On the following Thursday, Roxanne, Dan, and Tom met Greg for an early breakfast at the Atlanta Marriott Marquis to get to know each other and review the agenda. At 7:55 A.M. they went into the ballroom where nearly 50 invited participants representing Sales, Marketing, Demand Management, Manufacturing, Supply Chain, Quality, Engineering, Logistics, Purchasing, Finance, Product Development, Technical Services, Human Resources, and the full Leadership Team had assembled. Greg stepped to the podium precisely at eight o’clock, another visible sign of culture change, welcomed the assembled group, thanked them for rearranging their schedules on such short notice, introduced Roxanne, and began his opening remarks.

“I have been looking forward to this day for a long time, perhaps without knowing it, since the first day I joined Cosmetics Products. I believe this could turn out to be the most important day in our history because it’s the day we begin to transform the division into a preferred supplier to our customers. We are calling this transformation the ‘Cosmetics Products Customer Service Initiative.’ Today, we take the first steps in what I anticipate will be a rapid resolution to our customer service challenges, and the first step in a longer journey to business excellence. We are meeting off-site, away from our daily jobs and routines, so that we can begin to think differently about who we are and what we can accomplish . . . beginning now. So, cell-phones off.” At this point Greg held up and switched off his own phone.

“It’s a rare opportunity to have so much talent assembled together in one room. But despite our collective talent and our uniform desire to be successful as individuals and as a company, we’re facing a serious challenge. It comes as no surprise to any of you that revenue and profit are declining, that customer service can only be described as poor, despite large and growing inventories, and that we recently lost some important customers. Our job—yours, mine, and ours collectively—is to reverse these trends and to do it quickly. I’m confident we can do that. I am confident that we can become a preferred supplier and even a leader in our industry after we’ve solved our immediate problems. I am confident for several reasons. First, we certainly have the motivation, the proverbial ‘burning platform’—dissatisfied customers. We can’t continue on our current path and survive as a company. Next we have the talent, meaning those of you in this room, to accomplish the required transformation. Finally, we have recently learned about a path to success that companies facing similar challenges have followed. It has enabled them to become extremely successful despite what seemed to them to be overwhelming odds at the start. This path is not just theoretical. The methodology those companies followed has been proven time and again by companies in nearly every industry. Some of our Cosmetics Products Leadership Team members visited two companies that followed the path and have become successful. That’s why you’re here today. You’re here to learn what we’ve been learning over the past month during visits to other companies and in discussions with Roxanne Barnes, and others from Effective Management, our chosen consultants, or rather coaches, for our journey. Notice I said ‘our’ journey.”

Greg went on to provide the backgrounds of Roxanne, her two associates, and Effective Management.

“You’ll find out over the next few days that our Customer Service Initiative will be guided by Effective Management’s Class A concepts and principles. Class A, as I’ve come to understand, entails a great deal of common sense. As you’ll soon learn, it enables companies to become focused in accomplishing their business strategies and objectives by following a single set of operating plans and common objectives across the entire supply business. Roxanne will take you through some of the details today and tomorrow, as she has done with us over the past few weeks.”

Greg continued. “The Leadership Team is inviting you to work alongside us in solving our customer service problems and in changing the image of Cosmetics Products in the eyes of our customers. We will use today’s education and tomorrow’s workshops to prepare us for setting up what are termed milestone teams—teams of people who will design and implement the new business processes to comply with best practices. The Customer Service Initiative is comprised of two milestones: ‘Capable Planning and Control’ and ‘Capable Integrated Business Management.’ These milestones, a name you’ll become familiar with, bring together all the elements of the Class A Checklist that will enable us to deliver our initial customer service objective of 95 percent on-time delivery in full. I’m the Executive Sponsor of the overall initiative, David Simpson is the Executive Champion of the Capable Planning and Control milestone. Alexandra, our VP Sales and Marketing, will be Executive Champion for the Integrated Business Management milestone team. Other appointments to the team will follow. This will mean some tough culture and behavior changes for all of us. And the ‘us’ who must change behaviors applies equally to our executives. Be assured, this is not a labor reduction project hiding under a different name, although there will be some changes in all our responsibilities. We’ll all be stretched to the limit designing and implementing these new processes. Once implemented, however, they will allow us to meet our strategic objectives.”

