Two a.m. in a dark alley or on a mountainside is not the time to discover your unit is missing a key piece of equipment, or that you are not sure of … - Wheeler L. Baker

When an individual's or group's basic survival is threatened, stress becomes tremendous, and productivity drops. Under these conditions a manager's ability to reason and maintain a proper focus on developing plans or solutions to a crisis is extremely difficult.

Never underestimate change. What seems simple at the top is magnified at lower echelons and is extremely disruptive. It is a festering crisis that needs attention from senior management or else loyalty, efficiency, and productivity will suffer.

Poorly managed corporations, disorganized businesses, and badly led service agencies experience crisis daily and most will eventually fail. In contrast, the danger is to well organized, smooth running institutions that may not recognize a building crisis. Too often, sound organizations rely on their normal modus operandi to pull them through a crisis. It might. But at what cost? And what if it does not pull them through?