“A well-led enterprise can learn to survive deep blows and still surge forward,” states HBR’s Julia Kirby in her description of the theme for the 2023 Global Peter Drucker Forum, “Creative Resilience: Leading in an Age of Discontinuity”. Learning, survival, and forward movement are fundamental elements of well-led organisations. In fact, when I look back on challenges I have faced as an international leader, these elements take on new life and meaning. They are encapsulated in the term “creative resilience” because they are key to forward-thinking enterprises and to bringing together people and ideas to solve problems. 

How? By building capacity and accessing resources in new and better ways. Creative resilience represents the leitmotif of societies that want more, do more, and create more change and understanding. Peter Drucker’s management theories highlight the importance of organisations being human centred and connecting work and profits with purpose; and creative resilience makes these theories real through capacity building as well as representing a call to action for leaders. In other words, constructing “a new set of reflexes at every level of the organisation, and throughout its ecosystem of suppliers, customers, and other partners” encourages us to spring into action and leaders to use creativity to build resilience in the face of discontinuity. And the best way for me to illustrate this is to look at international and cross-cultural projects that I have been involved with and how they manifest elements of learning, survival, and forward movement.

Learning from the headwinds

We took four weeks to cross the Tasman Sea on our 111-foot schooner from Australia to New Zealand. What should have been a short and easy crossing was not, but it wasn’t the long ocean crossings that challenged us or built capacity – it was the unexpected headwinds that challenged us to do things differently, to learn new ways to keep moving forward: in short, to become creatively resilient. We rationed water, food, and fuel as we battled adverse weather; winds coming directly at us forced us to chart a zigzag course to our destination. Like the deep blows that build creative resilience in organisations, there were moments of angst, confusion, boredom, and impatience that led to something more important: a renewed sense of humility and of community that meant putting others – “the good of the ship” – before our own interests. 

Business models, like ships, can also benefit from strong winds and following seas in the form of external factors, shifts in consumer behaviour and knitting together of ecosystems leading to accelerated growth. The invisible yet powerful non-linear forces of the Roaring Forties can make or break a trip, a ship, and a crew. Decades ago, Drucker wrote that “no institution can possibly survive if it needs geniuses or supermen to manage it. It must be organised in such a way as to be able to get along under a leadership composed of average human beings.” Organisations – as well as sailing ships – led by human beings in a mission that inspires action, collaboration and problem solving are what’s needed when faced with adversity (and opportunity!) in times of disruption. 

Resilience as capacity building

A greenfield airport project in Quito, Ecuador that I was involved with furnishes a good demonstration of creative resilience as capacity building. Early in my career I had the opportunity to project manage the design, construction, and commissioning of Ecuador’s new international airport – a massive public private partnership between Canada and Ecuador with many strategic players including Brazilian construction and concession partners as well as multilateral financial institutions and investors. 

An ecosystem providing ample opportunities for connections and capacity-building across time, space, and stakeholders, the airport project started off with the movement of 8,500,000 m3 of earth. Dust, dreams, and milestones gave way to design, construction and delivery of runway, terminal building, control tower, and ancillary buildings, as well as water and power lines for airport and surrounding communities. Our onsite plant produced and placed 470,000 tons of asphalt and 115K m3 of concrete. We installed 6K tons of reinforcing and 6K tons of structural steel. What we didn’t expect were the reflexes we had to develop that were not always construction related – reflexes to cope with changing demands, renegotiation of project contracts and changing geophysical and political landscapes. It required creativity and underscored a fundamental element to a successful project: connection. 

A forward-looking endeavour brings together skills, creativity, and capability. Projects need leadership to focus and connect the efforts of disparate interests so that they buy into a common idea of success and build new capacity. Intrepid project partners, visionary boards of directors, astute investors, bold entrepreneurs, architects, activists, environmentalists, civil engineers, MBAs, artists and artisans, community leaders, journalists, families, government authorities, multilateral agencies may all have a vested interest in seeing an airport, or any form of organisation, succeed, but they need a connection point. 

A call to action

Building a greenfield airport and beating headwinds may not be typical management thinking examples, but this is the creative element in creative resilience. To quote Steven Bartlett in his Diary of a CEO podcast, “we are incredibly multifaceted, uniquely complex, ever evolving beings. We’re constructed from 7 billion atoms, 37 trillion cells and millions of intimate individual experiences, viewing the world through two unique eyes with one completely individual perspective.” 

Seemingly disparate goals? Unexpected connections? That’s what creativity and innovation is all about, and creative resilience can help ensure that we lead with heart and meaning in an age of discontinuity. The call to action is to remove the boxes we have inherited and look for synergies and connections. As Tim Brown, co-chair of IDEO, put it: “Creativity is essential to resilience – it brings the new and unexpected ideas so necessary in times of disruption.”

About the author:

Esther Clark (@ClarkEsther) is Executive Director of Marketing at Inspired Education Online Schools and has 15 years’ experience advising and serving on corporate boards. She is a contributor to Forbes, America Economia, and the World Economic Forum (WEF) and a former Peter Drucker Global Challenge winner.

