The First 90 Days: Why the Start of the Year Determines Operational Success
The Celtic — January 5, 2026
Every year begins the same way.
Leaders return from the holidays with fresh calendars, renewed energy, and a quiet sense that this year will be different — more organized, more prepared, more intentional.
But for organizations responsible for public safety, healthcare delivery, education, infrastructure, maritime operations, industrial production, or continuity of government, the truth is far less forgiving:
The first 90 days of the year quietly decide whether the rest of the year will be manageable — or reactive.
Not because crises wait for March.
But because assumptions, priorities, and blind spots harden early — often without anyone noticing.
January Is When Risk Gets Locked In
From an emergency management and continuity perspective, the first quarter is where most organizations unknowingly commit to a risk posture they will spend the rest of the year trying to outrun.
In January, leaders:
finalize budgets
set staffing levels
approve project timelines
validate (or ignore) risk assumptions
decide what gets attention — and what gets deferred
choose which warnings feel “urgent” and which can wait
By the time Q2 arrives, those decisions are no longer flexible.
They’re institutional.
And when disruption arrives — whether through weather, cyber events, workforce loss, infrastructure failure, or misinformation — organizations don’t fail because they lacked plans.
They fail because they made quiet choices early that limited their options later.
The Dangerous Comfort of a “Clean Slate”
January creates a powerful illusion: that the year has reset.
But risk does not reset on January 1.
The same infrastructure that struggled in December is still aging.
The same workforce strain is still present — often worse after holidays and leave.
The same cyber vulnerabilities still exist.
The same climate patterns continue.
The same interdependencies remain fragile.
Emergency managers know this instinctively.
What often gets lost at senior levels is that optimism is not readiness — and hope is not a mitigation strategy.
The first 90 days matter because they are the last window where leaders can still change course without admitting something is broken.
What Actually Breaks First (And Why It Starts in Q1)
Having used continuity and mitigation plans during real-world events, one pattern shows up repeatedly:
The first failure is rarely the hazard itself.
It’s usually one of these:
a linchpin employee leaves
a vendor fails unexpectedly
a system behaves differently than assumed
a generator doesn’t perform under real load
decision authority isn’t as clear as the org chart suggests
communication moves slower than the rumor mill
leaders discover too late that “redundancy” was theoretical
These failures don’t originate during the incident.
They originate months earlier — when assumptions went unchallenged.
January is when those assumptions should be tested.
Why Practitioners View Q1 Differently
Celtic Edge was founded by emergency managers — people who have sat in EOCs, coordinated real incidents, and lived with the consequences of plans that didn’t hold up under pressure.
From that perspective, Q1 is not about ambition.
It’s about alignment.
It’s when emergency managers ask hard questions that often make others uncomfortable:
Are we planning for the world we’re in, or the one we wish we were still in?
Which risks are we quietly accepting without saying so?
Where are we overconfident?
What happens if the thing we’re avoiding addressing actually happens?
Organizations that encourage these conversations early tend to absorb shocks better later.
Organizations that defer them tend to spend the rest of the year reacting.
The Five Q1 Questions Leaders Should Be Asking Now
Before the end of March, leaders should be able to answer — honestly — the following:
What assumptions did we carry forward from last year without revalidating?
Which roles, systems, or vendors represent single points of failure today?
What risks are increasing faster than our plans account for?
Where are we relying on goodwill, heroics, or luck instead of capacity?
If disruption hits in the next 60 days, what will surprise us most?
These are not academic questions.
They are operational ones.
And they are far easier to address in January than in August.
The Cost of Waiting Until “Later”
One of the most common failure patterns in resilience work is delay disguised as prudence:
“Let’s revisit this after Q1.”
“We’ll address that once staffing stabilizes.”
“That’s on the roadmap for later this year.”
“We haven’t had an issue yet.”
By the time “later” arrives, the organization has already committed to the risk.
The first 90 days matter because they represent the last moment when change is still proactive — not corrective.
A Final Thought for the Start of the Year
Strong organizations don’t enter the year with confidence alone.
They enter it with clarity.
They use Q1 to challenge assumptions, surface uncomfortable truths, and strengthen weak points before pressure forces their hand.
Emergency managers have always understood this.
The organizations that thrive are the ones that listen.
The year will not slow down.
The risk environment will not simplify.
But the choices made now will determine whether the months ahead feel controlled — or chaotic.
That is why the first 90 days matter.
