“I have to admit, Greg, I’m surprised to hear from you so soon, but then I suppose I shouldn’t be. I had a really good feeling at Friday’s meeting. Your team has a strong sense of urgency and a desire to learn. All too often following a first visit, leadership teams waste weeks, months, and in some cases a year or more determining what to do next rather than quickly taking action. Given the cost of delay we discussed yesterday, I think you just saved a bunch of money! And given your sense of urgency, I’m going to reschedule a couple of personal engagements so that I can be available Thursday and Friday of next week to meet with you if you want to move that quickly. We’ll need two days to conduct some additional education, clarify the steps needed to help you solve some of those business problems we discussed, go through the maturity maps, and define at least the first improvement milestone to begin moving your company ahead. I know that’s a lot of time for your team, but there is a lot to accomplish. Can you make the session fit into your schedule?”

“I’m going to make those days available. Cynthia will probably give me some grief about rearranging my schedule, but I believe we must keep moving now that the dog thinks he’s seen the hare! I’ll do everything I can to have the entire team here, but even if we’re missing someone, I still want to move ahead. We need to get a handle quickly on what to do next.”

By sheer coincidence, Roxanne had three days of vacation scheduled at that time but no specific plans that couldn’t be changed. Her husband would be working that week; but she had planned a few down days just to relax and get caught up on domestic responsibilities. She agreed to meet with Greg and his team on such short notice because she knew Greg wanted to get started quickly on an improvement plan. She also knew from many years in business that she had to respond promptly to her clients’ enthusiasm before it waned. Her downtime could wait, but she had now blown her weekend plans as well, given the time it would take to prepare a presentation to meet Cosmetics Products’ needs. With Roxanne, as well as with the rest of her colleagues, income is necessary but her real motivation and excitement lies in helping companies and people like Greg accomplish more than they ever thought possible. That’s the real reward for her; and she had an especially good feeling about the opportunity with Cosmetics Products.

Fortunately, all Greg’s direct reports were in town and cleared their schedules for the two-day session. They were already assembled when Greg and Roxanne entered the conference room. Following a few minutes of getting reacquainted, Roxanne jumped into the agenda she and Greg had prepared.

“Our objective over the next three days is to take you to another level of education and understanding about the concepts and principles of Class A, to continue the Diagnostic assessment to determine in more detail your organizational maturity, to agree on and clarify the first business milestone or milestones you need to attack; and then to decide on the next steps you need to take as a leadership team. Agreed?” There were nods around the table. Roxanne continued. “I’m sure Stan Stevens talked about the People, Processes, and Tools diagram in his seminar. Greg and David, do you recall the three overlapping circles, the ‘three balls’ as he may have called them?” They nodded their heads.

“When a company embarks on a significant business and culture change such as you’re contemplating, you need to understand why that model is so important.”

Roxanne went to the chart pad and wrote:

She turned to the team and said, “When related to managing the business and the supply chain, which of these three elements is most important to the successful operation of a business?” The discussion that followed got the team quickly involved, but no consensus emerged. So she asked individuals to vote for just one of the three. As she recorded responses, it was clear that People and Processes both came ahead of Tools.

“So you’re telling me that of the three, Tools such as your ERP system, is of lesser importance. Fine. I can accept that. Now let me ask you another question.

“On which of these three have you spent the most effort, money, and management attention?” The nervous laughter in the room told Roxanne that she had just made her point. “Your reaction tells me that, like most companies, you spent most of your time and money on the element that you ranked least important. I’m not saying you didn’t spend a good deal of money on training your people in how to use the tools, but I want you to consider these questions:

After a short pause, Roxanne continued. “Like most companies, you probably weren’t even aware that you needed to do these things. Here’s the hard truth: if you didn’t provide this education, you have little hope of effectively using such powerful tools, or of generating the benefits you may have been counting on.”

These rhetorical questions resulted in even more discomfort and a good deal of quiet introspection. Greg couldn’t relate to most of the questions, because he wasn’t around Cosmetics Products at that time. But it was clear to him that that their ERP implementation must have been exactly as Roxanne described. It certainly was not an education-led implementation of a more effective way of planning and managing the business.

“All three of these elements require attention, and must be integrated fully in your organization. That’s why our slide for this shows three overlapping circles, one for each element. More correctly, this is a Venn diagram providing a visual representation of the relationships and interactions among the three elements. Each circle represents the set of characteristics of the element name; for example, the set called ‘People and Behaviors’ represents the influence people and behavioral aspects can have in contributing to the overall model.” Roxanne projected the model, the Venn diagram, showing the three overlapping circles [Figure 9.1].

“You can allow the elements to interact naturally, without control, but your results will be variable and unpredictable. In business, we can’t afford that kind of unpredictability. As leaders, your job is to ensure that desired results are delivered predictably and routinely. Consequently, you must have control over these interactions. Let’s examine what I mean using customer service, a topic close to your hearts. When People, Processes, and Tools elements interact naturally, the customer service performance would average at about 50 percent, meaning the service level could vary between 0 percent and 100 percent for any individual customer. That’s not the kind of performance that will build a loyal customer base! To control the outcome, companies must integrate these three elements to achieve good results regularly, such as 95 percent to 100 percent customer service. The three elements must not be managed as if they were independent. They must be managed holistically with interdependent process rules to drive performance toward the desired result. I’ll be the first to tell you that integrating all three effectively is a challenge, but helping you achieve that is a specialty of ours at Effective Management. If you don’t integrate them well, you’ll suboptimize your business results. In plain English, you’ll make a lot less money. If you simply focus on only two of the three elements, you’ll be ignoring the reality that the third element is still operating.” Roxanne pointed specifically to the Processes and Tools circles. “Let’s just suppose you focus on these two, as many companies have, and deeply regretted before long. There’s every likelihood you’ll automate the current ineffective business processes. Or you may bring in new processes, and implement the supporting tools without the people. In either case, the people won’t understand the new, and often more complex processes, and won’t use them. End result, you’ll alienate your people, because you’ll make their work more complex in ways that won’t help them run the business any more efficiently or effectively. And they will be the first to know it.” Roxanne looked out at the team.

“By the way, if you seem to be mired in a ‘program of the month’ syndrome, always looking for the next silver bullet to fix your problems, chances are pretty high that there is absolutely no integration of the three elements. In that case, your organization is probably suffering from what I call ‘functional myopia’; it has both a weak vision of the future and a weak operating strategy. Decision making will be focused almost totally on near-term functional priorities. Your employees more than likely are just waiting for the last improvement program to fade into oblivion as you frantically try to implement the next and latest management fad.” Greg painfully recognized this to be one of Cosmetics Products’ issues as Roxanne continued.

