Organizational Immunity: Building Resilience for Success
Let’s start with a story.
This is a tale about two identical twin brothers, Arnold and Jessie. In college, both Arnold and Jessie were incredibly active—they played on the club soccer team, were heavily involved in the community, and were as health conscious as any 20-something could be at that stage of life. On paper and by any objective measure, they were in fantastic health.
After college, Arnold made it a point to continue to stay active, eat right and take the appropriate precautions that would allow him to stay as healthy as possible. Arnold rarely came down with colds and in the rare event that he did—they would be short-lived. Since Arnold was in good health, both mentally and physically, he was able to be a positive asset to the people around him, both at home and at work (I’m exhausted just thinking about this guy).
Things didn’t go quite so well for Jessie. After graduating college, Jessie accepted an office job in his hometown. Most of Jessie’s close friends had moved away and he found himself quickly falling into a sedentary routine of dragging himself out of bed, going to a job he was unhappy with, and counting the seconds until he could go home to pass the time before it all had to start over again. He was no longer active, was careless with his diet and felt like he was spiraling. He found himself feeling down and unmotivated and couldn’t remember the last time he went more than a month without getting sick. Jessie’s lifestyle, not unlike Arnolds, was on a self-feeding loop.
Between Arnold and Jessie, who do you think posted healthier numbers at their last physical?
We would assume the answer to be Arnold—and we would be correct. Jessie’s results were shocking—but not surprising. We all would have predicted that assuming all underlying conditions equal—Jessie’s lifestyle would lead to a less than stellar bill of health. Jessie had to be put on blood pressure medication, was forced to modify his diet to address his elevated cholesterol and was referred to a psychiatrist to discuss getting on anti-depressants.
The difference? Arnold is doing what he can, and what medical research supports, to increase his quality of life through making intentional healthy choices. Jessie represents the other side of the coin—when we fail to take the precautionary measures necessary that have been proven to yield better results—we increase the likelihood of getting sick. While not impossible, the process of course correcting for Jessie will be time consuming, expensive, and significantly more challenging than had he taken the necessary precautions to avoid this situation in the first place.
So, why the story? Because there is power in the analogy between our personal health and that of the organizations that we work within.
Our health is supported by, in part, a robust, fully functioning immune system. When we take care of our bodies, we are providing the ideal conditions that fuel a powerful defense system against sickness (both physical and mental).
When working properly, our immune system acts as a multi-faceted fortress—preventing illness from entering our bodies, swiftly targeting and eliminating the ones that do, and even learning from its “misses” to ensure it can respond more appropriately should the bacteria/virus make its way back inside. When we take proper care of our bodies, we are setting ourselves up for high-performing immune systems and higher qualities of life. When we fail to do so, we roll the dice.
When an organization has lack-luster hiring practices, when they fail to identify insider threats before reaching critical mass and when they have inefficient processes for addressing counter-productive workplace behavior (CWB)—the system gets sick. It takes significantly more time and resources to improve the health of a compromised organization, opposed to the steady investment necessary to engage in a preventative culture. Here are some considerations for a “healthy” organizational plan?
Defense Mechanisms:
Who are you hiring? Have you ever met someone who applied to work for a specific company solely because they knew it would be easy to steal merchandise, engage in time theft or pass products to their friends? So many companies streamline the hiring process to fill seats on a roster yet fail to recognize the devastating impact of the “virus” they just invited through the front door. Being more selective, utilizing resources beyond standard background checks/reference checks, and identifying the appropriate behavioral indicators for CWB, will help boost the preventive nature of your organization’s health.
Adaptability and Resilience:
How is your organization adapting to address the constantly evolving threat from CWB and insider threats? Are you making the same mistakes repeatedly? Have you ever hired someone who passed a background check but still ended up causing problems once inside? What did you change in the hiring process to account for the vulnerability in the system? Have you ever entrusted an employee with access to sensitive proprietary information, only to find out they were sharing it with a competitor for financial gain? How did your organization adapt to prevent similar issues from happening again?
Targeted Approach:
How effective is your organization in identifying and resolving threats? At what stage of the process is your team identifying threats? Have you ever been tipped off to an investigation late in the game? This person has been stealing from the company for the last 2 years and you are just now learning of the issue. What resources could help your team detect issues faster and respond with a higher degree of precision?
Just like with Arnold and Jessie—the indicators of poor organizational health are obvious. If we are relying on methods that are known to be grossly ineffective to inform our hiring decisions, we are at risk. If we are blind to the behaviors that accurately predict CWB, we are at risk. If we have an inefficient process for addressing the issues we happen to catch, we are at risk. We need to change the approach if we want to positively impact the outcome. Just as Jessie needs to make positive changes to every facet of his lifestyle—diet, exercise, and mental health—organizations need to make intentional changes to every stage of the lifecycle of risk—pre-hire, threat prevention/detection, and threat/incident resolution. Change compounds change.
