April 29, 2025 • 11 mins
Episode Title:
Eliminating Single Points of Failure | Things Leaders Do Podcast
Episode Description (Show Notes):
What happens if the one thing holding your organization together suddenly falls apart?
In today's episode of Things Leaders Do, Colby Morris breaks down the critical leadership concept of eliminating single points of failure—before they cripple your business.
You will hear a real-world story from Colby’s time leading hospital operations, where an entire system was unknowingly dependent on a single employee. Plus, we explore how many founders unknowingly become their own organization’s biggest risk—and how to fix it.
In this episode, you will learn:
- Why inspecting what is working is just as important as fixing what is broken
- How Andy Stanley’s leadership principle applies to scaling resilient teams
- The difference between managers who react and leaders who stress-test systems early
- Why burnout is your biggest hidden threat—and how to build sustainable, resilient teams
- How to involve your team in uncovering operational risks before they explode
Whether you are a CEO, a founder, or a team leader, you will walk away with actionable strategies to protect your organization from invisible risks—and build something that can truly scale.
If you want a resilient business, it starts today—with the right questions, the right systems, and the right leadership moves.
Resources and Links:
- Connect with Colby on LinkedIn: LinkedIn Profile (https://www.linkedin.com/in/colbymorris/)
- Book Colby for keynotes, corporate training, or webinars: www.nxtstepadvisors.com
- Contact Colby directly for speaking engagements or consulting: Colby@nxtstepadvisors.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
what if the thing keeping your organization
together is the same thing thatcould tear it apart, that one
person, that one process, thatone system that, if it broke or
burned out, would grind theentire machine to a stop?
That, my friend, is what'scalled a single point of failure
(00:25):
, and it's the blind spot thatcould cost you everything.
In this episode we're divinginto how to spot it, fix it, how
to protect your business beforeit falls apart.
Hey, listeners, I'm ColbyMorris.
Hey, listeners, I'm ColbyMorris and welcome back to the
TLD podcast.
I've led from every levelseriously, and this podcast is
(00:54):
designed to give you real worldleadership tools that you can
start using immediately.
Each episode is only 10 to 15minutes long, short enough to
fit into your commute and strongenough to change the way you
lead.
By the time you get there,let's go.
So I want to tell you a story.
Years ago, I was leadingoperations at a hospital.
Everything seemed fine,actually better than fine.
(01:19):
It was smooth, no complaints,no fires, just working.
It was smooth, no complaints,no fires, just working.
One day I asked myself what'ssomething going so well that I
haven't checked on it in months?
The answer Our linen andlaundry service.
It was run off site, but weowned it.
(01:40):
There was never a delay, nevera patient without sheets, not
even a blip.
So I drove down to see it inaction and there he was one man
running the whole show,supervising, covering for two
(02:03):
sick employees, doing 10-hourshifts and still showing up like
it was no big deal.
When I asked how he was doingit all, he smiled and said well,
I've got surgery in a month.
I'll be out for a few weeksafter that.
That was our single point offailure One guy, one surgery,
one risk away from a completesystem shutdown.
(02:26):
But because we caught it intime, we fixed it, we
cross-trained, we mapped out theprocess, we built a backup plan
and we went out for surgery.
We had bumps, okay, but wedidn't break.
And that's the goal Resiliencebefore crisis.
Because if I hadn't asked thequestion, the hospital would
(02:50):
have had a massive operationalfailure Because of linens.
So here's the main point I wantto get through.
Well, it's the first main pointIf you don't know why it's
working, you won't know how tofix it when it breaks.
Andy Stanley said it best.
He said if you don't know whysomething's working when it is,
(03:12):
you won't know how to fix itwhen it isn't.
As leaders, we're just wired tofix what's broken, but elite
leaders, they investigate what'sworking, because working
doesn't always mean resilient.
Sometimes that's just duct tape, adrenaline and hope.
(03:34):
And here's the hard truth,especially for my fellow
founders out there you might bethe single point of failure.
If your business depends on youselling, hiring, solving and
deciding every major thing.