Greg could see and feel the concern and discomfort of his audience. Change is never comfortable. “Hands up for those who think seriously we can continue on our current path and survive?” Not one hand was raised. “That’s the same conclusion reached by the Leadership Team. Trust me; our jobs will change more than yours. We’re going learn how to plan the future of this business. I can’t believe I just said that we’re all going to have to learn to be planners!” Laughter filled the room and broke the growing tension, but Greg didn’t smile. “You heard correctly, Cosmetics Products is going to become a learning and a planning organization, starting at the top. It is management’s responsibility to plan the future of this business. But don’t worry. We’re not going to do any of the detailed planning you’re involved in today. We’ve discovered that our business planning process is broken from the top to the bottom. We are going to get some coaching so that we can fix our part of the process and provide you the coaching resources to fix your part of the planning process. With the support of Roxanne and her team, we will become a world-class organization and preferred supplier to our customers!” That statement brought forth an enthusiastic round of applause.

The energy in the room was now building as Greg began to convince most of the people by presenting the business case for change. He knew that there would be some die-hard resistors of change, but he and the rest of the Leadership Team would deal with that resistance as it surfaced.

Greg held up a copy of a book. “This is called the Class A Checklist for Business Excellence. It’s the book in front of you. You’ll become very familiar with the book’s contents over the next few weeks. It has been in continuous development over the past 30 years and is based on the work its Effective Management authors do with some of the best companies across the globe. Today and tomorrow you’ll get an introduction to the contents of the book and to the scope of best practices within it. Then we’ll start talking in more detail about how it will help us improve customer service. During these two days, the executives will also be finalizing who, from among the members of this group, will be assigned to our milestone teams.

“I want to emphasize that any discussion about today’s gaps against best practices will focus on the capabilities of our processes. It will not be a finger-pointing exercise to assign blame to individuals. Roxanne has made this point repeatedly with the Leadership Team. This work is not about finding blame; it is about getting better at what we do. This is an important point and worth repeating. Our performance as a company can be only as good as the processes we’ve designed and require you to follow. We need to learn how to improve and integrate those processes so that we can deliver a superior level of customer service.

“And finally, since I’m your President, I’m accountable for the success of this project, and I happily accept that accountability. So now is the time for you to either to get on the train, or decide you don’t want to be part of the journey and get off, because the train is leaving the station this morning!”

That last statement was a shock to those who suspected that this was just another management initiative and would fade away over time.

To strengthen the leadership’s commitment further, Greg described briefly the Capable Integrated Business Management Milestone that would be running in parallel with the Capable Planning and Control Milestone. Greg explained the Leadership Team would be the Steering Committee for both milestones to ensure control and integration. He finished his remarks and invited Roxanne to take over the agenda.

Roxanne thanked Greg and the Leadership Team for the opportunity to address the assembled group. She began by emphasizing that at any time during the next two days questions from the floor would be welcome and, indeed, necessary if anything said was not understood. She described how she had been working with the executives up to this point, and how that team had completed a Diagnostic assessment of the business recently.

She then moved into a discussion of the history of Class A business excellence, covering the concepts, principles, and benefits of integrating the entire business. She also described the Proven Path methodology with which they would structure their journey to solve their most pressing business problems. This journey would lead to improved results and the organizational maturity common in companies that achieve excellence and deliver Class A business results. She could see that many were skeptical about their ability to take on such an enormous venture. That led her to discuss the concept and purpose of milestones in creating manageable steps toward the goal of improved customer service.

