Almost everything we do is done with others. Bring the team with you by assessing the situation, establishing a sense of order, and executing the agreed-upon plan to its limits. If and when it becomes apparent the plan won’t meet the needs, form and execute a new one and make it real. Attempting to influence what you can't is counterproductive. Renegotiate any necessary agreements, listen, and adapt as a team by leveraging time and the best available data and tools.

In medical mass casualty or disease response situations an approach to decision-making regarding the allocation of limited resources considers ethical criteria relating to need. These can include likelihood of benefit, urgency of need, change in quality of life, duration of benefit, resource level required for success, comorbidities that affect outcomes and availability of qualified personnel. It needs to be understood that decisions made during crisis are likely to change and adapt from hour to hour, because situational awareness, needs and resource availability also rapidly change. Trust, candid communication, delegation of authority, contingency planning, support for frontline decision-makers and documentation are especially important.

First of all, always be aware of your available resources and where those resources are located. Even better if you also know the decision flow required to access them. Next, identify the possible pain points for these resources to find their way to where they are needed. Wasting time and manpower on finding these things during a crisis is time wasted. Time you could have used to solve the issue at hand. Set up a business continuity plan for even crisis management capabilities themselves. Not just the business the crisis management framework is built to protect. And lastly, exercise, exercise, exercise!