Resilience

The quote below comes from an article on designing resilience into any system, especially the financial system. But I think its concepts directly apply to climbing – from setting up an anchor to leading a climb.

“Like sustainability, resilience encompasses both strategy and design, guiding how choices are made and how systems are created and includes:

• Diversity: Not relying on a single kind of solution means not suffering from a single point of failure. 
• Redundancy: Backup, backup, backup. Never leave yourself with just one path of escape or rescue.
• Decentralization: Centralized systems look strong, but when they fail, they fail catastrophically.
• Collaboration: We’re all in this together. Take advantage of collaborative technologies, especially those offering shared communication and information.
• Transparency: Don’t hide your systems; transparency makes it easier to figure out where a problem may lie. Share your plans and preparations, and listen when people point out flaws.
• Fail gracefully: Failure happens, so make sure that a failure state won’t make things worse than they are already.
• Flexibility: Be ready to change your plans when they’re not working the way you expected; don’t count on things remaining stable.
• Foresight: You can’t predict the future, but you can hear its footsteps approaching. Think and prepare.”