In a post on New Years Eve I highlighted the idea of using key words to focus our attention and pull us towards our goals rather than the more traditional form of New Year’s resolutions.
While I guess many people may prefer to keep their personal key words to themselves, I thought I would share the 3 words that I have chosen as my focus in promoting resilience for continuity.
- CLARITY
- The concepts and how they can be applied in the field are still vague and unclear in many people’s minds.
- So my first focal point is to ensure that my research and writing will aim to improve understanding of the ideas and how they could be applied.
- This is not to say that I have the answers, simply that the aim is to seek out ideas and hopefully help to clarify them within the community of interest.
- CONNECTEDNESS
- This focal word is to drive me on two levels;
- Firstly, to remind me that this needs to be an holistic approach – the resilience approach is not a replacement for X or Y (Risk Management or BC Management) it needs to be a mode of thinking that seeks to identify and promote synergy within all applicable disciplines.
- Secondly it is to remind me that it takes a community to build and maintain resilience. We cannot do it on our own, and no organisation can do it on their own.
- This is about removing the silo mentality and take the end-to-end view, actively planning and rehearsing with our total value chain.
- Inter-dependence is central to our organisations and their partners, it is going to get more connected, not less.
- This focal word is to drive me on two levels;
- PRAXIS
- Despite the lure of continued alliteration, this is to keep me focussed on the fact that something has to be done as a result of all this reading, writing and talking.
- Praxis is a concept that can be found in different places;
- In Ancient Greece, Aristotle asserted that there were three activities of men, and three types of knowledge that went with these. Praxis is about practical knowledge where the end goal is action.
- In a similar vein Marx observed that “philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it”
- It also has meanings around learning and reconceptualizing based on experience.
What do you think?
Do these concepts resonate with you?
Will you share your focal words in a comment?
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