Do you have managers who aren’t afraid to make decisions in tough situations – but who seem to make the wrong ones?

Consider Beth, supervisor at Eminence Printing, a 50-year-old company. Beth is bright, highly motivated, knowledgeable about printing, and her boss, Lew, current CEO and son of the founder, trusted her with one of his most valued clients.

The client is the Bracken Company – a local company that hosts a lavish picnic for the entire community every year. The picnic is considered the social event of the summer, and the guests can’t wait to get their annual commemorative t-shirts – designed and printed by Eminence Printing.  The shirts – a tradition for the last 15 years – are prized as collector’s items, because a new design is created every year and then printed with blended inks that add to the unique look of the shirt.

Bracken placed its customary order – 5,000 shirts – and set a reasonable deadline for completion.

Production was on-schedule, until an unexpected supply problem meant that Eminence wouldn’t have enough of the blended inks to print all 5,000 shirts – the last 1,000 couldn’t get done.

Beth thought she knew the company’s goals, because she heard these things in every meeting:

• Meet deadlines
• Control costs
• Don’t compromise quality

Armed with this knowledge, she tested printing the shirt with standard ink, found the quality to be different but not inferior, and authorized the printing of the last 1,000 shirts with standard ink.  She reduced the price on the last 1,000 by 25% in acknowledgement of the choice she had made.

Beth met the goals she stated:

• She met the deadline
• She held the cost down, and was even able to save the client some money
• She didn’t compromise quality, because the standard-ink shirts still looked fine – but different – from the blended-ink shirts.

As the picnic got underway, and the guests were getting in line to get their new shirts, it be came apparent very quickly that the guests saw a big difference in the shirts – their focus shifted from just getting a shirt to getting a “good shirt” – one created with blended inks.

What was the result of Beth’s decision?

• Eminence Printing only got 15 orders for custom t-shirts in the subsequent 12 months – down from 25 orders in previous years
• Eminence’s Image took a hit – the new CEO, trying to continue his father’s tradition, had instead demonstrated change toward cost cutting, instead of toward top quality.
• Eminence retained Bracken as a client, but only if Lew promised to be personally involved in all future projects
• Bracken’s successful string of commemorative t-shirt hit a snag in 2004 –- the mystique was diminished, and the excitement to see the shirt, and attend the picnic -- was not as great in 2005.

Lew – the CEO – couldn’t understand how Beth had made the choice she did.  He was sure the strategic vision of Eminence Printer was crystal clear:

• Customer-driven value
• Highest possible quality
• Dependability and reliability

From Lew’s perspective, Beth put the emphasis on all the wrong things.  Meeting the deadline was important, but not at the expense of quality. Controlling cost should not have been a consideration at all – the client knew what the shirts would cost and was happy with the price. The quality was compromised, even though the shirts were technically acceptable, because they didn’t meet the customer’s expectations.

How could Beth have been so wrong?  After considerable soul searching by Lew, he realized what had happened. 

While the highest levels of management in the company were on board with the strategic focus of the company, that strategy hadn’t been shared with the line managers.  They had been given goals to meet without sharing the direction that created the goals.

Because the line managers weren’t shown the vision, the priorities they set were based on what they thought must be the vision – saving money and meeting deadlines were selected as logical top priorities.

Lew set out to remedy the situation.

He put his three key departments (20 key players) through a Strategic Goal Setting process.  They translated the strategic focus into easy, reproducible behaviors at each stage of the production process. They found a better way to train employees and refined how they would measure success. They created a goal-review cycle – monthly for leadership, quarterly for all employees – to measure progress, eliminate obstacles and recommit to the goals.

Now, the entire team – the entire company – understands the company’s priorities and are aligned to meet them. Supervisors can make decisions in Lew’s absence with confidence, knowing that they can see the bigger picture and make the right choices. Involving the employees in the vision has led to better processes and greater retention of good employees.  Turnover decreased from 40% to just over 30% in a single year. Overall profitability increased by 20% during the first year.