What is Adaptive Capacity?
/Adaptive capacity plays a critical role in the resilience equation because of its ability to advance a system’s baseline resilience more naturally and in alignment with its mission, methods of operating, and social capital. In my last post, I discussed how the concept is a critical variable in the equation:
Adaptive Capacity x (Risk Management + Standby Capabilities) = Resilience
But what is adaptive capacity and how exactly does it differ from the risk management and standby capabilities variables? First, I discuss the goal of adaptive capacity and how it differs from the other variables. Then, I describe the four types of features that constitute adaptive capacity.
Adaptive Capacity vs. Other Variables
The primary goal of adaptive capacity is adaptability, a critical attribute of a steady-state system that enables the system to transform in the face of acute, sustained, or evolving disruptions. Within a socio-technical systems such as an organization, community, or supply chain, this is achieved though features that occur both naturally and through intentional design. However, the features are not linked to specific hazards, threats, vulnerabilities or impacts (this should be de-emphasized as much as possible) as the focus is on enabling rather than managing system behavior. In other words, rather than specify transformation processes, adaptive capacity features simply allow transformation to occur more easily in face of a uncertain future. Uncertainty is inherently embraced as an externality or environmental condition that cannot be influenced a priori. The only option is to increase the system’s ability to accommodate significant uncertainty.
In contrast, the primary goal of risk management is stability, which focuses on the a priori reduction of uncertainty. Risk management features include attributes linked to specific hazards, threats, vulnerabilities, or impacts that can be reasonably identified and analyzed prior to a disruption. Similarly, the primary goal of standby capabilities is readiness, which are features that do not exist natively within a steady-state system and are only needed in response to a specific disruption, whether imminent or active. In other words, the steady-state system can operate day-to-day without these capabilities (I don’t advocate for this, though).
The goals of each variable are naturally at odds with each other. However, this tension is needed to foster resilience because one variable will never fully satisfy a system’s resilience objectives. There is simply too much uncertainty or complexity. Rather, the combination of variables collectively lead to resilience with adaptive capacity being the most valuable and their relative contributions or dominance being driven by the context, which fluctuates as the system and operating environment changes over time.
In addition, adaptive capacity does not inherently imply anti-optimization. I prefer to think of adaptive capacity as smart optimization. A system that too optimized is not very adaptable while a system with too much adaptive capacity is highly inefficient and hard to sustain long term.
Four Types of System Features
The feature types below represent the foundational components of adaptive capacity in socio-technical systems. These feature types have important relationships with each other as well as the other variables. Given the depth of each feature type and subtle, yet important relationships between them, I will expand on the features types in subsequent posts.
Adaptive Leadership - The ability of a system to foster an adaptable culture through features that promote resourcefulness, perseverance, rapid innovation, systems thinking and learning, inclusivity, and mission alignment.
Operational Agility - The ability of a system to accommodate emergent requirements through formal features that empower distributed decisions and actions that are well-informed and coordinated. These include policies and tools that enable these bottom-up behaviors in the face of an evolving disruption.
Information Utility - The ability of a system to leverage information as needed to support emergent requirements through features that improve ad hoc information discoverability, availability, accessibility, manageability, and portability.
Resource Capacity - The ability of a system to rapidly and substantially change the types and amounts of products and services it provides through features that ensure relevant human, physical, digital, and/or financial resources are interoperable, scalable, portable, reusable, and reconfigurable.
How do these feature types play out in your organization, community, or supply chain? How does your organization, community, or supply chain manage the relationship between the variables?
Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.
