What is missing in our approach to adaptation in the face of disruption?
Transilience® will show you the answer.
Transilience® is the framework I developed to understand how people and systems actually move through disruption, not just how they cope with it. During my doctoral research, I found that most approaches focus on managing disruption: limiting damage, maintaining stability, or returning to what was. Yet, in real-world transitions, that is often not enough.
What is missing in the common approach to adaptation is a fundamental human capacity: the capacity to change and evolve in response to disruption.
So the question becomes: What allows people and systems to move through disruption in a different way?
Why transitions lose momentum
In many transitions, the direction is not the issue. The strategy is clear, and the intention is there. Yet progress keeps slipping.
I believe the problem lies in what we pay attention to. In many contexts, the focus is on systems, structures, and technology. But the human side of change is often left unaddressed: how people experience disruption, how they respond to it, and what it asks of them. At the same time, we tend to misunderstand what adaptation requires.
When we face disruption, we aim for stability. We try to maintain what exists, or to recover what was there before. This is what concepts like ‘resilience’ point to: the ability to ‘bounce back’. Yet in the majority of situations, there is nothing to go back to. Real adaptation is not about returning to a previous state. It is about moving through disruption in a way that allows for a different state to emerge. When the human aspect is overlooked and adaptation is misunderstood, transitions fall short of their potential. Not because the direction is wrong, but because the approach is incomplete.
The framework describes how people relate to disruption and whether they perceive themselves as capable of moving through it. More precisely, it captures the perceived capacity to adapt in a way that does not only protect what exists, but allows for genuine change and evolution. It is grounded in research on coping, resilience, and climate adaptation, and integrates insights from how individuals and societies have responded to adversity over time. Its three interconnected elements together reflect what people believe is possible for them when they encounter a challenge. Unlike resilience, which focuses on maintaining or recovering a previous state, this framework reflects the possibility of moving into something new.
Transilience, defined
1. The perceived ability to persist, namely to keep going, even when the situation is uncertain or difficult.
2. The perceived ability to adapt flexibly, namely to see and explore different possible paths forward.
3. The perceived ability positively transform, namely to change for the better in response to what the situation requires.
Transilience is a skill
Transilience is not a fixed trait. It is a capacity that can be developed and strengthened over time, in individuals, teams, and institutions. This is what makes it actionable rather than merely descriptive, and it is what gives the advisory work its direction.
Grounded in research
I developed and tested a scale to measure it, and validated it in contexts such as climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic. The results show it can support well-being and mental health, and it can enable people to take concrete action. As such, Transilience shapes how people experience disruption and how they respond to it.
What this means in practice
Transilience® provides a structured lens for understanding and leading transitions differently.
Central to this work is a distinction that most change approaches overlook: not all discomfort signals that something is wrong. Disruption is inherently uncomfortable, and that discomfort is often the sign that genuine adaptation is underway. The critical diagnostic question is whether the friction present in a transition is constructive, the kind that stretches and develops adaptive capacity, or destructive, the kind that depletes and overwhelms it.
Equally important is the collective dimension: adaptive capacity develops through honest engagement with difficulty, not despite it. Organizations that navigate transitions most effectively are those where people feel safe enough to acknowledge what is actually happening and move through it together.
In practice, I use the Transilience® lens to examine the human dynamics shaping a transition: how people are experiencing disruption, what is driving resistance or disengagement, and what the situation is genuinely asking of leaders and their organizations. From there, we work together to strengthen the conditions for persistence, adaptability, and transformability, so that the transition can move forward in a way that is coherent, trustworthy, and built to last.
If this connects to your current or upcoming transition, take the first step by getting in touch through the contact page.