3Rs, 4Rs, 6Rs and All the Ps

One of the first questions we get at 3RS Resilience Services is “which one of the 4Rs have you left out?” Fair question. The answer is: none of them. We have actually added a couple.

But first, a quick word on Rs generally, because resilience has more of them than it probably needs.

Psychologists and people managers have their own 3Rs: Relax/Recover/Restore, or Reduce/Rebuild/Relocate, or Relationships/Rest/Reflection, depending on which textbook is closest.

Many people with more than a passing interest in disaster or emergency response will know the 4Rs: Reduction, Readiness, Response, Recovery. And resilient people are a key component of resilient organisations, so we are interested in all of these. Any plan is only as good as the people implementing it, and if the implementers fold at the first sign of pressure, the plan will likely fold too.

But generally speaking, we are interested in the 4Rs in the wider, organisational sense. But here is what our 3Rs actually stands for, but why six are actually important.

3Rs = Resilience Readiness Reviews. This is what we do. Our service is not about fixing things or creating a dependency on us. It is about giving you an honest, independent perspective of your resilience arrangements so you know what needs fixing. We assess. We score. We tell you what to address first.

4Rs becomes 6Rs. We have taken the first of the traditional 4Rs Reduction and given it a more explicit name: Risk Reduction. Risk awareness, analysis and management are such critical foundations for everything that follows that they deserve to be up there in big bold letters. Everything else — your readiness, your response, your recovery — depends on understanding your risk context and appetite first. Get that wrong and the rest is guesswork.

And then we added an R. The final one is Review. Some will argue this sits within Recovery, and there is a case for that. But our view is that it needs to stand on its own. Post-exercise and post-incident reviews are important, obviously. But it is equally important to review your arrangements when nothing has happened. Otherwise, how do you know they are still current and fit for purpose? We live in unpredictable times. Risk environments are dynamic. Plans that stay static in a changing world are not plans — they’re historical documents.

So there you have it. We are 3Rs who assess 6Rs to avoid all the Ps. The Ps, much beloved by anyone who has worn a uniform and others, remind us that Prior Planning and Preparation Prevent P*** Poor Performance. Probably.

We may not do the P work for you. But we can certainly help you get your Rs into gear.