“Does everyone here recognize that Cosmetics Products’ customer service must improve? The word ‘must’ is the operative word in my question.” Her audience fidgeted uncomfortably, but heads nodded in agreement. Most thought they were in for another lecture and began to think defensively, but Roxanne surprised them with her next statement. “Let me share with you an important fact. Your poor customer service performance is not your fault; you are not to blame. It is the fault of the processes you use to manage your internal supply chain.” She cited both W. Edwards Deming and a top executive at Toyota to reinforce her statement. This revelation eased the tension and allowed people to be less defensive and open to the message Roxanne was delivering. She continued. “Your current planning processes, similar to so many companies that engage us, have developed over time in isolation. They are often more complex then they need to be and simply don’t fit or work together. As the late Oliver Wight used to say, our job is to help you simplify and integrate them. Your President and the executives have asked us to coach you in designing and implementing more effective and integrated processes. These will give you the chance to raise your ‘on time to the day and in full’ delivery performance to at least 95 percent against first promise to the customer. With your knowledge of the business, participation, and commitment to the initiative, you will succeed.”

She talked briefly about the Capable Integrated Business Management and Capable Planning and Control Milestones, their scope, their relationship with the Checklist and, more importantly, how they would contribute to solving the customer service issues.

“You are going to build the ‘Planning Spine’ [Figure 12.1]. This analogy refers to the role of the spine in the human body, holding it together and carrying the central nervous system that gathers information and coordinates our activities and responses purposefully. An effective supply chain must operate with exactly the same purposefulness and integration.” Then, referring to roles on the chart, she continued.

“The Demand Manager brings to the Supply Chain the demand picture: current products and new products, as planned demand numbers, forecasts, and orders. The Supply Planning Manager works with the Demand Manager to create the optimum supply plan. All detailed supply plans and activities are driven from this supply plan. We’ll talk later about how they deal with an imbalance of demand and supply.

“The Planning Spine is like a neuro-network that communicates seamlessly up and down the material supply structure. You use it to hardwire resource plans to the master supply plan and to hardwire the master supply plan to forecasts and customer orders. We’ll get into the details of how these integrated processes must be designed and operated when we work with your process design teams. I suspect there are some considerable changes to be made.”

Roxanne changed subjects. “And your managers won’t be getting off the hook either! You’ll need direction and resources to match the company’s ambitions in the marketplace. Said another way, management must establish the company’s strategic intent and provide the resources and capabilities required to achieve their strategic objectives. To do this, the Leadership Team must manage volumes and timing of new products, demand, forecasts, inventories, manufacturing, purchasing, people, capital assets, and cash. Their process for managing all of this is called Integrated Business Management, which links the company’s strategies to the resources and operating plans.”

From the back of the room, a brand manager commented. “Based on what we’ve already heard about the work required in Planning and Control, I don’t see how we can take on this Integrated Business Management work at the same time. After all, the real problems are in the plants. Seems like that’s where we should be focusing our efforts to fix things.” There was a predictable din in the room as supply participants volunteered their displeasure at the brand manager’s comment.

Greg brought the meeting back to order as he stood and responded, “Charlie, I think there are plenty of problems to go around! I’ve thought about this a lot, folks. Frankly, we must accomplish the Capable Integrated Business Management Milestone since we have no effective integrated process for steering the company. When we looked at what would be involved running these two milestones in parallel, we could see that it was only incremental extra work for us, I mean for the Leadership Team. Lots of you will be involved with designing the related business processes, but the executives and I will need to do a majority of the work with this milestone. I am confident that we can, and that we will, make it happen.”

Over the course of the day, Roxanne followed a similar agenda and used many of the same examples that she had used in introducing the Leadership Team to the Class A work. Tom and Dan frequently interjected comments and additional examples to clarify and emphasize Roxanne’s points. She covered the structure of the Checklist, the purpose of each chapter, and elements from the Proven Path [see Chapter 10]. She also pointed out the progress of Cosmetics Products on that path [see Figure 10.5]. They were beginning Development, would soon be into Milestone Planning, and soon thereafter begin educating the process design teams. Roxanne explained that they had passed the Point of Commitment, and that the clock had started ticking. She shared examples of how other companies educate their people, redesign business processes, and utilize planning tools appropriately both to support long-range business and supply chain planning and to support more tactical day-to-day activities. Her explanations included excerpts from the Checklist that enabled her listeners to begin to understand parts of the text.

