Keyword: prepared organization

It’s been a very rough winter for us here in the Puget Sound area.  As I have noted previously, we’ve suffered wind, snow, rain, sleet, all resulting in power outages, school closings, and on and on.  At times it feels like we’re only missing pestilence to round out the collection.  Looking out at the snow makes us doubt the truth of global warming, no matter how “inconvenient”.

It has been a tough winter also on the school administrators.  Our big power outage in December came during the holiday, but would’ve meant more than a week off school.  Since then, we’ve had two major snow storms with several days off.  As I write, our school has closed for the sixth straight day, as more snow has fallen just in time for the morning commute.  The teachers are in a panic, missing a week in their curriculum can’t be fun.  And ideas for making it up range from canceling spring break to additional time in the summer.

This all points out how hard it is to make the decision to close a school.  There are dozens of dependencies to consider, including buses, teachers, new young student drivers, and angry parents who either don’t want to drive or don’t want to miss work.  The pressure to get the school work in while keeping people safe makes for a continuous load of tough calls to make.

This morning was an especially tough call to make for our school head.  At 5:00, the usual time when these calls are made, the predicted snow wasn’t here.  Kids had been off since last Wednesday, when he made a quick and controversial call to close while other schools did not.  So the pressure to stay open today was intense.

Then the snow came.  Schools all around closed, even the stalwarts.  And yet, the snow was supposed to stop any minute now, so how to decide?  As it got later, the early students and teachers started arriving.  But it still was snowing.  Parents were calling.  What to do?  Well, he closed at the last minute (7:10 am), with students arriving, plans for the day long since decided.  It’s a mess.  Not only was last Wednesday’s call controversial, but today’s is sure to be as well.  I can hear the phone ringing from 10 miles away.

How does this effect you?  Well it points out some things you already know.  Making decisions is never easy.  Second guessing is.  And the timing of decisions is often a no-win situation.  Decide too early, you don’t have all the data.  Decide too late, and the wheels may already be in motion.

It all points out the value of laying the groundwork for decisions well in advance.  If you have a good vision for your project or organization, many of these kinds of decisions are easier to make.  And there are a number of areas where you can predict the kind of difficulties you may run into, and “pre-make” the decisions well outside the panic of the crisis.  That’s why I recommend you do the homework for a good People Strategy.  And you can apply this same technique to a number of other areas.

I’m not sure if a clear “school closure” guideline policy would have helped today.  But I do know that time and again in business, having a clear vision, spending the time to be prepared, and addressing predictable issues long before they arise, all combine to make you a better leader.

We live in the Pacific Northwest that, like most regions of the world, has natural disasters to worry about.  Every region of the world has some calamity on its potential horizon.  Be it hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, earthquakes, droughts, even plagues of locusts, it seems clear that no place is without something to worry about.

Here we live in a place of splendid beauty that carries the risks right with the beauty.  We have majestic mountains that are active volcanoes.  We have a seashores that threaten tsunamis.  We have a landscape littered with earthquake faults.  And, as the “Evergreen State” we have a whole lot of trees.  All of this is beautiful, and dangerous.  This week, we got bitten by the beauty of the trees.

On Tuesday and Wednesday of last week we got a little warm-up storm with winds in the 30+ mph range with gusts to 60.  Some trees were knocked over, a parking lot of my children’s school saw one totally flatten four cars and damage several others.  But that was apparently just the semi-finals.

On Thursday night late, we got a whopper of a storm.  Winds at the coast were over 100 — category 1 hurricane force; we saw winds in the 60+ range, with gusts that had to be 80+ mph.  The storm hit overnight (as they always seem to do) and plunged virtually the whole region from Oregon to British Columbia into darkness.  We’ve been dealing with the carnage ever since.

We live out of town a fair bit, and we seem to lose power at the drop of a hat.  We always go dark before everyone, and get the lights back long after everyone else.  This time was no different, we lost power at 5pm on Thursday, as the storm just began.  And we have no power yet, three days later.  Given everything they tell us, it will be at least Wednesday or Thursday (a week!) before we see power again.  Traveling about yesterday it seemed like a war zone, with every other power pole broken or with a tree dangling over it.  The wires are draped like spaghetti, with insulators and transformers scattered asunder.  It appears as though Puget Sound Energy will have to rebuild the lines completely from scratch.  So while we see power coming on around the region, our wait is sure to be a long one.

But hey, you say, wait a minute.  How are you writing this blog entry?  Are you at an internet cafe, or a friend’s house that has regained power?  Nope.  We lost power for only 30 seconds, and never lost TV or internet connectivity.  We are warm, dry, and only moderately inconvenienced.  You see, we were prepared.  We have an automatic natural gas fired generator that powers much of the house.  We have also have a gas stove, heat, hot water, even clothes dryer.  The oven and A/C don’t work (not that we need A/C), and the outside Christmas lights are off.  But we can watch TV (satellite) and all the other things.

I was ridiculed for the generator when we first installed it years ago.  Neighbors thought their gas powered portable units were just fine.  When I upgraded it two months ago, it was seen by many (including my loving wife) as a needless expense.  Today, I’m feeling pretty darn smug.  My neighbors are standing in gasoline lines and filling tanks every couple of hours to get enough power to heat, refrigerate, and light a room or two.  We’re running the dishwasher and doing the laundry.  They’re reading by flashlight waiting for the cable TV and internet to return.  We’re watching “It’s a Wonderful Life” and surfing the internet on the T1 line.

So what does this have to do with you and your leadership?  The point is that preparations like this are wildly unpopular when they are done.  They cost a lot of money.  They take a lot of time.  They take thinking about things that aren’t in the line of daily business, and are, frankly, pretty darn unpleasant to think about.  People charged with making the preparations will complain, the accountants will wince, and the bottom line will take some kind of a hit.  They all want to play the odds, and they all think it’s overkill.  It takes a very deep kind of strength and will power to make it happen.  And that is leadership.

Then something happens, and you get a chance to feel awfully smart.  It may be that the organization survives when it might not have.  It may be that it simply gets back on line faster than others.  Or it may be simply that you handle something with relative ease that others need superhuman effort to survive.  Whatever it is, it makes it all worthwhile.

So I ask you: what is your calamity, and are you even remotely prepared?  Is it a natural disaster like earthquake, fire, flood, or wind?  Is it a business calamity like a major data loss?  Is it something more personal, like the death or departure of key players?  Whatever it is, have you really planned?  Have you spent the time and energy necessary to make it really survivable at a level that is not only tolerable, but a real competitive advantage?  Do you have the will and strength of leadership to make it a priority?  It’s never a bad time to think this all out.

Oh, and before you ask, yes I back up everything on all my computers.  Every night.  And store a backup off site.  I’ve had a disaster and never would suffer that again.  Yep, I’m feeling pretty smug about that too.