1. Protection Aspect

‘Governments should aim for maximum flexibility during times of disruption, while providing incentives for building resilience during times of stability.’ Jonathan Wright

‘It is easier to stay out than to get out.’ Mark Twain

‘Only the paranoid survive.’ Andy Grove

‘One of the big dangers for any business is complacency; the challenge for leaders is how to keep injecting urgency. I think much depends on how good a CEO is at motivating his or her team and generating the sort of excitement that leads people to do things in different ways.’ Ratan Tata, Chairman of Tata Sons

‘What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals.’ Henry David Thoreau

2. Durability Aspect

‘What I always say is that Japanese are like willow. We can be bent easily, but once you try to break us, it would not be so easy.’ Hiroko Sakai

‘A good half of the art of living is resilience.’ Alain de Botton

‘Resilience is the capacity of a system, enterprise or person to maintain its core purpose and integrity in the face of dramatically changed circumstances.’ Andrew Zolli and Ann Marie Healy

‘Resilience is built from real hardship and cannot be bought or maintained.’ Julie Lythcott-Haims

‘Business resilience – the ability to quickly and inexpensively react to business, industry or financial change, without major disruption.’ Sarah Gaffrey, Aberdeen Strategic Research.

‘Resilience should be seen as the ability to deal with adversity, withstand shocks and continuously adapt and accelerate as disruptions and crises arise over time’ Borge Brende. and Bob Sternfels, McKinsey and Co.

‘The preoccupation with short-term earnings in the public-company environment – not something private companies are so concerned with – is quite destructive of longevity.’ Lou Gerstner

‘On the other side of a storm is the strength that comes from having navigated through it. Raise your sail and begin.’ Gregory S. Williams

‘It’s shocking but not surprising that the cost of poor mental health to employers is now up to a huge £56 billion per year. We know that the pandemic has taken a huge toll on the mental health of the nation, including our colleagues. A 2021 survey by Mind of over 40,000 staff working across 114 organisations taking part in our Workplace Wellbeing Index revealed that two in five (41 per cent) employees said their mental health had worsened during the pandemic. Emma Mamo, Head of Workplace Wellbeing at Mind (a UK charity).

‘Resilience is our ability to maintain or even improve our performance in the midst of an everchanging and increasingly pressured world.’ Institute of Directors UK

‘The average lifetime of companies is shrinking. If you were listed in the S&P 500 in 1935, the life span of a company was 90 years. Today, it is 18years. Every two weeks a company is going off that system.’ Dominic Barton, ex Global Managing Director of McKinsey & Company.

3. Determination (Grit) Aspect

‘Resilience is all about being able to overcome the unexpected. Sustainability is about survival. The goal of resilience is to thrive.’ Jamais Cascio

‘30% of start ups fail due to the emotional state of their founders (13% due to loss of focus, 9% due to loss of passion, and 8% due to founder burnout).’ Forbes Magazine September 2015.

‘I don’t measure a man’s success by how high he climbs, but how high be bounces when he hits bottom.’ General George Patton

‘I can be changed by what happens to me. But I refuse to be reduced by it.’ Maya Angelou

‘Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.’ Confucius

‘We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offered sufficient proof that everything can be taken away from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.’ Victor Frankl, author and Auschwitz camp survivor.

‘Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.’ Neale Donald Walsch

‘Rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.’ J.K. Rowling

‘When something bad happens, you have three choices; you can either let it define you, let it destroy you, or you can let it strengthen you.’ Dr Suess

I hated every minute of training, but I said, ‘Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.’ Muhammad Ali

‘Joseph Schumpeter focused his attention largely on new businesses and their role in eating the breakfast of established companies. But in my view, “intrapreneurs”—risk takers on the inside—are just as important as entrepreneurs in promoting new ideas and new technology.’ Marcus Wallenberg is chairman of SEB (Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken).

4. Healing Aspect

‘The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places.’  Ernest Hemingway

‘I destroy my enemies when I make them my friends.’ Abraham Lincoln

‘It’s fine to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure.’ Bill Gates

‘Resilience is based on compassion for ourselves as well as compassion for others.’ Sharon Salzberg

‘Turn your wounds into wisdom.’ Oprah Winfrey

‘There’s a ditch on both sides of the road. Always listening to the younger folks won’t guarantee you the best strategy. But if you don’t listen to them at all, you won’t get it either.’ Lou Gerstner