As she discussed managing internal supply, two of the distribution planners asked questions regarding the relationship between processes and planning tools. They were unhappy with their planning system, which was giving them unreliable recommendations. Addressing their questions, Roxanne described how planning systems must support formal planning processes. She described that they access forecasts and orders to drive warehouse replenishment through a distribution network using Distribution Resource Planning (DRP). This linkage to forecasts and orders allows companies to increase customer service while decreasing overall inventory, so long as there is also a link to an effective master supply plan. She explained then how master supply planning works to decouple demand from internal supply. For the system to work effectively, however, she explained that all data in the system must be extremely accurate.

A district sales manager suggested that decoupling would make the plants unresponsive to customer needs. Roxanne responded to the statement with some questions for the sales manager.

“First, let me ask you a question. Do your customers read your forecasts and buy according to those numbers?”

Once again laughter filled the room. The sales manager was eventually heard above the noise saying, “I wish. The customers just buy whatever they want whenever they want it.”

“Of course. I’d expect that to be the case. So demand is variable day-to-day and week-to-week, sometimes extremely variable. Let me tell you a secret. Your manufacturing plants, taking into account current material lead times, began procuring materials for this week’s packaging schedule about 12 weeks ago, based on the forecast they had at that time. Now if you could manufacture your products on the same day that you receive a customer order, perhaps you could just set up resources and people, and wait for the customer’s call. Would that work?”

The Atlanta Plant Operations Director called out, “We’d probably need to triple our resources, labor, and equipment capacity, to do that. The cost would kill us.” Another Manufacturing Department Manager added that she couldn’t make products on the day of an order receipt since the manufacturing operation was not that agile. Roxanne was pleased with the responses since they allowed her to continue building her message.

“Fair enough. So you are telling me, I believe, that to keep the ‘cost of goods sold’ down and make a profit, you must manage your supply resources carefully to optimize your cost, while factoring in your customers’ needs and your competitors’ pricing and responsiveness. So, today, your solution to this balancing act must be to decouple demand, with its volatile dynamics, from supply that is less agile. Customer demand can and does change rapidly; a single phone call from a customer can change everything. Nearly all supply chains operate at a much slower pace, almost stationary by comparison. Your only option at this time is to protect yourself against the variability of both demand and supply with safety stock. However, companies operating in what we call Phase 2 have become much more agile and responsive, and can respond faster, and with less inventory. But that subject is for a later time, after you’ve completed these initial milestones. You need to build that foundation first.”

Roxanne went on to describe how the Planning Spine [Figure 12.1] must be supported by a properly configured ERP system. None of the processes she mentioned were new to people, but her explanation of how they were meant to operate together was illuminating.

During the lunch break, many people welcomed Roxanne, Tom, and Dan personally and mentioned that they liked what they were hearing. Several also shared their concerns that the company’s leaders really didn’t understand enough about their problems and wouldn’t support all the major changes required to make the business successful. It was obvious to Roxanne that people were paying attention and were serious about delivering better customer service results. It was also obvious to Roxanne that the presence of the Leadership Team in this meeting was just as important as she had predicted from experience with other clients. Their presence was establishing a visible commitment in the eyes of those they led.

When the group reassembled, Roxanne projected a list on the screen. “As the Leadership Team worked with me over the past couple weeks, they documented a list of challenges facing Cosmetics Products [see Chapter 8]. They also decided that they would pursue the Capable Planning and Control Milestone and Capable Integrated Business Management Milestone to address these challenges.”