“We have seen all of these situations; they are all unsuccessful. We’ve seen technology investments, in the form of software, of twenty million to well over one hundred million dollars written off as a total loss when, in fact, the software was never the problem.”

Discussions during sessions and breaks that morning clearly indicated that Roxanne’s messages were hitting home. Greg began to see and recognize some of the natural conditions that existed in Cosmetics Products. And he began to understand how they were suboptimizing his business results.

Roxanne continued after a break. “Companies with a track record of success do a great job of recognizing and integrating all three elements. This skillful integration of People, Processes, and Tools [see Figure 9.1] is essential if you want to excel as a company and be a leader in your industry.”

Roxanne pointed to the overlap of the three circles. “Later, we’ll talk more about this area of excellence where all three circles overlap and where we can see the combined impact of the three elements coming together. These elements can be greatly disturbed in a change initiative where their interactions are not understood. You must manage the elements ahead of, or at least in parallel with, the initiative if your change is to succeed.

“Not only must you address each of the three elements; you must address them in a specific order. Most companies don’t understand this and begin their implementations with a focus on the Tools element. I’ll give you a common scenario.

“Let’s consider a specific company that recently implemented an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software system. First, the company selected a software package with a selection process led by Information Technology (IT) and Finance. They then configured the software, making literally hundreds of decisions to structure how the system would work. Software integrators from outside the company, with the company’s IT organization, led this configuration exercise. They had little participation from the company’s own operating personnel who were either too busy handling operational problems or too busy running the day-to-day business. Even worse, the operating people who were involved were not educated on the concepts and best practices needed to integrate business processes properly. Much as they might have hoped it would, the software simply wouldn’t do the integration for them. The result was that the configuration ended up emulating the current processes. Their method of software implementation simply reinforced current ineffective business practices and results, but at a greater cost—the additional capital investment and software training expenses.

“Even though the company configured the software to emulate its current practices, they later discovered that the current operating procedures had to be modified to support the requirements of the new system. So the company changed the procedures and retrained its people to use the new software [Figure 9.2]. Remember the alienation scenario that I mentioned earlier?

“That’s exactly what took place in this example. Now let me summarize the sequence in which my example company pursued its change initiative [Figure 9.3].

“The sequence on this slide—Tools, Processes, and then People and Behaviors, is always a guaranteed road map to failure. The desired and expected business results used to justify the project will never be realized.” Greg could see that his team recognized the path they had taken in implementing their ERP system. It was exactly as Roxanne had just described.

Roxanne continued, “Successful business improvement initiatives involving technology follow the exact opposite sequence [Figure 9.4].

“Here’s the logic behind the correct sequence. Taken together, your people know everything there is to know about your business. They know ‘what you do’—the key things you must achieve to get product through your supply chain and out to customers. They know ‘why you do it’—the company value proposition, the financial targets, and the growth strategy. And they also know ‘how you do it.’ Unless there’s very weak strategic planning in your company, the thing you’re going to change with the implementation is the ‘how you do it.’

“Following some extensive education, your implementation team will compare how you do things today with what they learned about Class A concepts, principles and best practices to determine the gaps between today and where they need to be. Because the team knows your company well, they can quickly redesign and integrate your business processes to be in line with best practices as they are applied to your unique facilities, assets, and products. This is why we say change must start with addressing the people issues up front. And to rally the people around the need for change, executive management must present a compelling case for what they are trying to achieve and why they believe it is critically important to the company. You have already been quite clear, Greg, about the importance of delivering at least 95 percent customer service, routinely and cost effectively.” Greg acknowledged that was indeed the heart of his intention.

“So, Greg, I’ll follow that customer service objective in my example as we move on. The process would be similar if your objective were any other milestone, such as improve Product Management.” At this point, Greg smiled.

“You know, Roxanne, that just might be our next priority after we’ve fixed customer service!” Roxanne gave Greg a knowing look, as if she’d read his mind, and continued.

“A key element of such an initiative is the supporting tool, the ERP software system. For most of our clients this is already in place, but not used properly. So the company faces implementing significant, and for some, worrisome changes to the current business processes and configuration of that ERP system. To get input and buy-in into the implementation, without getting mired in too much detail now, your people would be organized into various task teams; educated on the possibilities; and then asked to redesign and integrate the business processes that will deliver your targeted business results. While there would be a small full-time team leading and pulling it all together, most involved on the Process Design task teams would be engaged part time. When I was working for a company as a client of Effective Management, I wanted no more than two days a week on the project for most team members, because I wanted those people interfacing with their colleagues discussing what they’d been learning and doing. In this way, a huge number of people were informed and contributed to the work in one manner or another. Given your urgency for improvements, you might need some people for three or four days a week at times.

“Having redesigned your processes, and documented the new desired way of working (the new ‘how we do it’), then, and only then, should you look at Tools. It is at this point in the work that you know what functionality you need to support your new way of managing the internal supply chain. If the ERP system selection has been made already by another part of the organization, you’ll know how to modify or reconfigure what you have so that the tool works for you. Either way, the full-time implementation team would lead configuration or reconfiguration of the software. They might have to incorporate certain corporate requirements, such as financial settings, but most of those would already have been incorporated into the redesigned business processes.

“When the software has been configured, this team would demonstrate running the business with the software by using credible skeletal data, scenarios, and volumes. This is to demonstrate goodness of fit and confirm that the new way of managing, planning, and scheduling the business actually works.

“After the successful demonstration, you would establish your education and training modules. Education is formal; we would provide the concept education for your managers and project teams. But you, the executives and managers (with help from your team), would lead training on the new policies, procedures, and work instructions through what we call cascade education. So you would educate and train all your people, first in the concepts, then in the new processes, and finally in ‘how to use’ the tools to support those processes.”

Greg interrupted to check his understanding of what Roxanne had been presenting. “What I am hearing you say is that technology, such as an ERP system, is simply a tool that can’t be properly used until considerable education and process redesign have been completed.” Greg turned to the others, “How close did we get to this sequence?” The others agreed that they were nowhere near the process Roxanne had described, especially since their ERP implementation had been a Y2K defensive initiative. Greg continued, “I suppose I could conclude, then, that the approach we used is the main reason we’re still struggling with the system and not getting the business results we expected. The approach Roxanne talked about sounds more like a complete redesign of how the business operates and a significant change in the business culture, not just a software implementation. Roxanne, I need to deliver a quick turnaround of our business results, but delivering a culture change is a lengthy process. Have I interpreted what you’ve said correctly?”

