ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the German campaign in the west in May/June 1940 and also into other campaigns and battles in the Second World War (WWII). The German Wehrmacht of 1940, as compared with the opposing armed forces of France, Britain, Belgium, and the Netherlands, was more akin to a middleweight boxer going up against a heavyweight. Organisational Resilience is a state to be established and maintained to counter the effects of two key environmental conditions: uncertainty and complexity. To address the challenges of uncertainty and complexity, organisational resilience is often referred to as an ability to bounce back from adversity. A progressive organisation longing for consistency focuses its attention on Performance Optimisation, relying on aspects of continuously improving its capabilities while focusing on efficiency gains through standardisation: the objective is to eliminate human error through compliance with rules, processes and procedures. The chapter presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book.
