A Pragmatic Approach to Crisis: 4 People and a Short List of Rules

Most crisis planning was built for a simpler environment: one crisis at a time, in one department, handled with one plan. That world has changed. A supply problem now becomes a cash problem, then a reputation problem, then a staff problem—often all at once. The challenge isn’t the old models; it’s that the conditions they were designed for no longer hold.

Fixing this doesn’t require a big budget or new hires, but rather, four things: a small standing team, a quick habit of asking what kind of problem you’re facing, a short list of rules you’ll bend under pressure and a regular habit of looking ahead.

What matters is deciding in advance who owns which decisions and what can wait when speed is critical.

The Problem

Most crisis plans assume the crisis stays put in the affected part of the organization. A cyberattack is an IT problem, supplier failure is a procurement problem and a bad news story is a communications problem. That used to be roughly true, but it isn’t anymore. Problems now jump between teams faster than most businesses can react, and by the time the right people are in the room, the crisis has already changed shape. This costs real money: slow decisions, mixed messages and fixes aimed at yesterday’s version of the problem.

APCO’s Mid-Year 2026 Geopolitical Radar shows how fast this moves: a single regional shock this year rippled through energy, shipping, insurance and cyber at once, and the resulting volatility is now a baseline rather than a one-off.

The obvious answer is to hire a great crisis manager. It’s a sound instinct, but it asks a lot of one person, because a complex crisis draws on very different strengths at different moments. The first hour rewards someone calm and decisive, comfortable making a call on half the facts. The next three months reward steady, patient work to rebuild trust with customers, regulators and staff. Spotting a slow-building problem early and managing the crisis once it erupts are different skills again. Few people combine all of these—which is a feature of the work, not a failing of anyone doing it.

Ask one person to cover all of it and the odds are stacked against them, however capable they are. A leader who excels in the room may be stretched thin across a months-long recovery; one who’s steady over the long haul may want more time in the opening hours than a fast-moving crisis allows. That’s not a knock on the individual—it’s simply more than any single role can reliably hold, and a costly gap to discover mid-crisis.

The First Fix: Put Together a Small Standing Team, Not a Superstar Hire

The fix costs far less than a new senior hire. It’s to name, in advance, three or four people you already have, each covering one part of the job, plus one additional person whose only extra task is deciding who leads at each stage. In practice this usually looks like:

1. One person who is good under pressure and comfortable making fast calls. This is often someone from operations or site management, not necessarily the most senior person in the building.
2. One person who is good at reading a messy, changing situation and adjusting the plan without panicking. This is often someone from risk, finance or IT who’s used to problems that don’t have a clean textbook answer.
3. One person who is good at steady, patient communication with customers, staff, regulators or the media. This is usually someone from communications, HR or customer service.
4. One person, usually a senior leader, whose job isn’t to do any of the above personally, but to recognize which of the above is needed in the moment and step aside once the right person is leading.

This team can be named on one page, agreed in an afternoon and tested with a two-hour tabletop exercise once a quarter. It costs a few hours of senior time, not a recruitment budget.

The Second Fix: Ask ‘What Kind of Problem Is This?’ Before You Act

A lot of cost in a crisis comes from mismatching the response to the problem. Teams sometimes reach for heavy outside support on a routine issue their own people have handled many times before, or—at the other extreme—treat a fast-changing, serious situation as business as usual. Before deciding what to do, take five minutes to ask three questions.

1. Have we dealt with something like this before, with a known fix? If yes, just use the known fix. Don’t overthink it.
2. Is this unfamiliar, but understood well by experts elsewhere? If yes, get the right specialist involved quickly, get their view, then act.
3. Is this genuinely new, unpredictable or changing fast, with no clear playbook? If yes, don’t commit to one big plan. Make a small, safe first move, see what happens, then adjust. Repeat.

This one habit, done consistently, stops businesses from either overspending on problems that were never that serious or underspending on problems that badly needed it.

The Third Fix: Agree Now What You’re Allowed to Skip Later

The single biggest cause of slow, costly crisis response isn’t lack of skill. It’s waiting for the usual signoffs when there’s no time for them. Fixing these costs nothing except an honest conversation early about what can be safely skipped later. In practice, this means agreeing in writing, on things like:

• Which spending limits can be raised temporarily, and who can approve them during a declared crisis.
• Which normal approval steps can be skipped for a short, defined period, and who takes responsibility for that decision.
• Who has the authority to speak publicly on the business’s behalf in the first hour, before the usual sign-off chain can be reached.

Agreeing on an approach in a calm meeting takes an hour. Working it out for the first time during a live crisis costs far more, in both wasted time and decisions made by whoever happens to be available.

None of this is about predicting the next crisis. It’s about deciding, while everything is calm, who does what and which processes can be skipped when speed matters more. Over time, it’s about building the habit of looking ahead, to spot the next problem early, before it becomes an expensive crisis. That groundwork costs an afternoon—not doing it costs far more, at the worst possible time.