“From what I’ve seen and heard, Greg, it sounds like you are exactly on target with your analysis, except for the lengthy process part. We have a good many clients who did exactly what your company did. Like Cosmetic Products, they installed the software without examining their culture or business processes. As you just stated, company executives must understand that software is only a tool, not a solution. Don’t get me wrong; it’s a necessary and powerful tool, but it does only what you tell it to do. If you tell it to do what you are now doing, the software will be happy to do that, and do it incredibly fast—often much faster than your people can keep pace. If you are currently delivering unsatisfactory results, the software will help you deliver those same unsatisfactory results even more quickly, and more expensively than ever.

“You couldn’t have said it better, Greg. A software implementation project, or any other significant change initiative, must be part of a culture change. That kind of project requires leadership from the very top of the organization. The culture and the behaviors of executives and down through every level of the organization, even into the supplier base, must be examined and changed where they do not reflect best practices. Approach the implementation correctly and you’ll improve the way you do business for the next 20 years. More important than that, you’ll deliver bottom-line benefits beyond what you ever thought possible.

“What we talked about after the Diagnostic last week in which we identified your business problems was that you should prioritize those problems. Then you can examine and improve the processes that will deliver the improvements you want. Don’t try to eat the whole elephant at one time. Let me explain that in a little more detail.” Roxanne pointed again to the screen.

“Let me go back for a moment to the area of overlap in the diagram [see Figure 9.1]. This is the area we refer to as the ‘sweet spot.’ It’s a sports analogy; those of you who use a baseball bat, a tennis racquet, or almost any other racquet, bat, or club will know the term. In tennis, if the ball hits the sweet spot of the racquet, it sounds different; and the ball is returned with a lot more power and control. So it is with the sweet spot in this diagram where the correct synergy between the three elements can enable outstanding performance. The synergy comes about when integration of the three is based on the best practices in our Checklist.

“In summary, the three elements, the circles, are addressed in a specific sequence by excellent companies. First they educate their people in the concepts, principles and behaviors of business excellence and best practices; next, they enable those individuals to redesign, integrate, and implement business processes conforming to best practices; finally, they configure appropriate tools to support their new business processes.

“I need to say a few more words to define what I mean by ‘business processes. ’ Dan Jones defined it very effectively in his article, ‘The Beginner’s Guide to Lean,’ published in Manufacturer magazine in December 2003. He said that a business process is ‘a sequence of events or steps that must be carried out in a proper order to create value for the customer, and managed as a whole, not separately.’ You see, the focus of the definition is not on functional responsibilities; it’s on business processes and how they work together to deliver value” [Figure 9.5].

“This is what Dr. Deming called ‘the system’; he stressed the need to optimize the system, and to subjugate the parts to the success of the system. The quality of the business process itself is also critical. To paraphrase Dr. W. Edwards Deming again, he often said in public seminars, ‘93 percent of the time the problems come from the processes, or system design, and not the people.’ Let me state clearly that the ‘system’ and design of business processes are management’s responsibility. If management is not getting the results it wants, management must not immediately blame the people who work in the system; rather, they must reassess the effectiveness of the policies, procedures, and processes they put in place for others to follow. In that same Manufacturer article I mentioned earlier, a senior executive from Toyota said, ‘Brilliant process management is our strategy. We get brilliant results from average people managing brilliant processes. We observe that our competitors often get average results from brilliant people managing broken processes.’ ” This was a revelation to Greg and his team. Roxanne let it sink in; then she continued.

“I’ll give you some examples of business processes later, but for now, I just want to remind you that the answer to improving your business results lies in your people and in your business processes. The answer does not reside in newer and ever more sophisticated tools—in this case software packages—although you absolutely need software to support the people and processes. I’ll say it just one more time, at least for today: the key to improving your business results lies in having well-educated people and integrated business processes supported by an effective business planning tool all aligned and driven from a clear vision, a supporting business strategy, and a single set of operating plans and objectives.” Roxanne paused—then looked at Greg. “So what is your vision, Greg, for Cosmetics Products?”

“I have a desk drawer full of vision statements that I inherited. For now, Roxanne, I suppose it’s pretty simple: survive and grow the business.”

“Okay, Greg, I didn’t mean to put you on the spot like that, but I did want to make the point that most company vision statements look like they came from a book of standard vision statements for beginners. And they are—pardon me for saying this—boring!” Greg cut his response short because he agreed. Now he understood why he left the inherited vision statements in his drawer. He decided there and then, to feed them to the shredder before he went home!

“If a vision or mission statement does not inspire others to action, it has no value whatsoever. I see four types of vision statements, but only one that inspires. You have the ‘rambling vision,’ lots of words that don’t say anything; much like a politician’s promises, they are well-meaning maybe, but just words. The ‘parody vision’ is characterized by statements such as ‘we’ll be number one’ or ‘the supplier of choice’; it might as well add, ‘we’ll be good boys and girls, and eat all our vegetables.’ Then there’s the ‘self-reward vision’ that looks inward to what the company wants for itself without regard for its customers, such as ‘we’ll be a ten-billion-dollar company’ or ‘we’ll financially outperform the competition.’ Do any of these inspire you? Would any of them help you make decisions, or guide the way you work?”

David summed up the reaction of his team, “Now that I think about it, no. I know of lots of companies that use words like those in their vision statements, and you’re right; they are boring!”

Roxanne agreed, “Aren’t they? A common characteristic of the most successful companies, especially successful start-up companies, is that they have a burning desire—not for their success—but to meet the needs of their customers and consumers. They have a loudly proclaimed purpose for their business that energizes and engages their people in making a difference for their customers and the marketplace. As a result, they succeed. I picked up a lot of these insights from Mark Earls in his book, Herd: How to Change Mass Behaviour by Harnessing Our True Nature (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2007). A more useful way to think about vision might be to think of it as a purpose statement. Some companies have both, but purpose needs to be an outward-looking vision. A good affirmation of its effectiveness appears when your customers relate to your purpose, often actively, as in the case of the iconic Apple iPod. Other manufacturers sold technology; Apple sold a fashion extension, or expression of the individual. Sure it’s got the technology, but Apple appealed to their customers’ need for self-esteem—and won. The customers still revel in their needs being met. And at the time, iPod belonged to the people—it was theirs, not Apple’s.

