What can you do?

Today I had one of the more challenging conversations with the client than I've had in the last little while.  Up until now, I've been fortunate that most of my clients haven't been severely affected by the recession.  Today that was different.

This is a clientthat has had to lay off 33% of their workforce and was not seeing a lot of "immediate" light at the end of the tunnel.  As our conversation progressed for about an hour,it was getting pretty depressing because it didn't seem like anything they could do in the next 30 days would make much of a difference.  Most of the conversation was about things to make the business smaller rather than grow it.

We finally got to the point where we started looking at things that these two leaders could that do.  As soon as our conversation turned towards what was possible, within their control, the entire dynamic changed.  Sure, we didn't see immediate opportunities for scads of new business, but each leader felt that they could take some specific actions that were within their control.  It ended up quite positive.  And it wasn't phony baloney positive thinking, it was real "here's what I'm going to do" actions.

What can you do today?  What is within your control?