Obtaining Management Commitment to Organizational Resilience

One of the hardest tasks in setting up an organizational resilience or business continuity project is in achieving senior management buy-in to the benefits that can be obtained from such a project. There are two schools of thought as to the best way go about obtaining the necessary management support and commitment. The first is to outline the positives arising directly from implementing such a project including improved competitiveness through a higher level of reliability; improved productivity through analyzing the operational components; or less costs of disruptive incidents. The second approach is to focus on the negative impact from not undertaking the project. This will include more interruptions to the operations through disruptive incidents; greater risks to the environment and regulatory compliance; and lower profitability through the financial impact of these incidents. If the positive approach does not work then make sure that the management are made fully aware of the potential financial and other impacts from not being well prepared.

The Organizational Resilience Standard [ASIS SPC.1-2009] states that it is critical for an organization's top management to collectively sponsor and ensure that the necessary financial and non-financial resources for an effective OR management system are committed to the project. This collective senior management group should also be charged with responsibility for creating, maintaining, testing, and implementing the supportive documentation and implementation processes. This will ensure that management and staff at all levels within the organization understand that the OR management system is a highly critical management priority. It is equally essential that top management engage a "top down" approach to the OR management system, so that management at all levels of the organization understand accountability for effective and efficient plan maintenance as part of the overall governance priorities.

The OR Standard further states that an OR Management Planning Team, that includes senior leaders from all major organizational functions and support groups, should be appointed to ensure wide-spread acceptance of the OR management system. Management is required to provide evidence of its commitment to the establishment, implementation, operation, monitoring, review, maintenance, and improvement of the OR management system by:

  • establishing an OR management system policy;
  • ensuring that OR management system objectives and plans are established;
  • establishing roles, responsibilities, and competencies for OR management;
  • appointing one or more persons to be responsible for the OR management system with the appropriate authority and competencies to be accountable for the implementation and maintenance of the management system;
  • communicating to the organization the importance of meeting OR management objectives and conforming to OR management system policy, its responsibilities under the law, and the need for continual improvement;
  • providing sufficient resources to establish, implement, operate, monitor, review, maintain, and improve the OR management system;
  • deciding the criteria for accepting risks and the acceptable levels of risk;
  • ensuring that internal OR management system audits are conducted;
  • conducting management reviews of the OR management system; and
  • demonstrating its commitment to continual improvement

One of the main dangers of not achieving top management buy-in to the establishment of an effective organizational resilience management system is that the project will not be adequately supported and resourced. The only really successful projects in the organizational resilience and business continuity arena are those where both the top management and the Management Board clearly get behind these critical projects and where top executives become key sponsors who are willing to demonstrate a ready commitment of both time and resources. Critical projects not supported by top management are unlikely to deliver an effective solution and often result in a disappointing set of outcomes.

The author of this article, Terry Hewett, is Project Director for a collaborative project between ASIS International and Easy2solve delivering an exciting and highly affordable range of organizational resilience and continuity management tools. This easy to use software supports conformance measurement; risk analysis; impact assessment; component mapping; protection and prevention measures; crisis management, continuity planning and incident management. Further details at www.organizational-resilience.com.