Resilience: Why Things Bounce Back [Hardcover]

Andrew Zolli (Author), Ann Marie Healy (Author)

Book Description

Release date: July 10, 2012 | ISBN-10: 1451683804 | ISBN-13: 978-1451683806 | Edition: 1

IN THIS TIME OF TURBULENCE, scientists, economists, social innovators, corporate and civic leaders, and citizens alike are asking the same basic questions: What causes one system to break down and another to rebound? Are we merely subject to the whim of forces beyond our control? Or, in the face of constant disruption, can we build better shock absorbers—for ourselves, our communities, our economies, and for the planet as a whole?

The answers to these vital questions are shaping a new field of inquiry, and a new agenda, focused on resilience: the ability of people, communities, and systems to maintain their core purpose and integrity amid unforeseen shocks and surprises. By encouraging adaptation, agility, and cooperation, this new approach can not only help us weather disruptions, but also bring us to a different way of being in and engaging with the world.

Reporting firsthand from the coral reefs of Palau to the back streets of Palestine, Andrew Zolli and Ann Marie Healy relate breakthrough scientific discoveries, pioneering social and ecological innovations, and important new approaches to constructing a more resilient world. Along the way, they share insights to bolster our own psychological resilience, foster greater stability within our communities, and establish leadership imperatives for more resilient organizations. Zolli and Healy show how this new concept of resilience is a powerful lens through which we can assess major issues afresh: from business planning to social development, from urban planning to national energy security—circumstances that affect us all.

Provocative, optimistic, and eye-opening, Resilience sheds light on why some systems, people, and communities fall apart in the face of disruption and, ultimately, how they can learn to bounce back.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“In an increasingly complex world, we can't avoid shocks--we can only build better shock absorbers. This is a brilliant exploration of how best to do that, told with compelling examples and stories.” —Chris Anderson, editor in chief of Wired, bestselling author of The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More and Free: The Future of a Radical Price

“From biological systems to communities to businesses, Resilience teaches us that being strong is not about doing one thing very well. Instead, it is about utilizing flexibility, redundancy, and variety. In this important and useful book, Zolli and Healy help us all understand the importance of planning for the future, even when it means giving up some short-term gains.” —Dan Ariely, James B. Duke Professor of Psychology and Behavioral Economics, Duke University, and author of Predictably Irrational, The Upside of Irrationality, and The Honest Truth About Dishonesty

“Smart and sophisticated, this is a landmark work in a new field. If you are part of a system that wants to avoid collapse, read this book.” —David Eagleman, neuroscientist, author of Incognito and Why the Net Matters

“Resilience is mandatory reading for people of all disciplines that will transform how you approach daily global events. Part complexity theory, part psychology, it is a pivotal book for today and a necessity to strategically plan for tomorrow." —David Agus, MD, Professor of Medicine and Engineering, University of Southern California, and author of The End of Illness

"A whirlwind tour through an idea whose time has come. I suspect that the concepts in this book will define the next decade." —Jad Abumrad, host and creator of Radiolab and 2011 MacArthur Fellow

“Resilience is the most compelling book I’ve read in years about how to navigate the accelerating pace of change that characterizes our lives today. More than anything else it maps new territory for leaders whether they seek to impact business, science, national security, or social transformation. Making deeply original thinking both accessible and captivating, Andrew Zolli and Ann Marie Healy have produced a rare and necessary book. The minute I put it down I began rethinking everything I thought I knew about how to make a lasting difference in the world.” —Bill Shore, founder and CEO of the antihunger organization Share Our Strength

"When the next disruption strikes, some will fall—and some, following the lessons of this book, will rise." —Juan Enriquez, author of As The Future Catches You and Homo Evolutis and managing director of Excel Venture Management

“Spending time with Andrew Zolli’s mind—that is what you will experience when reading Resilience—provides an understanding of the deep structures that will govern success in the coming century.” —Bruce Mau, cofounder and director of Massive Change Network

“Resilience is the most important key to healing a planet that faces the most dangerous of times. More important and far more essential that either sustainability or corporate responsibility. Andrew Zolli and Ann Marie Healy’s new book has arrived at a time when we need their insight and wisdom most. Understanding resilience is imperative for our very health and survival.” —Jeffrey Hollender, cofounder of Seventh Generation and founder of Jeffrey Hollender Partners

