Resilience: Pack the Umbrella Before the Sky Falls

“Oh the weather outside is frightful, this hurricane is not delightful......”

And somehow, “let it blow, let it blow, let it blow” does not feel like a particularly sound business continuity strategy.

Bad weather has a way of exposing our assumptions. We assume the electricity will stay on. The internet will work. The roads will be open. The person who knows how everything works will answer their phone.

Then something happens, and we discover our backup plan was largely a warm feeling.

The same thing happens in business. A supplier disappears. A system goes down. A key employee leaves. A project takes an expensive turn nobody saw coming, although three people later admit they “had a feeling.”

Suddenly, resilience becomes everybody’s favorite word.

But what does it actually look like?

Preparedness is what we put in place before disruption. Resilience is our ability to adapt, keep essential things going, and recover when disruption arrives. They work beautifully together, provided we give them something more substantial than a policy sitting in a folder.

You know the folder. “Business Continuity Plan FINAL Revised FINAL 2.”

Last opened during the previous audit.

We cannot schedule every storm, but we can make a few decisions while the lights are still on.

Start with what matters most. If you could keep only three activities running tomorrow, which would they be? Who depends on them? What would you need to keep them going?

Then look at the dependencies hiding underneath. Your beautifully documented process may rely on one person, one supplier, one password, or one piece of equipment that makes a worrying noise every Thursday.

That is a rather delicate foundation for confidence.

And please, test the plan.

Can someone else find the information? Can the team work through an interruption? Does the backup actually restore? A short practice run can reveal an awkward gap while you still have time to close it.

Discovering that your emergency contact list is stored exclusively on the system that has just failed is an educational experience. Preferably one we can avoid.

There is a personal side to this, too.

We sometimes talk about resilience as though it means being endlessly cheerful while carrying an increasingly ridiculous load.

“Keep going! You’ve got this!”

Possibly. But perhaps I would have it rather better with some help, a realistic deadline, and lunch.

Personal preparedness can mean learning a skill before you urgently need it, building relationships before you need support, or leaving enough breathing room in your diary to cope when Tuesday develops a personality.

Experience helps. So does knowing your limits. A resilient person can ask for help, change direction, and recognize when the original plan has stopped making sense.

This week, choose one small preparedness exercise.

Ask yourself: “If this became unavailable tomorrow, what would I do?”

“This” might be your laptop, your main supplier, your usual route to work, or the colleague who seems to hold the organization together with a spreadsheet and sheer force of will.

Then take one useful action. Check the backup. Share the knowledge. Update the number. Practice the handover.

At LG3, we believe learning should earn its place in your working day. It should help you spot the weakness, ask the awkward question, and make a better decision while there is still time.

Because when the weather turns frightful, a little preparation can be positively delightful.

Learn it. Grow it. Own it.