The attendees were in agreement that the list created by the executives was thorough, accurate, and brutally honest. Many told her that they understood the importance of these first milestones, and were in agreement with their objectives. This was an important indicator to Roxanne that Cosmetics Products benefited from open and honest communications, and a willingness to share bad news as well as good. This openness was further reinforced throughout the day by the level of engagement within the group. No one seemed reluctant, even in the presence of Greg and his vice presidents, to ask questions or to challenge Roxanne or others in the group. Neither were they reluctant to share examples of behaviors that violated the concepts and principles of business excellence. In general, the comments confirmed for Roxanne that a lack of organizational focus, poor cross-functional alignment, and uncontrolled and frequent last minute changes to products, plans and schedules were causing poor customer service, poor product management, high inventories, declining morale, and high costs.

After the next break, before Roxanne could get into her stride, one of the young department managers from the Atlanta plant challenged her. “I agree with others that what you’ve been telling us seems logical, but I’m not sure it’s necessary. I’m in an MBA program and have been studying Kanban, Lean, Agile, and Six Sigma. One of my professors said that these modern techniques eliminate the need for the kind of supply chain planning and coordination that you’ve been discussing. He said that these new methods are so responsive to customer needs that companies no longer need a forecast from the sales organization. He said that long-range planning should go the way of dinosaurs. Business today is all about velocity and pulling materials through the plant only when they are needed. That makes a lot of sense to me, Roxanne. We already have a Six Sigma Black Belt and some Green Belts in our plant. If we just continue to use them to increase plant velocity, much of what you’ve been promoting would be unnecessary, wouldn’t it?”

Several people spoke at once; many others raised their hands, but before Roxanne could respond a brand manager stood and joined the fray. “I’ve been sitting here biting my tongue for a long time, but I just have to get this off my chest. It’s also crystal clear to me that you don’t have a clue about the difficulty of forecasting the kind of products we produce, Roxanne. It would be easy to forecast products with long lead times such as tractors, or home appliances where you have a leading indicator such as housing starts. You just don’t understand that ours is a volatile industry with lots of influences outside our ability to forecast. If the product isn’t there, the consumer will buy some other company’s product. Having product available to ship is a Manufacturing responsibility. If they can’t do their job and the resulting absence of products on the store shelves affects customers’ buying decisions, then we can’t be held accountable for that failure. You have to realize that if our Product Development friends give us a poor design, there’s no way we can move that product despite our best efforts. Or if some MTV celebrity mentions a product on the air, our sales could either skyrocket or dry up entirely. Don’t expect us to forecast any of that. Look, we take a good shot at creating a sales forecast, but it’s hardly worth the effort; no one in this industry can do it. The customer service problems aren’t our fault, by any means. I’m telling you right now that it’s not possible to forecast any better than what we are doing now. Why don’t we just implement those tools that the professor described, and do it now? The supply organization just needs to get serious, stop whining and making excuses for their ineffectiveness. It would be really helpful if they would provide the products when our customers need them!” The room erupted with people trying to talk or shout over each other to make their points, either to support the brand manager or to take serious exception to his inflammatory comments.

Greg rose to his feet with arms raised to regain control of the group. When everyone quieted, Greg spoke. “I’m glad to see this much passion regarding issues which are critical to our success. From my standpoint, it’s extremely important to get these issues out on the table. Thanks for sharing your opinions, Jamie and Ted. Unless we recognize and define the issues, and stop being in denial about them, we’ll never solve them. I’m sure we have as many opinions about these particular topics as there are people in this room . . . maybe even more. But before we lose total control and come to cross-functional blows, let’s give Roxanne an opportunity to respond to the questions raised in the past few minutes.”

“Thanks, Greg. Let me respond quickly to each concern, and I promise you that during the detailed education to support the milestone teams, and in later work, we’ll spend all the time you need, and maybe more than you want, discussing them.

