under normal conditions. Incidently, the more conscientious a person is, the 

 more likely it is that this will happen. Therefore, deliberate steps should 

 be taken to guard against excessive fatigue during crisis situations. It is 

 wise personal management to keep one's body in top operating condition at a 

 time when great demands are being made of it. 



During the crisis, manpower and materials most likely will be inadequate 

 to do all that needs to be done. If resources are adequate, either the office 

 is overstaffed or the full extent of the crisis has not been explored. To 

 maximize results, it is necessary to establish a priority system. Sufficient 

 resources must be al-lotted to the most important activities. This means, of 

 course, dealing with conflicting interests. There will be numerous people 

 who feel that their needs are number one. But all needs cannot be number 

 one, so a judgment of the situation will be necessary. 



After priorities have been established, even on the soundest basis, it is 

 possible that a low-priority need may rise to a high-priority need. There- 

 fore, priorities should constantly be reexamined. An item on the priority 

 list may be elevated because of the negative possibilities, even though this 

 activity may not be ^ery important. 



AFTER 



After the crisis, it is useful to conduct a thorough, critical, and "no- 

 holds barred" post mortem, going into what, when, who, why, where, and how. 

 Understanding what happened this time helps in dealing with the next time and 

 provides the opportunity to change the things that went poorly. A good 

 "after" phase is an investment in the future, because nothing can be done to 

 change what has happened in the past. 



As stated earlier, the "before" phase is the most important and the 

 phase in which you should spend your energy. There is one unexpected by- 

 product of crisis management: disciplining of the mind and organizing the 

 thoughts. These \/ery skills can be applied to the smaller personal crisis 

 that occur eventually in almost everyone's life. 



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