After the Xerox board elected Anne M. Mulcahy to serve as CEO on August 1, 2001, she sought and received advice from several people. One of them provided what she found to be the best advice, when responding to a severe crisis:

1. Get the ox out of the ditch.

2. Forget about assigning blame; there’ll be time for that later.

3. Find out why it happened.

4. Make certain it never happens again.

Excellent advice indeed.