“First, let me address the issue of forecast accuracy. I’ll tell you that there is no such thing as a perfect forecast. One of my colleagues says, ‘There are two types of forecasts . . . lucky forecasts and lousy forecasts.’ ” This brought some laughter and the people relaxed a bit. “While I don’t necessarily agree with him on that point, his comment does frame the difficulty of predicting what a consumer is going to do when he or she is standing in a supermarket or pharmacy aisle looking at a vast array of products and presentations. By the way, forecasting also has its challenges even for those long lead time products and heavy equipment industries you mentioned. Those customers are not as predictable as you might imagine. I can assure you that many companies in your industry have learned how to improve the accuracy of their forecasts by using a variety of techniques suited to your situation. One of our clients changes more than 50 percent of its portfolio every three weeks!” That comment got the attention of the brand management participants. “Try traditional forecasting techniques in that business! So they don’t use traditional forecasting techniques. When we get together with the Demand Process Design Team, you’ll learn about other possible forecasting models. But all techniques provide better forecasts when forecast assumptions are documented, debated and reviewed after the fact. There’s too much time spent arguing about numbers when the numbers are simply the consequences of those assumptions. Do you document and track forecast assumptions in your business?” Shaking heads indicated that they did not. “So hold on to your doubts until your process design team has had some additional education.

“Companies are also improving their forecasts by getting closer to their key customers. There are some proven techniques for getting your plans synchronized with those of your customers. But before you can leverage any of these forecasting improvements, your internal supply planning processes must be at least at the ‘capable’ level.

“We haven’t yet mentioned ways of managing demand or using demand market levers to influence customers, and even consumers. Companies are also getting much better in managing demand through more effective design and targeting of marketing programs, selective advertising, packaging design, and promotional activities. We’ll talk later about these and other processes that enable companies to significantly improve their forecasting and demand management capabilities.

“As we continue our education, you will come to understand that Six Sigma, Lean, and Agile techniques can only be effective if applied to capable planning and control processes. If not, they just cannot deliver sustainable improvements. In fact, we recognize Agile, Lean, and Six Sigma as enablers for more rapidly achieving advanced Class A attributes that result in full business excellence and Class A performance. If I can be permitted to simplify the comparison, excellent companies plan, integrate, stabilize, and control the business over an extended time horizon from one end of a supply chain to the other. They predict and provide the necessary resources required to enable people to do what they say they will do. They have processes in place to make sure that all activities are driven from customer demand, and that all plans are valid and achieved. They have both short-term and long-term views of resource requirements so that the appropriate resources, even long lead-time capital intensive resources, and required new technologies and competencies, are available in every functional organization at the time they are needed, not before they are needed, and not after they are needed. Achieving and sustaining Class A standards of performance also requires an ongoing, formal and aggressive approach to continuous improvement. No matter how good a Class A company’s performance is at the time of certification, everyone in that company knows there is a better way to do their work and a potential to deliver even better results. In today’s hyper-competitive environment, if you don’t deliver better business results tomorrow than you did today, you might find your competitors passing you by. If you don’t figure out how to obsolete your own products and services with better products and services, someone else will, and you’ll lose market share. All this requires long range planning and visibility, and short-term market insights. The need for long range planning is not going away.

“Let’s now talk about Agile, Lean, and Six Sigma, and I want to mention Flexibility as well. First, I’ll start with the typical meanings of those words. Lean is about eliminating nonvalue-adding waste anywhere it occurs in the business. Six Sigma is about reducing process and product variability to levels that, until you need to implement automation and robotics, or bio-technology, are experienced as virtually invariant. Flexibility is the ability and speed of the supply chain to respond to volumes changes. Agility is the speed and ability to respond to product changes, usually caused by customers’ choices. All of these, and the associated aspects of people and teams, are included in milestones as companies approach full Class A business excellence. All of them require a paradigm shift. No longer would we talk about the percentage of products with quality defects or a percentage delivery performance. Class A companies measure defects or performance failures in parts per million, recognizing just how big a problem even 99.5 percent compliance presents. Let me ask you. Do you consider 99.5 percent a good level of operational or quality performance?” There was a uniform positive response to Roxanne’s question. One of the participants mentioned that she would be ecstatic if they could even get to 95 percent.

