Have you ever had a manager just stop showing up to work?  

It happened to our clinical team back in 2013.  We didn’t even realize anything was wrong at first, she would occasionally be out for illness or family stuff – all normal things.  But after 3 days, we started getting worried.

And when our Program Director told us it would be indefinite because she was out on medical leave, we were initially concerned for her health because she was a great boss.

But that concern soon turned into questions – how do we cover her clients?  What meetings did she have coming up?  What administrative work needed to be done?  

Because we didn’t have her passwords or access to her computer, we had literally no way of finding out:

• She was seeing a client mid-treatment – what was their status?
• What meetings was she supposed to be attending with which external stakeholders?
• What meetings internally was she supposed to attend with internal Executive leaders?
• What administrative work was she in the middle of?

We weren’t panicking, we knew everyone would understand (one of the upsides of working in the mental health field), but we were still frustrated because we had no way of getting that information from her office (it was a mess) or her computer (we didn’t have the password).

So we did the only logical alternative – we split up the work and called all of our external stakeholders one by one to reconstruct her schedule and figure out what was needed.  

Our Program Director took care of all the internal meetings and administrative work.  

Stressful time for sure, but our team really pulled together.  No power struggles, no one tried to take over, we all just had a shared understanding that we needed to work together, divide up the workload, and collaborate to fill gaps/support each other.

This story came to my mind as I’ve been writing my book.   

I’ve been learning from many nonprofits that the ED isn’t always the biggest point of failure. It can be in any position, at any level.

But to prevent it: 

You need to ensure there are certain ways to store AND access key information.  

Our team was lucky, but if I could go back in time, this is what I’d tell 2013-me: It doesn’t have to be overly complicated, but here’s what you need to build:

1. Active Work in Progress (WIP)

There should be some active documentation of: 

• active projects and their status 
• any verbal commitments or vendors that are being utilized
• Any recurring  “invisible” tasks (the things that live in your head) that happen should be included here.

2. Key relationships/Contacts

This one includes both internal and external relationships (i.e., vendors, contractors, consultants, community partners).  Include: 

• Anyone that should be interfaced with weekly, monthly, etc.
• Any nuances of how they like to receive information/ be contacted.   
• Make sure this includes actual contact information for any external parties.

3. Important Deadlines

Much of your work probably lives in cycles and deadlines.  Reports, projects, service delivery, filing deadlines – all of it is due at some point to someone.  Make sure to keep it all documented and up to date.

4. Passwords/Tech Access

In my story, we didn’t have as much tech to think about (just one password), but in our much more technical age, you have a great deal more to consider:

• Where information lives (folders, drives, active files vs. archived files)
• Passwords for key software or computer access
• Templates for reports, contracts, emails
• Administrative access for critical systems (i.e., payroll, CRM, donor database, volunteer management software, etc)

5. Function specific operational details

In addition to the general info above, different functional areas have different specific needs you should be strongly keeping track of

I understand if this whole list looks like a lot of information – it is.

But if someone carrying the load isn’t there, you’d have to create/discover/investigate all this from scratch.

OR – alternatively, they took the time to document all this, you can easily get access to it, and it only takes you an hour to get up to speed and there’s as little disruption as possible.

There’s a popular quote about this: “If you don’t choose your hard, your hard will choose you”.

Which one would you pick?

Anything I’m missing? Reply back and let me know, I’d love to make sure I include it in the book I’m writing!

PS – if you’re looking for professional development for your leaders on a budget – my imPACT Leadership Academy was designed for sustainable, effective development on a budget.  Learn more on my site here: https://www.myleadershippotential.com/impact