US Med-Equip is a Houston-based company that rents movable medical devices like respiratory equipment, incubators and infusion equipment to hospitals and health care centers across the country and around the world. Founded in 2003, USME was a fledgling company in Texas and Louisiana when Hurricane Katrina hit just two years later. They worked tirelessly by helping hospitals meet the incredible demand for medical equipment after the natural disaster. Because of the hurricane, many of their hospital customers were in financial turmoil, having had damage to or lost their facilities, and were therefore slowing payments to USME. The Company managed through and they learned a lot of important lessons on crisis management, which has helped them every subsequent crisis through the one we are facing today with COVID-19.

We are in an unprecedented situation. Traditional crisis response tactics won’t be enough: the global shutdown is creating enormous disruptions, and we need to figure out how to get our businesses safely to the other side of the crisis. To set ourselves up to survive the ongoing storm, we need to act quickly and decisively. Here are 10 ways you can lead your organization through the crisis: