Surprises are often unpleasant. As my son has said, “The only good surprise is a party.”
Leaders anticipate what might go wrong and create options to deal with contingencies. Many times, their experience helps them identify the most likely, the most probable challenges, as well as what might be the most disastrous. If they lack the domain experience, then leaders’ curiosity and probing, “What could go wrong here?” helps them and their teams identify potential challenges.
While serving as the Protocol Officer at Rota, Spain, we would often host senior officers and government officials. I partnered closely with the on-base hotel (called the Bachelor Officer’s Quarters or BOQ) to control the handful of VIP suites. Initially, we would keep one room open. That was until a flag officer refused to stay on base because his aide had to go off base. Then we always kept at least two suites available. And one night it paid off. While we were out hosting a four-star admiral, a one-star general (and fighter pilot) was forced to divert to our field and spend the night. With the “spare rooms,” we were able to house him (and his aide) on base for the night.
In Navy comms, we say that “Two is one, and one is none.” This reminds us that failures will happen. If you’re going to be able to communicate, you must plan to have at least two channels ready to go. If you only have one channel, you will most likely lose comms at some point. Things will go wrong.
Redundancy is required for resilience.
How are you building resilience in your teams? What surprises are you prepared for?