Guide / Resources / Resilience assets and deficits: what start-ups and scale-ups can learn from each other
Guide

Resilience assets and deficits: what start-ups and scale-ups can learn from each other

What start-ups and scale-ups can learn from each other, from their younger selves and from visioning their future selves.

What start-ups and scale-ups can learn from each other, from their younger selves and from visioning their future selves.

Organisational resilience (OR) is not something an organisation either has or doesn't have. It is something that develops over time, shaped by context, leadership, resources and the systems we build, or don't build, as we grow. If you are joining the LBFEW Organisational Resilience Programme, you have accepted an invitation to look honestly at how resilience shows up in your organisation right now, and how it may need to change as your organisation evolves.

Organisational resilience is a balance of assets and deficits

In this programme, we use a simple OR framing: organisational resilience is the dynamic balance between assets and deficits.

Every organisation has both. Resilience is not necessarily about eliminating all of our deficits. There are some things we can change, some we can only change with others, and some we will probably never be able to change. Understanding the nature of our own deficits, how they interact with our assets, and how that balance shifts over time is where resilience sits.

Start-up stage: resilience assets and deficits

Start-up organisations and those at an earlier stage of their design and development often have significant resilience assets. There is usually real clarity of purpose, priorities, and values; passions are backed by energy; and there are frequently high levels of commitment from a few dedicated people who communicate informally. At the early stages, there are often close relationships among the main decision makers, the communities they serve, and the partners that support them. Problem-solving is often creative and innovative.

At the same time, resilience can often come at a cost and be highly people-shaped. There is frequently a significant over-reliance on a small number of people; systems are informal and don't usually scale well, funding models are fragile with key funder dependency being prevalent, reserves are low or non-existent, and there are often blurred boundaries between roles, governance, and leadership. These deficits are by no means failures, but they can, over time, especially as organisations grow and take on paid staff, start to compromise the organisation's longer-term stability.

Scale-up stage: resilience assets and deficits

More established organisations also have significant resilience assets. Governance and leadership structures are more established, resulting in a better balance between strategic and operational decision-making. Systems have been developed, leading to greater planning capabilities, including financial planning, and reserves and risk management policies have been formed. There is a broader reach, reputation, and partnerships, and an enhanced ability to withstand short-term shocks.

However, this growth can also introduce new vulnerabilities. As governance matures and staffing teams expand, decision-making can slow. Organisational agility is reduced, and there is a growing distance between leadership and frontline experience, which can negatively impact service-related decisions. Mission drift can creep in as the need to cover increasing fixed core costs grows, and it is not uncommon for burnout to start to appear.

Resilience is never guaranteed

The truth is that there are resilience assets and deficits to be had at all stages in an organisation's lifecycle. One of the great strengths of this programme is the opportunity for cross-stage learning. Organisational resilience deepens when we recognise that no stage has a monopoly on good practice and that all of us have assets and deficits.

From start-ups, we are reminded how to stay close to purpose and lived experience, how to retain adaptability and responsiveness, how to foster trust and relational ways of working and how to question inherited systems that no longer serve. From established organisations, we can learn how to build systems that protect people and purpose, how to use financial information to support better decisions, how to distribute leadership and reduce key-person risk. From our future selves, we can all learn how to plan for lasting change and sustainability without compromising our purpose, priorities and values.

Working with assets and deficits, not against them

In this programme, we do not ask you to judge your organisation against an ideal model of resilience that can never be attained. Instead, we invite you to:

A shared learning space

Whether your organisation is at start-up, scale-up, or somewhere in between, this programme creates space to learn from experience, your own and others'. By working openly with our organisational resilience assets and deficits, we can begin to build organisations that are adaptable and more likely to be around over the longer term, and we can also start to spot trends and patterns that enable us to tackle some of the constraints that we cannot resolve solely by working alone. We look forward to learning with you.

By Organisational Resilience programme