Peter Drucker predicted that by 2020 a new world – completely different from our grandparents’ reality – would exist. Drucker, father of modern management, explained in a 1992 essay for Harvard Business Review, that “every few hundred years throughout Western history, a sharp transformation has occurred. In a matter of decades, society altogether rearranges itself – its worldview, its basic values, its social and political structures, its arts, its key institutions.”

Drucker Forum 2020

This article is one in the “shape the debate” series relating to the fully digital 12th Global Peter Drucker Forum, under the theme “Leadership Everywhere” on October 28, 29 & 30, 2020.
#DruckerForum

There are many reasons to believe that in 2020 we are in the middle of such a transformation, and the implications of it were debated at the recent Global Drucker Forum. This year’s theme of “leadership everywhere” was particularly apt for 2020 and the trials and transformation we are experiencing globally. Participants and leaders connected from everywhere to discuss Dismantling Bureaucracy, Leading for the Greater Good, Remote Leadership, and Leading Oneself.

And while this year’s Global Drucker Forum brought the world’s management thinkers, entrepreneurs and executives together online and into our virtual offices, studios and homes, it also welcomed in artists and musicians. The art, performance and music industries have been severely impacted by the current pandemic, yet they continue to inspire and remind us of the beauty around us and our responsibility to lead with empathy, resilience and grace. While I certainly missed the experience of visiting Vienna, the virtual collaboration that occurred during the conference across multiple industries, private and public sectors, and between generations was a testament to the Forum’s purpose of connecting ideas, people and experiences.

Transformation: both challenge and privilege

We have experienced different forms of leadership in 2020. In times of transformation, connecting ideas in pursuit of better management practices and using management thinking to improve society is vital. Participants in this year’s Global Drucker Forum took a critical look at leading and leadership. The focus of most leading organisations is on developing skills and know-how to address different scenarios in preparation for moments of transformation in which we find ourselves. Memorising the latest management theory is useless if it is not combined with the skills and empathy needed to adapt to uncertain circumstances. 2020 is no exception.

While it has been a year of challenges, I believe it is a privilege to live through transformation; to be given the opportunity to participate in how society rearranges itself over the course of the years, to experience our grandparents’ reality along with our children’s triumphs and challenges. It is also a gift to be able to experiment, tinker, play, design, prototype to find new and better ways of doing things. It is during periods of tremendous change when we build resilience as organisations and as human beings.

Staying human

Transformation is a natural but sharp occurrence. I grew up on sailing ships; traditional wooden boats that had very few comforts beyond a bunk, a well-stocked galley kitchen, and solidly built hull and rigging. Living simply helps us to see something right in front of all of us: humanity. I think that with a human focus and finding those things that connect us all – the shining Southern Cross constellation, dolphins playing at the bow, lava rolling into a frothy sea off the Hawaiian Islands or voices joined in chorus to accompany raising sails – we are more prepared to see how we can keep a certain level of continuity, stay relevant and move towards bettering our organisational practices even in a completely transformed (and transforming) society.

Physical, virtual and symbolic spaces can provide us with the opportunity to create, connect and learn. The Forum represents that space to explore and with “leadership everywhere” we may need to ask ourselves, as Drucker did to many of his visitors, “what are you going to do on Monday that is different?” How are we learning and leading through transformation and developing the resilience we need to truly address the jobs to be done and the jobs of tomorrow?

About the author:
Esther Clark is a contributor to Forbes Mexico, America Economia, World Economic Forum and the Global Drucker Forum and currently works as director of marketing at Wey Education Plc. She was a Drucker Global Challenge winner in 2015

This article is one in the “shape the debate” series relating to the fully digital 12th Global Peter Drucker Forum, under the theme “Leadership Everywhere” on October 28, 29 & 30, 2020.
#DruckerForum

While few of us are likely to disagree with this concept, perhaps we wonder how lifelong learning plays out in reality. How can we tie together seemingly disparate ideas when there is so much else “going on”? How do we instill this in future generations?

Drucker Forum 2019

This article is one in the “shape the debate” series relating to the 11th Global Peter Drucker Forum, under the theme “The Power of Ecosystems” taking place on November 21 & 22, 2019 in Vienna, Austria.
#GPDF19 #ecosystems

I work in the international education industry – a world that is dominated by diversity in all its forms and where there are similar conversations taking place: namely, how do we work across different languages and curriculums, management and teaching styles, inward-looking and outward-looking metrics, diversity of thought and richness of opinions while preparing our young people for the future of work? If we are to be continuously learning, we must see ourselves – and our students – as part of a learning ecosystem.

Rita Gunther McGrath recently wrote about business ecosystems and the need to question our strategy assumptions – citing that highly successful organizations are adept at leveraging networks to their advantage and going beyond the traditional barriers to entry. Learning (and education in general) can pave the way for this by connecting different disciplines in a practical way, moving beyond silos or niches to create broad brush strokes that join education, associations, networks, and accreditation agencies in a beautiful tapestry. We must cultivate learning and learners; we must strive to prove the value of diversity of thought and of making unexpected connections between things.