You aren't leading a business,you're babysitting a bomb.
(03:55):
So what do you do?
You go deeper.
You ask the right questionsOkay, why is this working?
Who is behind it?
What invisible factors make itwork?
What happens if that person,vendor or tool disappears
tomorrow or tool disappearstomorrow?
(04:19):
And then document the how, notjust the what Okay.
Don't just capture that it'sworking.
Capture how it's being done,what systems are involved, what
decisions are consistently made,what skills are being applied.
If you can't clone the process,you don't own the process, okay
(04:45):
.
And third, stress test thesystem.
Pull key people off of projectstemporarily Okay.
Do that and see what fallsthrough the cracks.
Catch the hidden dependencywhile it's manageable Okay.
And then build backup plans andpractice them.
Train multiple people to handleessential systems.
(05:08):
Make sure that that knowledgeis shared, not siloed Okay.
Turn one person expertise intoteam-wide resilience.
When you build a business that'snot dependent on one person or
worse, yourself you buildsomething that can scale without
(05:30):
crumbling.
All right.
Main point number twoeverything works until it
doesn't.
So stress test it now.
I had a friend in the militaryand he told me that they had an
old saying that two is one andone is none.
If you've only got one waysomething can work, then you
(05:55):
don't have a system, you have arisk, and most leaders don't see
that risk until the day itcollapses.
You need to stress test yoursystems before the stress hits.
Here's how Number one play thewhat if?
Across every department.
What if the system goes down?
(06:18):
What if the vendor fails?
What if a team lead resignstoday and then?
Two build redundancy before youneed it.
Have backup vendors ready.
Cross-train secondary leadersfor critical systems.
Ensure every core process has adocumented, shareable SOP.
(06:41):
And three stimulate absence andloss.
Don't wait until someone's out.
If you're just waiting untilsomeone's out sick, you need to
plan it.
Okay, rotate people into backuproles.
Run drills, for someone isunavailable, okay, track how
(07:02):
fast your team adapts and whatslows them down.
Why?
Because managers wait forcracks to appear, leaders though
.
They go looking for them beforethe earthquake.
Resilient organizations aren'tbuilt during a crisis.
(07:22):
They're built because leaderschoose to pressurize and prepare
before the cracks appear.
All right.
Point three burnout.
Is the canary in the coal mineman?
This one's going to get deep.
Let's talk about the biggesthidden single point of failure
(07:45):
on your team burnout.
According to Gallup, 76% ofemployees experience burnout at
least sometimes and 28% feelburned out very often or always.
Let that sink in.
Another way to say, it is morethan one in four.
People on your team could beright on the edge and you may
(08:08):
not even know it.
People on your team could beright on the edge and you may
not even know it.
And when burnout hits, it's notjust a loss of energy, it's a
loss of knowledge, it's a lossof relationships, a loss of
momentum.
If one burned out person is theonly one who knows how a system
works, your business justwalked into a minefield.
(08:30):
So, instead of celebrating thehero who saves the day,
celebrate documentation,normalize, writing down key
processes.
Make it easy and expected, notoptional.
Celebrate cross-training.
Build skill trees, not skillsilos.
(08:50):
Everyone should know how tostep into another role, even
imperfectly.
And then delegation Rewardleaders who empower others, not
who hoard power and thencelebrate shared ownership.
Make resilience a team sport,not a personal burden.
(09:14):
If resilience isn't part of yourculture, you're setting
yourself up to be oneresignation away from disaster.
Look, it's time to go first.
Leadership isn't just aboutputting out fires.
It's about preventing the onesyou never saw coming.
(09:35):
So here's your action plan forthis week Call a meeting,
challenge your leadership teamto find the hidden, single
points of failure.
Push them to talk to their teams, especially the frontline staff
.
Stay curious, listen hard,because the real risks usually
(09:58):
aren't in the boardroom.
They're buried deep in theday-to-day grind.
If you want a resilientbusiness, it starts by asking
the hard questions today beforeyou're scrambling for answers
tomorrow.
