Judy Smith Quotes

When there is a crisis, how you handle the crisis is just as important as the crisis.

My theory on an existing crisis is that you have to be very strategic about each case's unique elements. If a crisis involves a legal component, you need a communication strategy that complements the company's legal objective. A strategy for a plea deal is different than a case going to trial.

Amid the pressure of great events, a general principle gives no help.

You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it's an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.

What you say and do in a crisis matters.

We've got to be judged by how we do in times of crisis.

The actions you plan to take and the actions you actually decide to take [in a crisis] are not always the same.

Emergency does not create power.

Over the years, I've been involved in many business crises. I qualify this, since my crises have never involved life and death or the survival of the human race. But they are still crises.

We ought not to be looking for something spectacular but rather develop a plan in conjunction with the White House to work our way out of this problem over the next six weeks.

What one decides to do in crisis depends on one's philosophy of life, and that philosophy cannot be changed by an incident. If one hasn't any philosophy in crises, others make the decision.

Without a Mayaguez, or something comparable that we don't see in the immediate future, there is probably no one thing the President can do to himself to turn this situation around.

Incentives are not strategy, they are tactics. Defensive measures.

I want to assure your excellency that I am occupying myself permanently and jointly with my team to achieve a solution as soon as possible to this crisis, the principal objective being the safeguarding of the health and life of those who are inside.

The main thing during a crisis is discipline, to begin investing in time again after the crisis subsides.

September 11 was horrific, but I've been through enough crises before that I had my own pattern as to how to collect facts, what a leader should do, how to communicate with people, how to set up operating mechanisms to work our way through it.

I learned long ago on the battlefields of Vietnam that in a crisis, there is no substitute for clear-eyed leadership.

The art of government is to deal with threats before they become overwhelming.

American government has usually been pretty good in a crisis and pretty lousy at all other times.

Unilateralism in secret is sometimes necessary at the height of a crisis.

Crisis management … is the worst type of policy because you will miss things.

In our government we drive decisions either by leadership of by crises. If the leadership is not there, we rely on crises.

As soon as something really bad happens, I guarantee you Congress will act. I absolutely guarantee you Congress will act. But the question is, should we wait for that?

Unless confronted by an immediate, visible, or uncomfortable crisis, our nation's tendency is to take the security of the Western Hemisphere for granted.

Before becoming a college president, I helped over a dozen organizations find strategies to get through some very ugly crises.