In the words of Peter Drucker: “We now accept the fact that learning is a lifelong process of keeping abreast of change. And the most pressing task is to teach people how to learn.” Creating the environment for learning and leveraging the power of ecosystems for lifelong learning must become an integral part of organizations of the future – and schools are one place to start.

About the Author:

Esther Clark writes for Forbes and America Economia magazines and explores concepts related to human centered management, management thinking, and strategy. She is currently Director of Marketing and Communications at TASIS The American School in England.

This article is one in the Drucker Forum “shape the debate” series relating to the 11th Global Peter Drucker Forum, under the theme “The Power of Ecosystems”, taking place on November 21-22, 2019 in Vienna, Austria #GPDF19 #ecosystems

The focus of most organizations is on developing skills and know-how to address different scenarios. Rote memorization of facts or of the latest management theory is useless if it is not combined with the skills and empathy needed to adapt to new or uncertain circumstances. As humans, we need to think, discern, and curate rather than just memorize and consume. It’s what makes us human, differentiates us from robots, and characterizes us as creators, builders, and makers.

Enter: “The Maker Movement.” In an MIT Sloan Management Review article on makerspaces, the author states that the “maker movement is a cultural phenomenon that celebrates shared experimentation, iterative learning, and discovery through connected communities that build together, while always emphasizing creativity over criticism.” With Make: magazine and “Maker Fairs” (part county fair, part science fair, and part innovation) entering cities and shared spaces since 2005, the movement has spread. But it’s not the movement that is interesting so much as the idea of making space for humans to connect things. A leading international school once described a Makerspace as an open space, both physically and symbolically, for members of their learning community to dabble, tinker, create and learn. The space serves as a connection point for curriculum, life skills, extracurricular classes, expatriate families, corporate partners, and community members. Some schools that don’t have a physical Makerspace instill a maker mindset in their students by having resources (including time, space, and teachers) available to fit students’ study schedules.

The woodworking shops of old, a mechanic’s workroom, the coffee salons, or a child’s playroom are not too removed from these modern connection spaces. While Makerspaces are examples of connection points, other physical and symbolic spaces can also provide us the opportunity to create, connect, and learn. A technique used by some entrepreneurs is reserving a 3-hour space away from the distractions of email communications, phone calls, or “management meetings” to create. Making space for us to be human fosters a culture of learning, experimentation, and entrepreneurship. It also connects us to ourselves and to others; creating a sense of empathy with those around us and those in our organization.

Educational makerspaces typically fuse together different curricula or subject areas such as computer science, design, art, engineering, mathematics, communications thereby promoting cross functional learning and practical application. Tinkering and “making” are powerful ways to learn and connect with others. Makerspaces in cities, universities, and organizations are inclusive spaces that communicate philosophies like “tinker, design and create together.” They represent examples of making space for humans by harnessing our need for play, for exploration, and for creation.

Defining such spaces – whether physically or metaphorically – can build confidence in questioning or rethinking the status quo; they connect opposing models to create something new or innovative. Pablo Picasso is known for his originality and pioneering the Cubism movement, a revolutionary style of modern art that Picasso formed in response to the rapidly changing modern world. His studio was a space overflowing with creativity. Nevertheless, a lesser known side of Picasso is that he also mastered traditional painting. He was a Master and an Innovator; two characteristics of some of the most prolific thinkers of our age. Roger Martin in Opposable Mind: How Successful Leaders Win Through Integrative Thinking (2007) describes opposing models as “the richest source of new insight into a problem.” When we combine opposing thoughts and questions from different areas, or when we combine Mastery with a relentless sense for exploration and learning, we are connecting otherwise disparate ideas that can generate phenomenal outcomes.

I have heard it said that learning from things yet to happen is key to strategic resilience. For this to happen, there must be a space for learning and making. An organization that learns is able to grow and adapt by connecting new ideas, concepts or innovations. The keen learners of knowledge are respectful of both scholars and craftsmen (makers) and therefore see their organizations as learning organizations. They make space for connections between ideas, people, and actions.

Peter Drucker in “Management and the World’s Work” published in Harvard Business Review (1988) stated that it is “also management’s job to enable the enterprise and each of its members to grow and develop as needs and opportunities change. This means that every enterprise is a learning and teaching institution. Training and development must be built into it on all levels—training and development that never stop.”

All inventions and movements start somewhere. And great innovations start with addressing a “job to be done” by combining different pieces and solutions. Whether in the office, outside, or in a Makerspace, we need opportunities to learn by doing, and spaces to do this in, if we are to prepare members of our society to address the needs and jobs of tomorrow.

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About the Author:

Esther Clark works with international schools to connect interests, ideas and actions. She is the Founder of Hipona Consulting, the Director of Marketing and Communications at TASIS The American School in England.

This article is one in a series related to the 10th Global Peter Drucker Forum, with the theme management. the human dimension, taking place on November 29 & 30, 2018 in Vienna, Austria #GPDF18

This article was first published in LinkedIn Pulse