“The day you have to compete against a Class A competitor,” Roxanne responded, “you just might not be in business much longer. I can almost guarantee that some of your competitors are speaking in terms of fewer than 100 parts-per-million (ppm) levels of performance defects or failures. Just to remind you, 99.5 percent is 5000 ppm. Could you compete against less than 100ppm especially when it’s achieved, almost certainly, at costs lower than yours?” There was absolute silence in the room.

“The good news is that your Six Sigma resources will be invaluable to you when you move beyond Capable milestones to Advanced milestones. As a matter of interest, how many of you knew you had Black and Green belt resources available to you?” About 10 of the 50 people in the room raised their hands. Some of the executives looked a bit sheepish about their own lack of awareness.

“Your company, like most we meet, provides lots of education and training, but with only a minimal change in the organization’s culture or in the behaviors of its people. Education and training programs should be based on clear performance or behavior change objectives. The programs should provide the knowledge and skills required to develop the competencies and behaviors necessary to achieve strategic objectives. That’s how we approach education. As we go through the assessment, we’ll help you to identify gaps. We’ll then provide appropriate education and training when it’s needed to help the process design teams close those gaps and improve business results.

“There is one other thing I want to reinforce. Class A is not just compatible with Lean, Agile, and Six Sigma; it requires their consideration as you move into more advanced milestones. You already have some knowledge of the concepts of Agile, Lean, and Six Sigma and some trained resources. That puts you far ahead of many companies, but to be really effective, those resources and techniques must be applied to business processes that are already stable and delivering predictable results. Getting to that point is the purpose of Capable milestones.”

Following the afternoon break, Roxanne described how Cosmetics Products would implement Class A business processes at the Capable Level. She led the group through the proven path to business excellence paying special attention to the first few elements, as she had with Greg’s team.

“Tomorrow you will work in teams for much of the day. With David’s help, we’ve grouped you as potential members of the Capable Planning and Control and Capable Integrated Business Management process design teams. The Leadership Team has already selected the design team leaders. David will share the names tomorrow morning after he’s had a chance to talk with the individuals. Tomorrow we’ll begin the day together in this room, and then break up into the design teams to begin the work. You’ll be helping the milestone leaders create the first cut of the Project Plan.” She handed the meeting over to Greg.

“And so tomorrow, we’ll begin in full session in which Roxanne, Tom, and Dan will describe in more detail what you need to accomplish. They’ll give you a brief overview of the purpose and content of the nine chapters in the Checklist. Then you’ll break into your process design teams [see Figure 10.6].

“Before we break up today, I will hand out the Capable Planning and Control Milestone Template which includes the scoring guidelines. My team will receive the Capable Integrated Business Management Template. Reviewing these is your homework for the evening. The templates list the elements of the Class A Checklist needed to achieve our milestones. We’ll discuss them in more detail tomorrow. Design Team Leaders, you need to become especially familiar with the elements linked specifically to your business processes. So, for example, the Demand group will mostly be focusing on the requirements of Chapter 6, Managing Demand.

“You’ll have your team leaders in place by tomorrow morning, and you’ll also need to appoint a scribe—not your subject matter experts please—to take brief notes of your reactions to the Checklist and templates. Please create a list of questions, comments, or challenges for our coaches.

“Later, when the design teams are finalized, Roxanne’s team will provide the business process education you’ll need for assessing and redesigning our business processes. They’ll also be around to coach you through the inevitable choices and problems.

“Unless you have additional questions, this brings us to the end of today’s formal meeting. Thanks, Roxanne, Dan, and Tom, for your hard work and for another enlightening day. As many of you know, Susan Barnett, our CEO, has agreed to join us for dinner tonight. She slipped in at the back of the room a little while ago. Welcome, Susan. Would you like to say anything to the group?”