Hey, if this episode helped youthink differently about your
(10:19):
leadership, I'd love to connectyou can find me on LinkedIn and
there's a link in the show notesfor that and you can join the
conversation with thousands ofother leaders learning how to
build better teams and strongerorganizations.
And if your company orleadership team could use a
keynote speaker, corporatetrainer or a workshop to dig
into topics like this and more,I'd love to talk, reach out and
(10:42):
let's build something that lasts.
And you know why?
Because those are the thingsthat leaders do.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Thank you for listening to Things Leaders Do.
If you're looking for more tipson how to be a better leader,
be sure to subscribe to thepodcast and listen to next
week's episode.
Until next time, keep workingon being a better leader by
doing the things that leaders do.
what if the thing keeping your organization
together is the same thing thatcould tear it apart, that one
person, that one process, thatone system that, if it broke or
burned out, would grind theentire machine to a stop?
That, my friend, is what'scalled a single point of failure
(00:25):
, and it's the blind spot thatcould cost you everything.
In this episode we're divinginto how to spot it, fix it, how
to protect your business beforeit falls apart.
Hey, listeners, I'm ColbyMorris.
Hey, listeners, I'm ColbyMorris and welcome back to the
TLD podcast.
I've led from every levelseriously, and this podcast is
(00:54):
designed to give you real worldleadership tools that you can
start using immediately.
Each episode is only 10 to 15minutes long, short enough to
fit into your commute and strongenough to change the way you
lead.
By the time you get there,let's go.
So I want to tell you a story.
Years ago, I was leadingoperations at a hospital.
Everything seemed fine,actually better than fine.
(01:19):
It was smooth, no complaints,no fires, just working.
It was smooth, no complaints,no fires, just working.
One day I asked myself what'ssomething going so well that I
haven't checked on it in months?
The answer Our linen andlaundry service.
It was run off site, but weowned it.
(01:40):
There was never a delay, nevera patient without sheets, not
even a blip.
So I drove down to see it inaction and there he was one man
running the whole show,supervising, covering for two
(02:03):
sick employees, doing 10-hourshifts and still showing up like
it was no big deal.
When I asked how he was doingit all, he smiled and said well,
I've got surgery in a month.
I'll be out for a few weeksafter that.
That was our single point offailure One guy, one surgery,
one risk away from a completesystem shutdown.
(02:26):
But because we caught it intime, we fixed it, we
cross-trained, we mapped out theprocess, we built a backup plan
and we went out for surgery.
We had bumps, okay, but wedidn't break.
And that's the goal Resiliencebefore crisis.
Because if I hadn't asked thequestion, the hospital would
(02:50):
have had a massive operationalfailure Because of linens.
So here's the main point I wantto get through.
Well, it's the first main pointIf you don't know why it's
working, you won't know how tofix it when it breaks.
Andy Stanley said it best.
He said if you don't know whysomething's working when it is,
(03:12):
you won't know how to fix itwhen it isn't.
As leaders, we're just wired tofix what's broken, but elite
leaders, they investigate what'sworking, because working
doesn't always mean resilient.
Sometimes that's just duct tape, adrenaline and hope.
(03:34):
And here's the hard truth,especially for my fellow
founders out there you might bethe single point of failure.
If your business depends on youselling, hiring, solving and
deciding every major thing.
You aren't leading a business,you're babysitting a bomb.
(03:55):
So what do you do?
You go deeper.
You ask the right questionsOkay, why is this working?
Who is behind it?
What invisible factors make itwork?
What happens if that person,vendor or tool disappears
tomorrow or tool disappearstomorrow?
(04:19):
And then document the how, notjust the what Okay.
Don't just capture that it'sworking.
Capture how it's being done,what systems are involved, what
decisions are consistently made,what skills are being applied.
If you can't clone the process,you don't own the process, okay
(04:45):
.
And third, stress test thesystem.
Pull key people off of projectstemporarily Okay.
Do that and see what fallsthrough the cracks.
Catch the hidden dependencywhile it's manageable Okay.
