Back-up Plans

October 13th, 2011 by Lora Dow

Early this week, the Universe gave me two stark reminders about what things are in our control, and what things aren’t.

On Monday morning, I remembered that I hadn’t done a backup of my laptop in nearly a week. I ran the backup while making coffee that morning. Early that afternoon, the hard drive of the laptop crashed. In the hubbub of taking the laptop to various and sundry “geniuses” who told me what I already knew (including, memorably, “Dude, this thing is fried.”), I can’t tell you how reassuring it was to know that backup drive was sitting in my office, waiting to be called into action.

On Tuesday morning, I was talking to a videographer I’m working with on another project. I asked him “How’s the filming going?” as I knew he had a full day of interviews booked. “It’s not,” he replied. Turns out his main contact didn’t show up. The man’s sister had died the night before and, while it was completely understandable that he wasn’t up for coming in to work that day, there was no one else who knew what was going on. Not only time, but a great deal of money was wasted that day.

Things are going to happen, whether to our computers or to our families or to our whole community. Often, those things are completely out of our control. What is in our control, however, is the back-up plan – which can be as simple as remembering to copy someone on an email and as intricate as a leadership succession plan.

Asking that question and taking action on it is one of the surest ways to show leadership, no matter what level of the organization you find yourself.