“Resilience is, quite simply, a terrific book—an important sequel to Clay Shirky’s Here Comes Everybody. The property of resilience is the key to health, well-being, and opportunity in networked, inter-connected, self-organized systems. Andrew Zolli and Ann Marie Healy provide a roadmap to a more resilient world.” —Anne-Marie Slaughter, Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University, Former Director of Policy Planning for the United States Department of State

About the Author

Andrew Zolli directs the global innovation network PopTech and has served as a fellow of the National Geographic Society. His work and ideas have appeared in a wide array of media outlets, including PBS, The New York Times, National Public Radio, Vanity Fair, Fast Company, and many others. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Ann Marie Healy is a playwright, screenwriter, and journalist. Her work has been produced in the United States as well as internationally, and her plays, essays, and stories have been published through Smith & Kraus, Samuel French, and The Kenyon Review. She lives in the Hudson River Valley.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Free Press; 1 edition (July 10, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1451683804
• ISBN-13: 978-1451683806
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (39 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,265 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #1 in Books > Professional & Technical > Professional Science > Physics > System Theory
  • #16 in Books > Science & Math > Technology
  • #19 in Books > Science & Math > History & Philosophy

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

51 of 56 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars A Mixed Bag July 26, 2012

By Book Fanatic TOP 500 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

There are certainly things to like about this book. I really enjoyed the 1st half. Here you find the main ideas of the book and some fascinating case studies and examples. The second half starts dragging though and quite frankly I would find myself bored. I think here the authors began to stretch their thesis beyond its usefulness. There is a long description of a specific program in Chicago to reduce violence. Apparently it has been very successful but this is supposed to be an example of a resilient community. Instead it is a very specific program aimed at a very specific problem. Way too many details and I fail to see how that describes a resilient community.

I hate to give this book only three stars. However, in the end I was just wishing I would finish it. After a promising start, it ended up less than compelling. Further this is not at all about how an individual becomes resilient. If that's what you are looking for you only need to read a small fraction of the book.

It's OK. Just didn't suit me in the end.

32 of 35 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Marginally Useful If You Have No Exposure to Systems Concepts September 13, 2012

By Tom D VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

Two stars, one each for readability and for marginally bringing a useful notion to people new to it. Three stars off for inconsistency, conclusions not in evidence and the vague prescription.

The value of this book depends more upon the reader than the writers. If this is your first exposure to any kind of "systems" view of the world, then there's a high probability you will find Resilience to be intriguing and frustrating. This is a book of anecdotes that are supposed to demonstrate resilience and offer lessons; sometimes the conclusions/lessons make sense though they're all offered ipso facto, occasionally though the anecdote may be intriguing, you have to wonder how the story even fits within the resilience topic. The frustrating part is there's nothing actionable. Resilience is certainly a useful notion and there are a lot of "systems" professionals in every field from biology to banking who practice it, some more successfully than others.

Even if you're new to the topic, a better start is Gerald Weinberg's much shorter classic, "An Introduction to General Systems Thinking." And although it may not seem relevant, Peter Senge first pushed his "Fifth Discipline" systems thinking in 1990, revised in 2006; Senge's context is `the learning organization' but he could have called it `the resilient organization' as well.

Resilience is defined as "the capacity of a system, enterprise, or a person to maintain its core purpose and integrity in the face of dramatically changed circumstances." The "system" term appears frequently (504 times) and is a fundamental part of resilience but gets no real attention. ("Resilience" or "resilient" occurs only 461 times)

As one example, the authors argue that the 2008 financial collapse was obviously predictable because "At the core of the network, just sixty-six banks accounted for 75 percent of the daily value of transfers. Even more telling, the network topology revealed that twenty-five of the biggest banks were completely connected - so intertwined that a failure among any strongly suggested a failure for all, the very definition of `too big to fail'." All that's within the quotes may well be true, but "completely connected" is not defined and that's an odd way to think about the 2008 financial collapse. Arguably whether the banks were "connected" was irrelevant with a system built upon the house-of-cards of widely suspect and in the end, faulty risk models. If the risk models had been accurate, then connectedness would have been irrelevant. As another reviewer wrote, the Ceasefire example is interesting, but that's clearly a case of straightforward "problem solving" not "resilience." There's nothing systemic about Ceasefire.

