Your company's tanking. Your biggest customer just went AWOL. A once-sleeping competitor has turned into your worst nightmare. Your operation is headed for the ditch -- and it's up to you to fix it. Fast. What's your first move: Fire people to send a message? Try to calm everyone down? Take action on your own plan and ignore what others say? (Hey, they're the ones who caused the mess, right?) We asked twelve turnaround experts, from professors to investors to managers, who have brought companies back from the brink, to give us their recipe for rescue. Here's the 411 on the 911.

ndisesa@aol.com [1]) started her career as a copywriter and worked her way up to midlevel creative-director titles at two advertising agencies: Young & Rubicam and McCann-Erickson. In 1991, she moved to J. Walter Thompson as executive creative director, where she was part of a successful turnaround effort. In 1994, she returned to McCann -- itself in a turnaround situation at the time -- as executive creative director of the New York office. She has been the chairman and chief creative officer for two years.

henk.bremer@capgemini.nl [2]) founded and now leads Cap Gemini Ernst & Young Management Sourcing BV, which places "turnaround managers" in troubled companies for temporary engagements. Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, the parent company, is a management and IT consulting firm based in Paris.

charlie.feld@feldgroup.com [3]) is founder and CEO of the Feld Group, a technology and management consulting company that works with companies in turnaround situations. Previously, he has acted as chief information officer and e-leader for Delta Air Lines. The Delta technology team received the 2000 Smithsonian Award for Technology Innovation in Transportation.

cpeck@corp.theglobe.com [4]) went to theglobe.com from the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), where he had served as senior VP of marketing, product, and organizational development. At the AICPA, he led a successful, organization-wide reengineering effort.

useem@wharton.upenn.edu [5]) is professor of management and director of the Center for Leadership and Change at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of The Leadership Moment: Nine True Stories of Triumph and Disaster and Their Lessons for Us All (Times Books, 1998). To experience such moments, he annually organizes the Wharton Leadership Trek to Mt. Everest.

march@radcliffe.edu [6]) is the dean of the Radcliffe Center for Educational Programs, a division of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. Since 1996, she has been instrumental in transitioning the once-independent Radcliffe College into one of ten schools at Harvard University.

aedmondson@hbs.edu [7]) is an assistant professor at the Harvard Business School, where she teaches a required first-year course called "Technology and Operations Management." She has taught courses in organizational behavior, organizational learning, new-product development, and team management for such organizations as the American Heart Association, Boston Consulting Group, Federal Express, Johnson & Johnson, Monitor Co., and Nortel. She also consults on team effectiveness and change management.

sjbracegirdle@cs.com [8]) has 25 years of business experience, including 10 years as managing director of a number of international companies. He specializes in leading complex company restructurings and management turnarounds.

karl.wessely@siemens.at [9]) is the head of the Siemens Forum Vienna and is responsible for the Academy of Life, an initiative that brings young managers into contact with people who have led a life of exceptional achievement. He studied literature, philosophy, history, and theology at the University of Vienna and worked as a journalist for the Austrian Press Agency. He has worked for the past 10 years at Siemens AG Austria in public relations and advertising.