“You may have heard this before, but without a clearly communicated purpose-driven vision, which I’ll simply call purpose-vision for now, you have nothing for your people to get excited about. And by the way, don’t just state it or post it on the walls; as executives, you must live it.” Greg interrupted, “Team, sounds like we need to spend some time on this. I could do with a bit of energy and excitement. Roxanne, can you share any relevant examples?”

“Sure can. I carry this with me, and it’s highly relevant to your industry. It refers to the Unilever Dove brand of products. The Dove marketing team was unhappy with traditional ways of marketing beauty products—twenty-year-old slim women in their prime, promoting beauty and fashion products. They felt this portrayal of their consumers was exclusive, not inclusive of ordinary women one meets everyday. So they decided to differentiate Dove products from its own company’s and its competitors’ ‘beauty brands’ very successfully. Most beauty product companies’ brand visions are of the self-reward type, citing market share, being number one, and so on, internally focused. They promote their brands from their own perspective, usually on the basis of a perceived physical ideal of youth and beauty that few women can relate to, me included. Sadly, research studies show that this type of advertising leaves ordinary women feeling even worse about their own appearance. And companies are doing that to their own customers! This brand team chose to avoid induced misery and self-loathing because they didn’t want it for their customers, for whom they had great respect and empathy. This paradigm shift took shape in their revolutionary purpose-vision statement:”

“This memorable statement inspired the team to recreate the brand image, and to change their advertising to include all ages, shapes, sizes, and ethnic groups. Their ads began featuring women who look like the wonderful, normal, happy women who are all around us every day. The brand has become very successful, and has a loyal following that embraces everybody—or ‘every body,’ if you prefer.”

Sara and Alexandra clapped and cheered. “So we’re no longer being forced to compare ourselves with twenty-something fashion models!” Roxanne built on their response. “Your reaction is exactly what a customer-focused purpose-vision is supposed to elicit. It captured your attention, engaged your mind, and generated excitement in you. Greg, that’s exactly what an effective vision can do for your people, and also for your customers when you effectively communicate it through your advertising copy.” After a short silence, Roxanne knew she had made her point and wanted it to soak in for a while. She suggested they break for a few minutes.

Roxanne continued following the break. “A vision on a piece of paper is useless—like those Greg has in his desk drawer. So let’s examine ways to build a purpose-vision into the company’s infrastructure [Figure 9.6].”

“Following along this diagram, your vision (hopefully, a purpose-vision) needs to be translated into your strategic plan covering the next five to ten years. Anchoring that vision are quantifiable and time-phased Strategic Business Objectives (SBOs). These become the drivers of your core marketing, product, operating, and financial strategies. Technology-dependent companies also have a technology strategy. From the strategies, each function develops its tactics—the specific and, often dynamic activities that can change from time to time—but keeps the thrust toward meeting the strategies in the dynamic marketplace and business world. This is very different from the common strategies and tactics that meet functional needs but don’t fit together to meet business needs. The Integrated Business Management team is accountable for ensuring that all the parts fit together and enhance the whole.

“You must pay particular attention to your core business processes because they help distinguish your company from all your competitors. Don’t get me wrong. All business processes are important to a company, but you must identify your core processes carefully, and ensure they have strategies tightly integrated to your overall business strategy. The business competencies required to support the core processes must be carefully nurtured and developed to maintain your strategic competitive advantage in the marketplace. You can face a lot of potential people issues here. Having the right packaging designer with the right knowledge database can make or break a brand in some industry segments. You would be reluctant to outsource these core processes as long as they, in fact, remain core to your business. Outsource a core competency, and you’ll quickly risk losing your competitive advantage. Every company must understand which are its core processes and its core competencies—how effective they are and how they are being continuously developed. You must also pay attention to your competitors’ core processes and competencies, as far as you are able. Are they more relevant or less relevant to the market than yours today? in the future? Is there a competitor exhibiting weaknesses in one of its core competencies that might open a door for you to expand your strategic advantages and erode theirs?

“All this becomes easier when your value proposition, business strategy, markets, and customers have been defined by executive management.

“A company must determine its desired value proposition—the benefits it wants its customers to experience when doing business with it. The value proposition defines why customers come back again and again. Coincident to the value proposition, the company must choose from among the three value disciplines: price competitive, product leadership, or customer/client unique solutions, sometimes referred to as customer intimacy. The value proposition, along with the associated value discipline focus, establishes the company’s unique positioning in the marketplace. Bringing this home, Cosmetics Products’ marketing and sales folks, and the rest of your organization for that matter, must be absolutely clear about your company’s espoused and actual value proposition and value disciplines. You must structure and organize your entire supply chain, and I mean all of your activities, to deliver them, especially when trying to achieve Capable-level performance. You must focus on one of the value disciplines but you can’t afford to ignore the other two. Even price competitive companies must offer quality products that meet or exceed the needs of their customers.” Greg and his team were jotting down notes and appeared a bit dazed as they contemplated the amount of work ahead of them.

“Now, because it’s so critical to the success of any company, I want to change direction for a bit and go back over some ground we covered in our last session. You’ve had some time to think more about the Integrated Business Model and Integrated Business Management [see Figures 6.1 and 6.2].”

“Let me revisit the ‘Model,’ the big picture of the organization command and control structure.” Roxanne explained the model and the associated management roles. She provided examples of how implementation produced breakthrough results for companies that modified their structures and policies to conform to the model. Roxanne summarized her remarks: “With this model in place, everyone in the organization works toward the same integrated objectives. When the top management processes are integrated and direct the business effectively, you have what we call Integrated Business Management. It is, more than anything else, what produces alignment in the organization as depicted by the arrow diagram I showed you during our last session together [see Figure 8.2]. So, does the Integrated Business Model resonate at all with the way you manage your business today?”

“I think not!” David responded. “We do have many of the processes, but I wouldn’t call them formal processes, or integrated. I don’t see any semblance of the level or quality of integration you describe. Our executive meeting is usually just a debate about what we expect to sell next month. Among product development, supply, marketing, finance, and sales organizations, we haven’t yet figured out how to work together constructively. We tend to throw semi-completed ideas over the walls separating our functions, and wait for the repercussions. You describe this Class A process as having an 18- to 24-month Integrated Business Management planning horizon. We’re not even sure we’ll be in business 18 to 24 months from now. We’ve never planned that far into the future except, perhaps, for new products. It’s hard to even comprehend that kind of planning capability, given where we are today.”

