Often times when someone mentions resilience, a common question comes up: how do you define resilience? Well it’s fair to say that no watertight definition exists. Having said that, most people have a fairly good sense of what we mean by resilience. Here are 12 definitions to clarify.

 

• “The ability of communities to continue to function when exposed to hazards and to adapt to changes rather than returning to the original pre-disaster state. – Productivity Commission (Australia), 2015″

 

• “Resilience is the ability to prepare for and adapt to changing conditions and withstand and recover rapidly from disruptions…[it] includes the ability to withstand and recover from deliberate attacks, accidents, or naturally oc- curring threats or incidents.” Having accurate information and analysis about risk is essential to achieving resilience. Resilient infrastructure assets, systems, and networks must also be robust, agile, and adaptable. Mitigation, response, and recovery activities contribute to strengthening critical infrastructure resilience. – National Infrastructure Plan, Homeland Security, USA.”

 

• “Resilience is realized when a disruption is unfolding or cannot be avoided. It is the system’s potential for adaptive action in the future when information varies, conditions change, or new kinds of events (even external shocks) occur.” – Jan Erik Karlsen and Rosalind M.O. Pritchard, “Resilience – The Ability to Change” in Resilient Universities: Confronting Changes in a Challenging World.”

 

• “Resilience is the ability to fully engage in life, recover from challenges, and, as a result, increase the capacity to thrive in the future. As crucial a skill as resilience is for individuals, its impact absolutely translates to the collective: when your work culture actively promotes thriving through times of adversity, the outcome will be better communication, increased productivity and a more engaged workforce.” – Dr. Hal Levine, Chief Medical Officer, ValueOptions.”

 

• “Resilience is the increasingly critical ability to “anticipate change, heal when breached, and have the ability to reorganize … to maintain [a] core purpose, even under radically changed circumstances.” – Andrew Zolli”

 

• “Resilience is a weird thing,” Schneier told Fortune in a phone interview earlier this week. “You can’t buy resilience like you can buy a firewall. It’s an emergent property.” – Privacy and security guru and “Data and Goliath” author Bruce Schneier.”

 

• “Resilience is the ability of a system to cope with change and to respond to a disturbance by resisting damage and recovering quickly. By Philipp Gassner | Special to the Business Mirror”

 

• “Resilience is the capacity to withstand stress and catastrophe.”

 

• “Resilience is the long-term capacity of a system to deal with change and continue to develop. For an ecosystem such as a forest, this can involve dealing with storms, fires and pollution, while for a society it involves an ability to deal with political uncertainty or natural disasters in a way that is sustainable in the long-term., Stockholm Resilience Centre”

 

• “Resilience is realized when a disruption is unfolding or cannot be avoided. It is the system’s potential for adaptive action in the future when information varies, conditions change, or new kinds of events (even external shocks) occur.” Jan Erik Karlsen and Rosalind M.O. Pritchard, “Resilience – The Ability to Change” in Resilient Universities: Confronting Changes in a Challenging World.”

 

• “ULI (Urban Land Institute) defines resilience as “the ability to prepare and plan for, absorb, recover from, and more successfully adapt to adverse events.” This definition was approved by ULI and organizations representing 750,000 industry professionals in the land use, planning, and development fields, including the American Institute of Architects, the American Planning Association, and the U.S. Green Building Council. This definition is part of a statement that also affirms that “the promotion of resilience will improve the economic competitiveness of the United States.”

 

• “Resilience is about getting ahead of change so that you can survive and thrive.” (Fiorella Iannuzzelli, Director and enterprise resilience lead, PricewaterhouseCoopers)