b'Management2. Centralized policy does not matterif it does not get local support. COVID teaches that greatFour Principles for Managing Networksexpectations in Washington can evaporate without active partnerships to bring those expectations to life. Some partnerships must involve nongovernmental entities, like private companies and nonprofits, while others must involve state and local governments. The federal governments foremost responsibility in crises is not only to design policies, but also to design the partnerships required to bring those policies to life. The federal government can help lead the charge against a widespread crisis, but its primary responsibility often involves obtaining buy-in from and coordinating the efforts of states, counties, and cities.3. Governments need a language to talk about crisesand the language is data. Data is key to understanding a problem well enough to develop a solution. But the various players responding to a crisis must be able to communicate with one another using consistent terms, definitions, and methodology for the data. COVID showed that data matter more than many government officials realized, and that data can help create a language for defining a crisis, laying out a plan for solving it and tracking success. The federal government must lead, with federal experts defining a common language to ensure coordinated communication about issues that matterin a way that helps drive and track effective state and local action. 4. Emergencies are fought with goods, services, and logisticsbut state and local governments cannot preserve supply chains alone. Solutions to many major crises, from wildfires to hurricanes to the pandemic, require assets like hoses, sandbags, masks, and vaccines. Large-scale crises often require large-scale mobilization of supplies and equipment; mobilization on a large, coordinated scale typically falls beyond the reach of even the largest of5. Governments must grow needed expertiseand the nations subgovernments. To achieve a rapid, effectivewake from any delusions of confidence. Steering response, the nation needs to rely on the federal governmentthrough complex crisesand the complex systems for creating and leveraging needed national supply chains.we need to tackle themrelies on people. The pandemic Central coordination for their procurement prevents thedemonstrated an increasing shortage of the necessary various players involved from competing against one another,personnel to deal with a health care crisis. The nation must which can lead to higher prices and unnecessary shortages. develop better means for growing the next generation of experts in multiple fields who can serve in times of need. Listening to competing scientific views is not ever easy, but the more complex the crisis, the greater the need for insights from those trained to wrestle with them. The nation not only needs to find a place in public debate for experts, but also to build the people pipeline today to ensure a sufficient supply of experts now for the future. 2022 IBM Center for The Business of Government 89'