Operational resilience has become one of the most prominent themes in modern risk management. Regulators expect it. Boards request it. Executives reference it as evidence that the organisation is prepared for disruption. Significant investment has gone into resilience frameworks, scenario testing, business continuity planning, and recovery metrics.
Yet many organisations that describe themselves as resilient are exposed to a subtler and more dangerous risk: false confidence. They believe they are protected because they can recover, without fully understanding why failures occur in the first place or how easily stress scenarios can diverge from reality.
This article examines how resilience programmes, when poorly governed, can mask fragility rather than reduce it.
Resilience has shifted the conversation, but not always the risk
At its best, operational resilience represents a positive evolution in risk thinking. It moves the focus beyond prevention alone and recognises that disruption is inevitable. It asks credible questions about tolerance for disruption, critical services, and the organisation’s ability to continue operating under stress.
However, resilience programmes often evolve into compliance exercises. Scenarios are defined narrowly, testing assumptions are repeated annually, and recovery metrics are treated as proof of control. Over time, resilience becomes something the organisation reports on rather than something it actively interrogates.
The risk is not that resilience is the wrong objective. The risk is that resilience becomes a substitute for understanding structural weakness.(Explore Our: ERM & Resilience Courses)
Scenario testing rewards familiarity, not realism
One of the most common weaknesses in resilience frameworks is scenario selection. Scenarios are often chosen because they are plausible, explainable, and manageable within existing capabilities. They test what the organisation already understands rather than what it finds uncomfortable.
This creates a dangerous pattern. Teams rehearse familiar disruptions, validate known dependencies, and demonstrate recovery within defined tolerances. The organisation gains confidence, but that confidence is built on repetition, not challenge.
True disruption rarely follows scripted scenarios. It combines events, exposes hidden interdependencies, and unfolds in ways that invalidate assumptions. When scenario testing fails to explore these dynamics, resilience becomes theoretical rather than operational.
Recovery metrics can hide systemic weakness
Time-based recovery metrics are central to many resilience frameworks. They are useful indicators, but they are often treated as definitive evidence of control. If services can be restored within tolerance, the risk is considered managed.
This logic overlooks an important question: what did it take to recover? Organisations frequently rely on heroics, informal workarounds, manual intervention, or exceptional effort during testing and real incidents. These behaviours are not sustainable controls, yet they are rarely recorded as risk signals.
When recovery success is celebrated without examining the strain it placed on people, systems, and decision-making, the organisation learns the wrong lesson. It reinforces the belief that resilience exists, even when it depends on fragile and unscalable responses.
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Resilience can normalise failure instead of preventing it
There is a subtle behavioural shift that can occur in mature resilience environments. When leaders become confident in recovery capabilities, tolerance for failure can quietly increase. Preventative controls are deprioritised because disruption is viewed as manageable.
This does not mean leaders consciously accept failure. Rather, resilience reduces the perceived consequence of control erosion. Known issues are deferred. Technical debt accumulates. Dependencies become more complex. Each decision feels reasonable in isolation because recovery is assumed.
Over time, the organisation becomes resilient to failure rather than resistant to it. That distinction matters. Resistance reduces the likelihood and impact of disruption. Resilience alone only addresses what happens after the fact.
Governance gaps between resilience and accountability
Operational resilience often sits across multiple functions: operations, technology, risk, compliance, and business leadership. Without clear governance, it becomes everyone’s responsibility and no one’s accountability.
Boards receive resilience reports, but ownership of underlying weaknesses is often unclear. Who is accountable for reducing dependency complexity? Who decides whether a recurring resilience test failure is acceptable? Who has authority to invest in structural fixes rather than short-term mitigations?
When resilience lacks decision ownership, it becomes descriptive rather than directive. It explains what would happen, but it does not drive change in how the organisation is designed or operated.
Resilience without challenge creates blind spots
A resilient organisation should be uncomfortable with its own assumptions. It should actively seek challenge, including from functions that are not invested in programme success. Internal audit, independent risk teams, and external reviewers play a critical role here.
However, in many organisations, resilience programmes are protected. Challenge is softened to avoid undermining confidence or triggering additional investment. This creates blind spots precisely where scrutiny is most needed.
Effective resilience governance welcomes challenge because it treats resilience as a moving target, not a static achievement.
Reframing resilience as a governance discipline
Operational resilience is not a badge of strength. It is a hypothesis that must be continuously tested, challenged, and refined. Real resilience is uncomfortable because it exposes weakness rather than concealing it.
For boards and senior executives, the critical question is not whether resilience metrics are met, but whether the organisation is becoming structurally safer or merely better at recovering from self-inflicted fragility.
For GRC leaders, the opportunity lies in reframing resilience as a governance discipline. One that links recovery to accountability, testing to decision-making, and resilience outcomes to structural change.
Organisations that do this do not just recover faster. They fail less often, for the right reasons, and with far greater control.