There are some mistakes that are committed by managers at the start of a recession and when the full impact of the recession is felt. The signs are already there for many businesses: deteriorating sales forecasts, declining revenue growth and contracts being renegotiated.

The danger for managers is its inability and/or unpreparedness to deal with this new situation. The biggest danger remains that increased pressure to do something radical to save the business may lead to poorly conceived actions. For some reasons, management gurus have been saying for quite a while that the 21st Century Manager should have the skills to work under pressure. So, here we are: living these testing times.

We should NOT:

1) drive morale to an all-time low.
2) lose the corporate identity we built with so much hard work.
3) stop recruiting the best talent available.
4) prompt top talent to desert.
5) ignore opportunities to increase revenue.
6) stop our exploration of additional sources of revenue.
7) lose key skills and information.
8) cancel capital projects that are needed for the upturn.
9) outsource processes that are not ready to transfer .
10) wander the business and industry intelligence acquired with so much efforts.

There are other things that our readers would like to add to this list so as to make sure that business managers do not have easy recourse to poorly conceived actions. We need to prepare ourselves to go through the hard times with readiness. And when the economy stabilizes, we will recover easier, better and faster than those who have not well managed the difficult times.

Areff Salauroo