“Thanks, Greg. I was thinking about your meeting all day and finally decided to come down and eavesdrop for a few minutes. I’ll take the opportunity to address the group after dinner, if you don’t mind.”

“Not at all, Susan. I know Susan will be eager to hear your comments about today, so please feel free to speak candidly with her. And now we’ll stand adjourned until dinner at 6 P.M.”

Susan had intentionally arrived early so that she could observe the end of the workshop and determine for herself the level of interest and engagement among the participants. As people began to leave the ballroom, Greg introduced Roxanne, Tom, and Dan to Susan. She was also greeted warmly by many others who offered encouraging words about the day’s events. Susan sat down with Roxanne, Tom, and Dan to learn more about their backgrounds, the work they were beginning with Cosmetics Products, particular opportunities Roxanne had already discovered and, specifically, their recommendations about what Susan could do as CEO to best support Greg and his team. Susan also wanted to know if the work was compatible with and transferable to the other Amalgamated businesses. Roger Winchester, President of Home Products, had introduced Greg to the concepts of business excellence and had mentioned a number of times over the past year the possibility of a Class A journey in his Division. However he hadn’t yet made the decision to begin.

Susan wasn’t surprised that Greg had acted first, since she knew Greg’s ability to recognize opportunities and apply new ideas successfully. She also suspected that the most important reason Greg moved so quickly was the pressure he was feeling; Roger didn’t have that same business pressure.

To see Greg so excited about the journey to business excellence told Susan that there was a high probability of success. If her instincts were right, she wanted to position Amalgamated to realize similar improvements in all its businesses, not just Cosmetics Products. She then wondered to herself why most people were so reluctant to change until the pressure to change became intolerable and, too often, past the point of recovery. Probably goes back to the old saying, “no pain no gain,” she thought. “Perhaps I should figure out how to create more pain so that others like Roger will develop Greg’s sense of urgency!”

Later that evening, as dinner drew to a close, Greg took the opportunity to welcome Susan officially. “As you finish your dessert, I want to thank all of you for your participation today and for the creative work I expect you’ll accomplish tomorrow. I also want to thank our CEO, Susan Barnett, for joining us tonight. I’ve had the privilege of working with Susan for many years and have often told her how much I appreciate her vision and her ability to inspire others. Most of you know that Susan invited me to join Cosmetics Products, but that should in no way be a reason to question her judgment!” A ripple of laughter followed that comment. “If you haven’t yet had the opportunity to meet her personally, please introduce yourself after dinner. I’ve asked Susan to address the group, so with that I’ll turn the microphone over to the Chief Executive Officer of Amalgamated Consumer Products Corporation, Susan Barnett.” Polite applause greeted Susan as she stood to address the group.

“In the short time I’ve been here today, I’ve spoken with a good many of you, including Roxanne and her colleagues. Your energy level, optimism and confidence really impress me. You’ve already convinced me that you have what it takes to overcome the challenges and barriers to success. Of course, you still have to develop a detailed plan of action and deliver bottom line results. But I know that you’ll be successful.

“You have my complete support and also the support of my Executive Team for the changes you’ll need to implement. It’s important for me to make that point, because I heard some concern about the willingness of senior management to change. I stand in support of Greg and his Leadership Team on this issue. Greg’s track record is that he is not only willing to change, but is a driver of change. It’s no secret that the Board is counting on him and all of you to make Cosmetics Products successful. I look forward to telling them what I’ve heard tonight and will keep a close eye on your progress so that I can continue to update them regularly.

“Thanks for inviting me to dinner. I can’t wait to learn about what you accomplish tomorrow.”

Susan received a standing ovation as Greg joined her at the podium. “Thanks very much, Susan. Well, this brings us to the end of the first day. Get a good night’s rest, everyone. We have lots of work to do tomorrow! We’ll have a continental breakfast here at seven o’clock and begin tomorrow’s agenda at half past the hour. Good night, everyone.”