I was listening to Mark Carney’s excellent book “Value(s)”, and I really liked the below quotation, which the author attributes (in part or in whole) to Tim Geithner, former US Treasury Secretary.
The only goal in a panic is to stop it. Leaders do this by, as Napoleon would demand of his generals, marching towards the sound of gunfire. And this requires mobilising quickly.
In this spirit, as discussed in chapter 7, Tim Geithner’s refrain was “plan beats no plan”. A plan provides the necessary clarity of mind by focusing efforts and uniting people around a common goal. Even a strategy that’s half baked but gets you out of immediate danger is better than waiting for the perfect answer and being annihilated.
Value(s), Chapter 13, Mark Carney
I don’t have a larger point here or anything more insightful to add (I’m certainly not going to go into another anti-government polemic at 10:20pm), but I really like this attitude in dealing with a crisis.