Sara added, “You also said something about people being accountable to deliver agreed-to plans, objectives, and performance measures. We share a lot of information and have lots of discussion, but we don’t often make formal decisions, let alone commit to executing them. I don’t see any real commitment; I mean, I don’t see the kind of commitment that fires people up and makes plans happen, or else. That lack of commitment manifests itself as financial surprises and disasters, especially at the end of quarters and at the end of the fiscal year. I don’t get much sleep during those closing periods.”

“I agree with Sara. From a marketing and sales standpoint,” Alexandra added, “I’m afraid I don’t see us really committing to deliver the sales plans or forecasts we discuss. Now that I think of it, our forecasts are really only for information. They are semi-educated guesses to project our revenue and earnings, but even at an aggregate level, they’re not all that accurate. My people would probably take exception to this comment, but in reality, we act more like marketplace victims. To be brutally honest, our mindset has been that we really can’t forecast this business. We sell the products that are easy to sell and whatever the customer wants, rather than seriously trying to influence what the customer wants. What will sell itself, we sell; don’t hold us accountable except for meeting those quotas that we need for our sales bonuses. For other than routine repeat business in some of our larger brands, we tend to be reactive and go after targets of opportunity that happen to materialize, irrespective of the forecast. We don’t very often create sales opportunities. I suppose after the years of dealing with out-of-stocks and poor new product introductions, that shouldn’t be much of a surprise. Sales reps are reconciled to that condition being irreparable. Our current way of operating is ineffective if not counterproductive. How will what you’re describing help us change these norms?”

Before Roxanne could respond, Greg looked at Alexandra and said, “You know, Alexandra, I agree with you completely. What you’ve described is totally unacceptable and helps explain why our business is in such bad shape today. If we had the kind of committed business integration that Roxanne describes, we could see what is happening better, take corrective action and avoid some of the crises that have cost us customers. It would make a world of difference.”

Roxanne added, “Greg, do you remember us talking about ‘one set of numbers’? Are you getting the picture? What Sara and Alexandra described are proof that today you do not have one set of numbers you can believe in to integrate around. That’s a major reason this journey is so vital for you to get control of your business—to make it what you want it to be.”

Turning to Roxanne, Greg said, “I think the concepts are falling into place, Roxanne. Although I still have some reservations about how it would work in Cosmetic Products, I’m expecting my reservations will be taken care of as I learn more.”

“I’m expecting to address your residual concerns over the rest of the day, and I would take you into the detail for how it could work in Cosmetics Products if we work together. Let me start with how Integrated Business Management works. For the moment, I want to show you a slightly different version of the Integrated Business Model [Figure 9.7].”

“When implemented effectively, management decisions cascade everywhere through the organization, even into Human Resources which has the responsibility to provide the right people and the right skills for the future. That’s for starters. To digress for a moment, I’d like to tell you about a brand-new COO I worked with. When he got into his job and experienced some significant frustration, he asked me, and this is a direct quote, ‘Where the hell’s the steering wheel?’ He realized that he had no direct process to convey board-level decisions through the organization to the people carrying out the work. He quickly became the energetic champion for implementing the Integrated Business Model. Changes in strategy and business plans at the top of the model cascade down through every facet of the model; changes at the bottom must be communicated up so that plans throughout the entire organization remain synchronized. Some of our coaches refer to this model as ‘organized common sense.’

“Given your customer service issues, Greg I’m going to focus on the planning and control aspects of demand and supply. We’ll touch on other aspects as we go; after all, the model is integrated! A change in one element of the model directly affects other elements of the model. As I’ve said before, planning and control of the business must start at the executive level with strategic plans and financial plans. Most often these plans look out into the future at least five years. Depending on the industry, that planning horizon could be much longer.

“The executive team must also determine in the Strategic Planning Process, after it is clear about the company’s value proposition and value disciplines, what kind of player it wants to be in its business sector. Does top management intend to be a local, regional, national, or global player? Do the executives want the company to become the industry leader? Another decision; what are the revenue and earnings objectives and desired rate of growth? Specific objectives are usually annualized and stated in financial terms or percentages. These high-level questions can only be answered by the senior executives. The answers provide general direction for the company, but not in enough detail for making good day-to-day decisions about the types of products and services to offer, the types of marketing and sales efforts to fund, the manufacturing strategy to be employed, or the resources required. These details begin to take shape in the two to three-year business plans, annual budgets, and operating strategies developed at the next level in the organization, as depicted in this model.

“At the business plan level, annual revenue and earnings objectives for the next two to three years, market share, types of products and services, cash flow, and other more detailed, but still annualized, objectives begin to take shape. This can be thought of as the annual budgeting process where business leaders make commitments on revenue and profit to corporate leadership. These objectives become the annual scorecard, so to speak, for the senior leaders of the business units.

“Although they are more specific and detailed, these objectives are still annualized numbers, not nearly detailed enough for running the day-to-day business. Suppose that Amalgamated’s CEO told this leadership team that your annual revenue commitment for the business is $220M. Would that information alone let you know in what direction to head? Would it tell those who report to you what plans they should be executing? Of course it wouldn’t. We haven’t yet developed a business unit strategy or an operating strategy to guide us in day-to-day decision-making. Let there be no mistake, people will get very busy, create department goals and objectives, create personal objectives, make action plans, and work like crazy to carry them out. Will they deliver the business strategy? What business strategy? You’ll have organized chaos until you have more specific direction from the business leaders. By the way, does that way of operating sound familiar to you?”

Greg was the first to respond. “You already know us too well, Roxanne. It sounds exactly like that dysfunctional diagram you showed us, the one with the arrows going every possible direction [see Figure 8.1]. From my perspective, that sounds very much like us.”

“That’s exactly what I was thinking, Greg. So let’s begin to bring order out of the chaos. Let’s move to the next level of the model below strategic planning, that is, to Integrated Business Management [see Figure 6.2].

“This diagram includes all the elements of Sales & Operations Planning, and it’s on these I’ll focus. You saw the well-respected S&OP process depicted in the previous model as well, but in practice it would be even more integrated in the form of Capable Integrated Business Management. Here you can see a little more clearly how product, demand, and supply are managed together, and are integrated with strategy, company plans, and annual budgets. In this way, the core supply chain processes are monitored, measured, and analyzed for consistency and performance. In Integrated Business Management, business unit management organizes its products and services into families, usually somewhere between five and fifteen of them.”

