Many of today’s issues affect all sectors in a way that blurs the traditional boundaries between them, and it is unclear who should ‘own’ the problem. Threats to security and business continuity are becoming increasingly complex and unpredictable, mirroring major discoveries made in science about sensitive interdependencies – what Lorenz called ‘the butterfly effect’ in 1963. In a situation where globalisation, technology and conflicts have literally dissolved borders, it is true that every action influences other parts of the ‘organism’ to some degree. Certainly no one is immune to the potential destabilising influences that particularly fragile states breed, where governments can lack legitimacy and accountability, and risks include terrorism, uncontrolled migration, transnational crime and underdevelopment.

Closer to home, the biggest problems often exist at tricky ‘intersections’ – where the functions, regions and levels within an organisation must align; and organisations from the same or different sectors must engage. Over the years, both internally and through alliances with outstanding people in their fields, we have developed the capabilities required to address the growing convergence of global risks, and combined these with our collaborative way of working to engage and align people from different parts of a business or organisation. In addition to designing a series of ‘resilience-building’ events, below is evidence of our contribution as a third party to distilling and navigating crucial trade-offs involved when stakeholders from different sectors are forced to interact.