paul Kudray is a Fellow of the EPC and a Fellow of the Institute of Civil Protection and Emergency Management (FICPEM). He is a Lead Auditor for ISO 22301. In 2014 he founded his own consultancy and he is an excellent forward thinking resilience innovator and blogger. paul@kudrayconsulting.com