Greg interrupted, “Seems like these families may be our product categories. Do you agree?”

“Could be, Greg, but we’ll get to that a bit later; for now, just stay with me conceptually.”

Roxanne continued with her description. “Typically, if there are fewer than five families, management won’t have enough detail to determine if the business is under control and on strategy. If there are more than fifteen families, management will spend too much time mired in detail that is better managed by their subordinates. For each family, management develops objectives, goals, strategies, and measures to support its overall business strategy. For example, should this family grow? If so, by how much and when? What are its customer service objectives? Should we promote this family? How much advertising? When, if ever, should we launch new products in this family? What kind of capacity or inventory should we carry for this family? What is our capacity strategy? Should we wait until actual demand exceeds current capacity and we are on backorder, or should we build capacity in anticipation of market growth? Those sorts of decisions are required.”

Greg thought they probably had many of these details in mind, but not coordinated in the way that Roxanne described.

Roxanne interrupted Greg’s thoughts. “In Sales and Operations Planning, plans and objectives are documented in aggregate family volumes for sales, and for the agreed production volumes, balanced of course against resource constraints; and also for agreed inventory or order book levels. These same plans are visible in financial terms. The ‘Family aggregate’ definition could be by product groupings, categories, brands, market segmentation aggregates, or even key customers. It’s whatever makes business sense, especially for Sales and Marketing, and can be supported by the supply organization for planning using a common unit of measure. Family plans are detailed by month for each family over a rolling 18- to 24-month horizon.

“The detail necessary to make day-to-day decisions is now beginning to take shape. Executive management can tell in the monthly Management Business Review if the overall business and the individual families are on strategy. They also can accurately determine whether action must be taken to ensure that financial commitments to corporate leadership, and to the financial markets, will be met. But even this information does not yet provide the level of detail necessary for the supply chain, meaning the plants and suppliers. We’ll talk about how that works much later. For now, I want to move into how input is prepared and fed into the Integrated Business Management process. I also want to describe what happens with the output of the Management Business Review. For that, we need to move to the model’s next level.

“Preparation begins each month with the work leading up to the Product Management Review, followed by Demand, and then Supply [Figure 9.8].

“I’d like to start with what happens during preparation for the Product, Demand, and Supply Reviews, as depicted in the preparatory wheels on this diagram. As you can see, the current status, issues, performance, and future proposed plans are developed during the month. As you can see from the flow from Product, to Demand, to Supply, all the activities are interdependent. When conflicts surface or a lack of synchronization exists, the objective is to resolve the issues within the core process prior to the Management Business Review. Let me give you an example to clarify what I mean. If there is inadequate supply to meet projected demand, the supply manager would attempt to resolve the imbalance with alternative supply scenarios. If, and only if, there is a remaining mismatch would the imbalance be referred to the Integrated Business Management Process Leader, who is responsible for coordinating and facilitating Integrated Reconciliation, and later the Management Business Review. That person would bring the appropriate parties together to develop and decide on a viable solution. If the recommended solution is beyond the decision-making boundaries for those individuals, or has strategic implications, they would present their recommended solution(s) to the executives for decision in the Management Business Review.”

Greg turned to David, “Roxanne has been mentioning several roles I don’t recognize: Product Coordinator, Demand Manager, Supply Planning Manager, and now a Manager for Integrated Reconciliation. We don’t have anyone in those roles, do we, David?”

“Well, Greg, we certainly don’t have a Demand Manager or a Product Coordinator. I suppose Janice Hackworth, who runs my supply chain team, is the closest to being our Supply Planning Manager. As for integrated reconciliation, that sounds like yet another addition to my responsibilities. Lucky me!”

Recognizing the distraction caused by this separate discussion, Roxanne took control. “Let’s delay that topic and come back to those details if and when you implement. The message I need you to get is that these processes are hardwired to each other and so operate across the entire business using the same numbers. And that it’s an ongoing process.”

David interrupted, “You know, managing to the same set of numbers in this team would be a tremendous advantage in managing our supply chain. Greg, we need to do this.”

“Hold your horses, David; I need to understand more about all this before I commit to anything.” David sat back in his chair, slightly disappointed at Greg’s obvious reluctance.

Roxanne grabbed the reins again. “Let’s take a second to prepare your thinking for the next important point. You need to consider this model [Figure 9.9].”

“I want to place all these planning levels in the context of a time horizon, as this model shows. Strategic Planning never resulted in anything actually being made. Integrated Business Management is about resourcing aggregate families of products to meet market and financial expectations. As with Strategic Planning, the Integrated Business Management process never made product either. So where does the real planning that creates products or services take place? Well, it happens in two interconnected processes called demand management and master supply planning—or for clarity it’s often called master supply planning over the mid-term to long-term; and master supply scheduling over the cumulative lead time. The figure shows time breaks where management of the business passes from superaggregated strategic planning, to family aggregated Integrated Business Management, to end item planning in master supply planning and scheduling. These time breaks are points where the next level of the organization becomes empowered to plan the business details, although constrained by the numbers from the previous level at the point of empowerment. A master supply scheduler is free to create detailed end item plans for SKUs comprising a family, typically over the first 13 weeks. When the detail is aggregated, however, it must be within +/—2 percent of the previously agreed aggregate monthly family volume. If there is a need to schedule more or less than that amount, the decision must go back up to the higher planning level for approval.

“Notice that when we talk about Integrated Business Management, we’re actually talking about months 4 through 18 to 24, or perhaps even longer if necessary. Weeks 1 to 13 are not actively managed through Integrated Business Management, as we can see. Changes within 13 weeks at end-item level can be extremely disruptive and expensive, although sometimes necessary. The aggregate plans in that period have been agreed to and handed over for the more detailed weekly and daily planning processes.

“A key process throughout the entire time line is Demand Management. Demand Management develops sales plans by family within the Integrated Business Management process horizon; also develops the more detailed end-item demand plans; and manages order entry against supply capability.

“Supply’s responsibility is to ensure there is enough overall capacity and resources to meet the predicted demand, or to provide alternative capacity solutions to offset any shortages. This balancing act ensures that family sales, production, inventory, and financial plans presented to executive management are valid, meaning the production volumes are needed and can be executed. I won’t yet get into measures used to monitor and improve this process for now. Just know that we measure accuracy of all these forward-looking plans carefully.”