Despite the final chapter's implications to the contrary, one of the problems with Resilience is that it's descriptive and not prescriptive. "...Resilience is often found in having just the `right' amounts of these properties - being connected, but not too connected; being diverse, but not too diverse; being able to couple with other systems when it helps, but also being able to decouple from them when it hurts. The picture that emerges is one of strategic looseness, an intentional stance of both fluidity (of strategies, structures, and actions) and fixedness (of values and purpose)." Seems like that's a little like teaching someone to cook by telling them to be sure to use the right amount of everything.

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Deep but hopeful in a crisis-laden world August 2, 2012

By T. Sales

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

After reading a bunch of books about the political and economic issues facing the U.S., I wanted to read something that focused on more than just a tick list of discrete symptoms & solutions that might get us back on track. While the term 'resilience' is not exactly a common concept compared to others like 'sustainment,' this book promised to look at how components and people function within systems. Zolli and Healey describe how seemingly innocent decisions made early in varied ecosystems (e.g., fishing coral reefs, sinking wells to find clean water in Bangladesh) have led to eventual disasters and that solutions typically need to interact in unexpected ways to bounce back (or ahead) to a future state that might get individual people, groups, countries, organizations, or our planet functioning again. "Resilience: Why Things Bounce Back" absolutely addresses those issues, but you have to "work for it" to follow the authors' logic and observations that will help to address the disruptions that increasingly confront us.

Given that resilience is not generally discussed, the Introduction goes through a challenging baseline discussion to position the concept. By listing some sample disruptions -- Katrina, Haiti, BP, Fukushima, the Crash, the Great Recession, the London Mob, the Arab Spring -- they help to set the stakes. As they point out near the end of the book, some of these ecological or socioeconomic time bombs may be difficult for Americans to understand because we've been fortunate enough to be largely insulated from fragilities and disruptions that others in the world have had to deal with. "In a world temporarily devoid of consequences, the slow erosion and increasing inelasticity of our political, financial, socioeconomic and ecological systems scarcely seemed to matter." But now our systems are breaking down and we see ourselves as losing our dominance.

As you get into the book, at first it feels reminiscent of a Malcolm Gladwell book in that Zolli and Healy look at 2-4 seemingly isolated stories in each chapter ... then show how they come together to demonstrate resilience. Criticism of Gladwell's very popular books is that he is a journalist more than a scientist and that he doesn't get too deeply into any issue or its consequence. That is not the case here as Zolli has researched in greater depth and Healy has a way of presenting the material in a dramatic way. And so, these chapters and stories are deep and require concentration to connect the learnings. Perhaps a better comparison of this book is to the books of Edward Tufte. Tufte's "Visual Explanations" has my favorite chapter ever where he compares how John Snow uncovered the real cause of cholera in 1854 London by looking at data honestly to NASA's decision to launch the 1986 shuttle Challenger when the data showed it would explode at lower temperatures. Similarly, the authors here juxtapose different stories and synthesize important ideas that must be understood and complied with if we are to recover from the political and environmental crises that now threaten us.

Their treatment also reminds me of the kinds of presentations that can be seen at TED conferences. I was fortunate enough to attend one in 2000 where many of the then unknown experts have gone on to become important leaders and voices. Zolli and Healy share stories and describe a collection of experts in a way that you are intrigued by how they came to their interest and areas of expertise. As other reviewers have noted, these stories go in to some detail and, again, one has to concentrate to see how these all fit together. My favorite such stories were 1) the Haiti response and how responders used their strong ties, their weak ties and adapted technology to save people fast, 2) Red Team U and how our military is encouraging front-line commanders to consider different options that align better with the strategies and tactics of our enemies, and 3) how Opower and Robert Cialdini are using data to persuade electricity users to conserve by comparing their usage to that of their neighbors.

This book and writing technique seems quite different from many of the books written by pundits and personalities we see in the media. Since we "know" those people better, we tend to flock to those books, but the end result is that we see simplistic recommendations and more issues than solutions. And thus, in comments to news stories different camps line up against each other and sling insults back and forth. "Resilience" probably won't sell as many books as those more-recognized authors, but the sense I got from reading it is more hopeful and realistic in what we'll need to consider to address coming issues. The stories describe some pretty dreadful scenarios that we will definitely have to address -- perhaps as a planet -- but Zolli and Healy give us hope that there are experts out there who can help lead the way to solutions but that at the same time we'll all have to participate.