A major indicator that you are leading a resilient organization is that you know and create redundancy in critical areas of your organization. Critical redundancies can and should exist in your operation’s machinery, knowledge, and skills. While the ideas of “lean mean organizations” shudder at the thought of redundancy, like connectivity, redundancy is an important component of resilience.
For example, I consult with Minnesota’s Metropolitan Airport Commission (MAC). To maintain their operations during snow storms, they have to be able to clear the runways. To do this, they put six to seven large snow plows in a conga line, staggering them along the runway and clearing the entire space in one pass. While MAC leaders had considered using electronic snow removal machines, this type of technology has additional overhead (like battery charging), reducing the amount of time that can be dedicated to actual snow removal. As a result, certain redundancies that help ensure runways are cleared more efficiently could be eliminated.
Knowledge can be a critical redundancy
Functional operation is one source of critical redundancy for resilience, and knowledge can be another. For example, a staff person may have knowledge that is vital to the organization for functional efficiency. If that staff person goes on vacation or leaves the organization entirely there must be someone else or something that also retains that knowledge as a backup, or it may be irretrievably lost. Basketball teams would call this good “bench strength,” necessary to keep the game going as players tire. Bench strength is one way to create redundancy during disruption, and therefore increase resilience. The idea of intellectual “bench strength” is vital to an organization’s resilience as well.
Several organizations I work with have succession plans, typically for the leader of the organization. I’ve been experimenting recently with a process that reframes succession planning to align with a more resilient system. The first step is to discern the critical roles of staff members in the organization. The second is to ask a set of questions for each position and/or function during an interview with the people who hold these positions. Potential answers to these questions help you and your organization assess the level of redundancy within each role, and identify areas of risk.
Some of the questions organizations can use to assess knowledge and skill-critical redundancy include:
- What is the description of the key role, and title?
- Who is the incumbent?
- Why is this position so critical to the organization?
- When will the person in this position possibly retire?
- How long have they been in this position?
- What is the current bench strength, and are there others in the organization that can cover some or all of this position’s functions?
- Where are there gaps in competencies and skillsets at are not present in other members of the team?
- What key knowledge does this person hold?
- What key relationships, internal and external, are held by this person and/or position?
- What are their intentions, either stated or unstated, about a potential exit from the organization?
- Should there be a short-term or unplanned vacancy or leave, what are the key needs and backup strategies required to maintain the critical functions of the position?
- What corollary positions will be affected if this vacancy or leave occurs?
Critical redundancy should exist within all levels and forms of the organization. A long-term executive assistant could hold more critical knowledge than a middle-manager, for example. In other words, critical positions aren’t limited to people at the upper levels of the organization. Redundancy needs to exist wherever knowledge, skills and other other aspects of the organization are vital to its function. This is an important point when ensuring critical redundancy in an organization that desires more resiliency!
Learning is also a critical component of resilience. Read more about this topic here.
Not everything is a critical redundancy
There are many functions in living systems, but not all of them require critical redundancy. Nature only uses the energy it needs to accomplish things. If your organization can easily replace knowledge or skills if someone leaves, then you don’t need critical redundancy to backup a core function.
How do we ascertain where redundancy is critical, and where it may not be as important? When identifying potential areas of critical redundancy I ask these key questions:
- Will it take a long time to develop the skills, knowledge, and core relationships for the organization to thrive in the future?
- What positions or functions require a long timeline to get up and running if someone leaves?
- Are there internal staff who can hold the position in the interim until someone new is found to fill it?
- Are there relationships outside the organization that this person is the only connection to?
- If so how can you build relationship redundancy with critical partners before you need it?
The answers to these questions help me understand where specific redundancy plans are needed to ensure smooth functioning when a disturbance to staffing or operation occurs. Addressing these questions within your own organization will help uncover areas where creating critical redundancy will lead to greater resilience, no matter what happens!
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