Sara asked about the source of purchasing plans. Roxanne replied, “This is where Material Requirements Planning (MRP), the core module of your ERP system, comes into play. When you have an approved master supply plan, it is transmitted to your ERP system’s MRP module. Assuming all the foundation data is accurate and that the demand plans and master supply schedules/plans are valid, MRP does the number crunching to create plans for all materials, from intermediate components produced in your plants to purchased components and raw materials. At least, that’s what should happen. But the way you described your ERP system implementation, you are undoubtedly doing most of this work manually.”

Greg stared intensely at David, “Does this mean we could be doing all this with our system?” David nodded in agreement with Greg’s question. “So why haven’t we done this already? It’s why I pay you, isn’t it.”

Roxanne stopped this conversation abruptly. “Greg, that’s water under the bridge. Your implementation was designed to avoid a Y2K problem, not to meet supply chain objectives, as was pointed out earlier. But it’s not too late to recover that capability as you’ll see as I move to the next slide [Figure 9.10].”

“I want to focus on the Supply Review and the work that leads up to it. The boxes in this diagram represent work processes that support and feed information into the monthly Supply Review. You may remember that I said you seem to be missing the links between the boxes. The way your system is configured, and the way you work outside the system using spreadsheets, negates all those links. The circles on this diagram represent the foundation elements for any ERP system. Some would refer to them as the business rules for each link in the process flow; we call them master data. As powerful as it is, MRP can only follow your rules. So the links and resulting output will be valid only if your master data is accurate. To be of value, the planners must do their work within the system using the messages or recommendations produced by the system. We won’t get into the detail of MRP with this team, but that’s how it’s meant to operate.”

Sara, VP of Finance, spoke up. “I need to back up for a moment. We don’t have a Demand Manager. We don’t have a Supply Manager as far as I know. We don’t have people with the title of Master Supply Planner or Material Planner. What about it, David?”

“Don’t be too tough on us, Sara,” David, the VP Supply Chain and Manufacturing, responded. “We do perform most of those functions and tasks; we just don’t have people with those specific titles. We do have master supply schedulers in each plant. I’m quite certain, however, that people performing some of the activities Roxanne described don’t understand their responsibilities in the way that she just described or have them integrated very well. At the very least, we need to fill those roles formally and invest in the education and training of the people filling them.”

“I can echo what David just said,” Alexandra contributed. “We have a forecaster, but I certainly wouldn’t call her a ‘Demand Manager.’ Demand Manager sounds like a much more responsible position than we have thought about in the past, even in my former division. Our forecaster is one of the senior market analysts, Roxanne. She works hard, but we’re still not convinced it’s possible to actually forecast this business, let alone manage the demand as you described. When it comes to forecasting the business by units and by week and by shipping point, as I’ve heard you talk about, forget it; we’re not even close.” Sounding more than a bit defensive, Alexandra continued, “By the way, David, how do you go about deciding what products to ship to our distribution centers (DCs)? Given our poor customer service levels and high inventory, it doesn’t sound as if you have a very effective process either.”

Roxanne jumped into the fray. “People, this conversation is not productive. You are where you are, and must decide as a team how you can work together to solve your problems. I’m giving you points to consider, not ammunition with which to assign blame!” Seeing his team looking duly chastened, Greg was impressed that Roxanne didn’t hesitate to take them to task.

Greg said, “Let’s take a fifteen-minute break and then resume our discussion over lunch.”

When all had filled their plates and returned to the conference room table, Roxanne continued.

“I want us to stay focused on the supply functions for a bit. It’s the responsibility of the senior supply executive to ensure that the supply plans presented in the Management Business Review are valid. Capacity planning takes place at every step from strategic planning to detailed planning to ensure that schedules can be met across the supply chain over the days, weeks, months, and years. We realize that the mix of SKUs actually produced and shipped within the families may vary during the month, but the focus of Integrated Business Management is the total volume for each family. In supply planning, we ensure that there is a plan in place to provide the required product and resources when they are needed.

“As with demand planning, where forecasts are done at both the SKU and family levels, supply planning uses the same approach. In each area—demand and supply—SKU plans are created and must roll up and match the aggregate family numbers. In both areas, all necessary resources such as people, equipment, marketing plans, sales incentives and component material must be available to support the plans. Remember, Class A companies run their businesses with one set of operational numbers.

“With approved aggregate plans for each of the families in products, sales, production, inventory, and finance, the supply chain can now begin its work to execute the details of those plans.”

Alexandra interrupted Roxanne. As I’ve said before, Roxanne, I’m still having a little trouble with the concept of forecasting SKU shipments by week from each of our DCs. We do a poor job of forecasting total sales revenue by quarter. I really think forecasting by week is overkill in this business, if it’s not totally impossible.”

“I’m really glad you made that comment, Alexandra, because it gives me an opportunity to clarify what I mean. If the Demand Planning Manager does not provide the weekly forecast, then someone else will! Manufacturing has to decide what to produce each week, and each day for that matter.

“I can assure you that someone in Cosmetics Products is estimating weekly shipments, even if the method is as crude as dividing the monthly forecast by four. That responsibility needs to be within the Demand organization. Here’s a fundamental principle in excellent companies: forecasting must be done in one place by one group; that group must be as close as possible to the customer. The Demand Planner has far better knowledge than supply or distribution planners as to what’s going on in the marketplace. Have your Demand Planners forecast by week. Initial results will not be good, but they will soon be better than anything you’ve had in the past.

“I don’t want to get into too much detail at this time, but you’ll need to consider several methods of forecasting to find the model closest to your customer experience. As an aside, if you have rapidly changing portfolios, then ‘probability’ forecasting might help.” Alexandra made a note to get back to Roxanne on that. “That’s just one example of a number of techniques that can be employed when traditional forecasting produces soft numbers. Based on the experience of our clients, your results will begin to improve rapidly because your Demand Planners will gather the information and document the assumptions needed to improve forecast accuracy continuously. When you gain control of your supply chain, at least at the capable level, we can talk about an excellent advanced process to improve forecasts by week and even by day. Collaborative supply planning actually links your forecasting and planning activities with those of your key customers. But that can come only after you’ve achieved a capable level. Does that help, Alexandra?”

“I’ll have to take your word for it now, Roxanne, but it’s a leap of faith for me. We’ll have to make sure people know that the measure of forecast accuracy is to be used to drive improvement, not to punish the forecasters.”

