Those of us in the acting profession hear those words regularly at the end of a particularly grueling day from a director attempting to extract perfection from a group of actors. (I’ll discuss my own celluloid exploits later).It’s appropriate to utter similar words at the end of 2006—a grueling, sometimes cruel world of corporation downsizing and a year when many companies heard, “Lights out!”

Let’s take a few moments and examine a potpourri of events that shaped our year and examine some that may have changed the way we act.

The year 2006 saw the layoff, downsizing, outsourcing or just plain firing of thousands of employees. Ford Motor Co., Northwest Airlines, Delphi and Radio Shack were among the legions of companies that ushered employees into the parking lots with cardboard boxes filled with years of memories. Company loyalty is no longer a badge of conviction; it’s a badge of fear as one awaits the corporate ax.

I hope 2007 will see a return to profitability and to those management traits that recognize that employees are the lifeblood of a company and thus should be treated fairly and with sensitivity. I won’t hold my breath, however.

As we move into 2007, many of us have already settled on our goals and aspirations. How many of us, though, have goals that stretch our workforce to perform at higher levels, and how many have goals that can be attained while sleepwalking? Let me explain.

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