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The U.S. defense industry has seen more than 50% of its market disappear, and the companies that make up the industry have faced the need for the equivalent of self-administered surgery with no insurance, no anesthetic, and no assurance of long-term health. In 1995, Martin Marietta and Lockheed combined to form Lockheed Martin. That company has emerged in a most coveted role: survivor. In fact, it has seen its stock price nearly double in less than two years. In this article, CEO Norman Augustine relates the company's experience and offers some difficult--and painful--prescriptions. Companies in technology-driven industries must reinvent themselves continually. The bad news is that change requires hard decisions. The good news is that success awaits organizations willing to make those decisions.

New reports announcing that yet another business has stumbled into a crisis--often without warning and through no direct fault of its management--seem as regular as the tide. And the spectrum of business crises is so wide that it is impossible to list each type. On a single day this year, the Washington Post reported a series of crashes suffered by American Eagle Airlines, the bankruptcy of Orange County, and Intel's travails with its Pentium microprocessor. Fortunately, almost every crisis contains within itself the seeds of success as well as the roots of failure. Finding, cultivating, and harvesting that potential success is the essence of crisis management.