And then build backup plans andpractice them.
Train multiple people to handleessential systems.
(05:08):
Make sure that that knowledgeis shared, not siloed Okay.
Turn one person expertise intoteam-wide resilience.
When you build a business that'snot dependent on one person or
worse, yourself you buildsomething that can scale without
(05:30):
crumbling.
All right.
Main point number twoeverything works until it
doesn't.
So stress test it now.
I had a friend in the militaryand he told me that they had an
old saying that two is one andone is none.
If you've only got one waysomething can work, then you
(05:55):
don't have a system, you have arisk, and most leaders don't see
that risk until the day itcollapses.
You need to stress test yoursystems before the stress hits.
Here's how Number one play thewhat if?
Across every department.
What if the system goes down?
(06:18):
What if the vendor fails?
What if a team lead resignstoday and then?
Two build redundancy before youneed it.
Have backup vendors ready.
Cross-train secondary leadersfor critical systems.
Ensure every core process has adocumented, shareable SOP.
(06:41):
And three stimulate absence andloss.
Don't wait until someone's out.
If you're just waiting untilsomeone's out sick, you need to
plan it.
Okay, rotate people into backuproles.
Run drills, for someone isunavailable, okay, track how
(07:02):
fast your team adapts and whatslows them down.
Why?
Because managers wait forcracks to appear, leaders though
.
They go looking for them beforethe earthquake.
Resilient organizations aren'tbuilt during a crisis.
(07:22):
They're built because leaderschoose to pressurize and prepare
before the cracks appear.
All right.
Point three burnout.
Is the canary in the coal mineman?
This one's going to get deep.
Let's talk about the biggesthidden single point of failure
(07:45):
on your team burnout.
According to Gallup, 76% ofemployees experience burnout at
least sometimes and 28% feelburned out very often or always.
Let that sink in.
Another way to say, it is morethan one in four.
People on your team could beright on the edge and you may
(08:08):
not even know it.
People on your team could beright on the edge and you may
not even know it.
And when burnout hits, it's notjust a loss of energy, it's a
loss of knowledge, it's a lossof relationships, a loss of
momentum.
If one burned out person is theonly one who knows how a system
works, your business justwalked into a minefield.
(08:30):
So, instead of celebrating thehero who saves the day,
celebrate documentation,normalize, writing down key
processes.
Make it easy and expected, notoptional.
Celebrate cross-training.
Build skill trees, not skillsilos.
(08:50):
Everyone should know how tostep into another role, even
imperfectly.
And then delegation Rewardleaders who empower others, not
who hoard power and thencelebrate shared ownership.
Make resilience a team sport,not a personal burden.
(09:14):
If resilience isn't part of yourculture, you're setting
yourself up to be oneresignation away from disaster.
Look, it's time to go first.
Leadership isn't just aboutputting out fires.
It's about preventing the onesyou never saw coming.
(09:35):
So here's your action plan forthis week Call a meeting,
challenge your leadership teamto find the hidden, single
points of failure.
Push them to talk to their teams, especially the frontline staff
.
Stay curious, listen hard,because the real risks usually
(09:58):
aren't in the boardroom.
They're buried deep in theday-to-day grind.
If you want a resilientbusiness, it starts by asking
the hard questions today beforeyou're scrambling for answers
tomorrow.
Hey, if this episode helped youthink differently about your
(10:19):
leadership, I'd love to connectyou can find me on LinkedIn and
there's a link in the show notesfor that and you can join the
conversation with thousands ofother leaders learning how to
build better teams and strongerorganizations.
And if your company orleadership team could use a
keynote speaker, corporatetrainer or a workshop to dig
into topics like this and more,I'd love to talk, reach out and
(10:42):
let's build something that lasts.
And you know why?
Because those are the thingsthat leaders do.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Thank you for listening to Things Leaders Do.
If you're looking for more tipson how to be a better leader,
be sure to subscribe to thepodcast and listen to next
week's episode.
Until next time, keep workingon being a better leader by
doing the things that leaders do.
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