OK, we're all involved in this recession and tough decisions must be made. You have to deal with the pain of today and you probably struggle with focusing on tomorrow. But now is the time to plan for growth. If you wait until it's upon you, it's too late: your competitor who has planned for growth will be grabbing your opportunities.

Start with a new business plan. That's right, a new plan - because with dramatic resource reductions, your business has already gone through or will go through a dramatic change, and you are a different business. That new plan should have a well identified roadmap for growth.

What's most important to your new plan is staffing. Your headcount is likely reduced. Therefore, don't just cut people based on a job title or time in service or pay. These people are the key to your company taking advantage of growth opportunities. Keep or hire strong people who enjoy performing multiple roles within the company and empower them.

Provide them with the confidence and the resources to perform multiple roles. Give them management training, give them technical training and give them the test sets, computers and software that could easily triple their efficiency.

I know they may be working long hours in order to make up for the lack of a sufficient workforce but if you don't force the training now, they'll be running in place on a treadmill—both now and when you need them to support your growth as the economy begins moving up.

Develop an empowered employee who says, "I believe in this company because they believe in me, and I enjoy the challenge of performing and succeeding at diverse roles instead of being the employee who says I'm lucky I have a job." The employee who just comes to work thankful for a paycheck isn't the strong employee that you need to get you through tough times and take you to growth.

Maximize what you have: people and tools. Reward them and invest in them.

What are your thoughts on this recession? Is your company making the right decisions? I challenge you to TALK BACK.