Executive Resilience: Neuroscience for the Business of Disruption

This uncertainty is fuelled by a growing drive for businesses to not just innovate, but to disrupt. The result? Technological capabilities that are quickly advancing towards the automation of every job on the market. Millions of workers around the world are starting to ask a simple question: “What happens to me when my job gets automated?” Manufacturing and agricultural industries are well-versed in the consequences of automation. For the services industry, this is relatively new. As machine learning and AI capabilities grow, it becomes viable to automate even well-protected jobs. The result is growing uncertainty. On a global scale, the impact on the human psyche is fear. Fear that renders us vulnerable to policies which can destabilise our global society. In organisations, this fear creates cultures of blame and stagnation, stifling innovation. Our trajectory of technological advancement is inevitable. We cannot remove the coming uncertainty. However, uncertainty doesn’t need to create fear. We can change how we react so that we embrace and even thrive on this uncertainty. An interconnected set of crucial life skills, collectively called , is the answer to these uncertain times. For the first time, insights from neuroscience, psychological resilience, and workplace culture are combined to discover the origin of sustainable disruptive innovation. We present a holistic model for resilience that contains the six critical components of a resilient culture. Executive Resilience takes a tour through practical neuroscience and their implications for leaders and managers to guide their people in uncertain times. There is an imperative for us all to work together to build resilience in people. Organisations are particularly well-placed in this pursuit. Not only because of its reach with employees, but also in the measurable benefits that come from a resilient workforce—higher engagement, more innovation, healthy, productive and thriving.