“Fair enough. Thanks for your candor. That’s a great point, by the way, about the forecast accuracy measure being used to improve performance. I don’t want to get into all the required measures now, but most functional groups will need to put measures in place to track progress toward delivering desired results. Whatever the measure, it must be used to assess business process effectiveness and improve business results, not to assess the performance of individuals. That is a tough culture change component for most companies.

“At this point in the Integrated Business Model [see Figure 6.1], your planners have the information they need to run the day-to-day business with the support of your software. I won’t get into any more of the details of the supply planning process or how the software works to support the planners. That’s more detail than you need now, but I’ll briefly describe what goes on in your supply chain as a result of having weekly SKU forecasts.

“The entire process is designed to answer some very straightforward questions:

“We often refer to these as the universal manufacturing questions, first articulated by the late Oliver Wight. They are the same questions you must answer whether you plan cosmetics products, automobiles, magazines, patient care in a clinic, or a holiday dinner for your family.

“Let me ask you this question.” Roxanne went to the chart pad and wrote, ‘What do I have?’ “David, what is your current level of inventory accuracy?”

“I don’t think we have a formal measure for that other than the overall monthly financial variance, Roxanne. Oh, and we do a physical inventory count every quarter, when we can fit it in.”

Roxanne recorded a question mark next to inventory accuracy. She next wrote, ‘What does it take to make it?’ “Well then, David, what is your bill of material accuracy level?”

“How do you measure that, Roxanne?”

“Good question, David, but let’s not get into that amount of detail now. For the moment, I think your question answers my question.” She recorded another question mark and asked, “Any idea of the level of accuracy for item masters, work locations, routings, logistics masters, customer masters, supplier masters?”

David held his hands up in mock submission. “I give up; please show some mercy! I haven’t a clue, and I’d bet the ranch that we don’t measure accuracy of those records at all.”

“Thanks for your honesty, David. If you aren’t measuring the accuracy of these critically important foundation elements, I’m quite confident that accuracy is poor. In turn, the planning system can’t create valid material plans, nor support your planners by giving them useful information or realistic recommendations. That means that your planners are forced to work outside the ERP system. Poor data integrity of the foundation elements may not be the entire problem with software acceptance, but it’s a big part of why you’ve failed to get the expected value from your ERP system and control of your customer service.”

Sara offered her insight. “That also explains why the financial analysis we do in the system often doesn’t make much sense. If the system would give us believable data, we would rely on it, do more effective financial simulations and be able to close the books more quickly. Instead, we spend countless hours trying to reconcile data in the system with the data in our spreadsheets.”

“It’s now clear to me that we have even more work to do than I thought,” Greg said. “I don’t pretend to understand the details of Master Supply Planning, MRP, or any others of those three-letter acronyms you rattled off, Roxanne, but I know that we all have lots to learn. I’m beginning to see that we’re not close to having Class A processes anywhere, but I’m most interested in those business processes that will solve our immediate problem—delivering to our customers on time. Later we can think about the rest of the Integrated Business Model and Class A. Trust me; I badly want the business benefits we estimated in our last session, but first things first.”

“If you’re in agreement, Greg, let me address three related topics: benchmarking, organization maturity, and the Class A Checklist. I think those are useful topics to get at your ‘first things first.’ ”

Greg and his leadership team all nodded in agreement.

“When you have selected the appropriate milestone, we recommend you start by using the Class A Checklist as a benchmarking tool for best practices for the key business processes and their subprocesses.

“Hopefully you recall that we looked at your position on the various maturity maps last week [see Figure 6.4].

Greg thought to himself, “How could I ever forget that humbling exercise!”

“As I said then, to be certified as Class A, companies must progress to the top of Transition 4. From a performance standpoint, results for those companies fall solidly and continuously in at least the upper quartile of results in their industry for a range of performance indicators described in the Class A Checklist across all nine chapters. Additionally, by the time they are certified, Class A companies must have delivered most of, if not all, the business results and bottom line improvements that they predicted at the outset of their journey.”

“I think we’re doomed, Roxanne,” Zachary Zellers, VP Human Resources, commented, only half-jokingly. “We agreed that we are solidly in what you call Transition 1. I can’t imagine how we get from Transition 1 to Transition 4 in my lifetime. It seems like a mountain to climb, and we can’t even see the foot-hills yet.” Unspoken agreement presented itself as visible gloom on the faces of the leadership team.

“Wait just a minute, folks. I didn’t intend to depress you. It is possible for Cosmetics Products to get to Transition 4, and get there within your lifetime, Zachary. Remember the riddle, ‘How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time!’ Don’t forget that members of this team have already seen two companies that were certified using our previous Checklist edition and are nearing recertification against the current Checklist. Many companies have had the same issues you are confronting when they started their work. It’s important to take on bite-sized portions of the Checklist aligned against specific business objectives. Those are what I’ve been calling ‘milestones.’ Your most pressing business need and competitive priority seems to be achieving improved on-time delivery and improving customer satisfaction causes us to lean toward Capable Planning and Control and perhaps Capable Integrated Business Management as your first milestones.”

Greg interrupted, “You can say ‘is improving Customer Service,’ not ‘seems to be,’ Roxanne. I just want to remind us of that.”

“Okay, Greg, ‘is.’ So we seem to be firming up a recommendation to align first at least on the Capable Planning and Control Milestone. As you make progress against this milestone, you’ll begin to realize the bottom line benefits you estimated during the Executive Briefing last week, and probably more than what you estimated. There will be tough challenges along the way, but remember that saying, ‘Keep your eyes on the prize.’”

“This is about the point I thought we would reach on day one, so it’s a good place to stop. We can focus on the Checklist in a bit more detail tomorrow.”

“Perfect timing, Roxanne. I think we need some time to internalize what we learned today. You’ve given us a lot to digest. Talking of which, we’d love for you to join us for dinner.”

Roxanne gladly accepted Greg’s invitation, looking forward to an informal and relaxed environment over dinner. But she knew the questions would continue.

Her instincts were correct. As dinner moved along, the conversation became more animated; challenges to what she had covered during the day were emerging. Much to her surprise, every time a concern or doubt was voiced, another member of the leadership team jumped in with a response. Several times, Roxanne clarified a point she’d made during the day or deferred the question to the next day when she would address it in depth. What was most encouraging was the absence of cynicism among the people in the room. There was a clear sense among the team members that doing nothing was not an option. They had to move forward quickly.