The economic downturn has caused heartache, sleepless nights, fatigue, and excessive stress for many people at all levels of most companies this past year. It was no different for me. The company I work for (an aerospace component manufacturing and repair company) started seeing the downturn in July of 2008. In January of 2009, my divisional sales were only 63 percent of what they had been in July of 2008. In February, we hit the bottom and then, by April, we stabilized around 68 percent of July sales and only 56 percent of the 2008 peak. By February, we had reduced our labor force at the same rate that sales dropped; yet we continued to post negative profits each month. Our traditional reaction was not helping anymore; we needed a new plan, but what?

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