If you’ve had a chance to take your family for a drive this summer, you may have heard that familiar question: “Are we there yet?” And who amongst us isn’t thinking the same thing as we travel down the recession highway looking for road signs that point towards the promised recovery.

This prolonged economic slump is forcing many firms to explore an entirely new playbook for how they are going to deal with 2010. The proper role of any firm leader, in my view, is to have the courage to interrogate reality and the capacity to help your partners do the same – as unpleasant or difficult as that reality may be to face.

Today, political pundits and the media are both claiming, "the recession has ended." So who am I to suggest that they are wrong? But I am going to!