Panicking complicates the issue further and leads to serious problems. This organisation was losing market share and it was sharp in some months, so they brought in a new head, market share dropped further, and in turn he changed the team, process etc, still market share was dropping, he put enormous pressure in the system, given lot of credit, still market share dropped, worse it lead to huge bad debts. And now guess, they ll look for a new head, sure the market share will drop further. All this happened within a year time in an automobile industry where the lead time to make visible impact is minimum two years..
Looks stupid, that's what panicking does. The organization was cashing in on the strong brand loyalty for a very long time and there was no major drop in it's market share for years inspite of bureaucracy, gaps in products & processes. It took long time to bring in the right products and come out of the bureaucracy and by that time, its too late and there was a free fall.
When there is a free fall, first understand that its not a result of what you did today but yesteryears. Accept that the damage will be far worse than what it is today and provision for the same. Have a long term plan for making visible impact and in short term, measure the lead indicators and not the results. And for godsake don't panic and try short term results, that puts the entire organisation into jeopardy..
