During these last months, one of the topics that always seems to surface during client conversations is how companies can continue to move upward during a downturn.

Many studies have been conducted that correlate individual and organizational resilience. The net net of most studies shows that more than education, more than experience, more than training, a person’s or company’s level of resilience will determine who succeeds and who fails.

Here’s a summary of characteristics that set resilient people and companies apart.

The first and primary characteristic is the capacity to accept and face down reality. In looking hard at reality, one prepares to act in ways that allow endurance and survival of hardships. In other words, smart companies train themselves how to survive before ever having to do so.

Secondly, resilient corporations possess an ability to find meaning in some aspect of life. For these, values are as important as meaning; value systems at resilient companies change very little over the long term and are used as the skeletal system in times of trouble.

The third layer of resilience is the ability to improvise. Within an arena of personal capabilities or corporate rules, the ability to solve problems without the usual or obvious tool is a general strength.

While luck can have a lot to do with surviving, being lucky is not the same as being resilient. Resilience is a reflex, a way of facing and understanding the world, that is deeply etched into a person’s mind and soul. Resilient people and companies face reality with staunches, make meaning of hardship instead of crying out in despair, and improvise solutions from thin air. Others do not. This is the nature of resilience, and we will never completely understand it.