Crisis management is sufficiently complex that organizations should have a permanent trained crisis management team. A conversation I had recently with an FBI agent illuminates this point. friend, who trains police departments to handle hostage taking or terrorist situations, ad- vises them to consider a wide range of responses It is often more effective to talk with a terrorist or a hostage taker, for example, than to storm the barricades. But when unprepared, untrained police officers are faced with this kind of crisis, they will usually do the "easiest" thing-react with force. Without training, they are unprepared to respond to a crisis in a measured, thoughtful fashion For this reason, the FBI assumes that whenever there is a persistent and repeated threat to life, limb or property, a specially trained unit needs to deal with that threat