MGMT 464 From Snowboarders to Lawnmowers Case Study Case Analysis Worksheet #1 Case Analysis Session 1 : Focus on Inspiring a Shared Vision (Principle #2) Inspiring a shared vision has two main components [1] creating a vision through common purpose, and [2] enlisting or getting people ‘on board’ with the vision. In your small groups, discuss and document your group’s response to the following questions. Upload your typed document into one of your group member’s D2L dropbox by the assigned due date on your course schedule. Be sure to include on your worksheet all group member names. If present in class, all group members will receive the same grade for this case analysis assignment (maximum 30 pts). Group peer evaluations will be used to determine overall individual group member participation points for both of these case study discussions (maximum 15 pts). 1. In what specific ways did Michael fail and/or succeed in ‘listening deeply’ to his employees? 2. In what specific ways did Michael show that he was not “open to influence?” How would Michael being open to influence have made him more effective, ( i.e., who were the “local experts” and how could he have benefited from them)? 3. When you consider the employees of Bedford Mower as they were before Michael arrived, how would you characterize them in terms of what was personally meaningful to them? 4. When creating his vision for the company, in what specific ways did Michael fail and/or succeed in ‘determining what was meaningful’ to his employees, and what was the impact? 5. What specific mechanisms, or opportunities did Michael have available to him for enlisting others? 6. To what extent did Michael take advantage of these? To what extent were they effective in terms of getting everyone on board with the new vision? 7. In thinking about his attempts to enlist others, in what ways did or didn’t Michael incorporate common ideals into his communication with his employees as it related to the new vision? 8. How successful was Michael in “animating the vision”? How would you characterize him in terms of his use of symbolic language, providing imagery of the future, practicing positive communication, expressing emotion, and speaking from the heart, in his communications to his employees? 9. What would you have done differently with this group of employees in terms of inspiring a shared vision? Team Leadership Case  From Snowboards to Lawnmowers Michael Francis, a man in his late 30s, born and raised in Oregon, was an avid snowboarder. He was known among his many friends and associates as a risk-taker, highly intelligent, innovative, a bit of a rebel, but an extremely smart businessman. When he was in his early 20s, he started his own snowboarding company designing and manufacturing what became known as some of the most cutting edge boards available. Having recently married a woman who was raised on the East coast, he decided to sell his company and move to Vermont where h ...

1. MGMT 464
From Snowboarders to Lawnmowers Case Study
Case Analysis Worksheet #1
Case Analysis Session 1 : Focus on Inspiring a Shared Vision
(Principle #2)
Inspiring a shared vision has two main components [1] creating
a vision through common purpose, and [2] enlisting or getting
people ‘on board’ with the vision.
In your small groups, discuss and document your group’s
response to the following questions. Upload your typed
document into one of your group member’s D2L dropbox by the
assigned due date on your course schedule. Be sure to include
on your worksheet all group member names. If present in class,
all group members will receive the same grade for this case
analysis assignment (maximum 30 pts). Group peer evaluations
will be used to determine overall individual group member
participation points for both of these case study discussions
(maximum 15 pts).
1. In what specific ways did Michael fail and/or succeed in
‘listening deeply’ to his employees?
2. In what specific ways did Michael show that he was not
“open to influence?” How would Michael being open to
influence have made him more effective, ( i.e., who were the
“local experts” and how could he have benefited from them)?
3. When you consider the employees of Bedford Mower as they
were before Michael arrived, how would you characterize them
in terms of what was personally meaningful to them?
4. When creating his vision for the company, in what specific
ways did Michael fail and/or succeed in ‘determining what was
meaningful’ to his employees, and what was the impact?

2. 5. What specific mechanisms, or opportunities did Michael have
available to him for enlisting others?
6. To what extent did Michael take advantage of these? To what
extent were they effective in terms of getting everyone on board
with the new vision?
7. In thinking about his attempts to enlist others, in what ways
did or didn’t Michael incorporate common ideals into his
communication with his employees as it related to the new
vision?
8. How successful was Michael in “animating the vision”? How
would you characterize him in terms of his use of symbolic
language, providing imagery of the future, practicing positive
communication, expressing emotion, and speaking from the
heart, in his communications to his employees?
9. What would you have done differently with this group of
employees in terms of inspiring a shared vision?
From Snowboards to Lawnmowers
Michael Francis, a man in his late 30s, born and raised in
Oregon, was an avid snowboarder. He was known among his
many friends and associates as a risk-taker, highly intelligent,
innovative, a bit of a rebel, but an extremely smart
businessman. When he was in his early 20s, he started his own
snowboarding company designing and manufacturing what
became known as some of the most cutting edge boards
available. Having recently married a woman who was raised on
the East coast, he decided to sell his company and move to
Vermont where his wife could be close to her family and in
more close proximity to New York City where she did a fair
amount of freelance work, and where he could get in a lot of

3. good snowboarding. The sale of his business made him a
wealthy man, and although working was not a financial
necessity for him, he was seeking some new business challenge
that could stretch him in a different direction. Although he had
worked extremely hard to build his snowboard company and he
had loved every minute of it, in many ways it had been easy for
him to be successful in that realm.
Michael began to research potential business opportunities in
Vermont. During the course of his search, his brother-in-law
informed him of a relatively small, family-owned lawn tool
company, Bedford Mower, in Bedford Vermont, that was going
to be sold soon. The company had a few side product lines
consisting of small lawn tools, but their main product, and the
one that the company had been known for since its inception,
was a special model of lawn mower. Michael’s brother-in-law
knew about the company because one of his former college
friends was the only grandson of the company’s founder, Edwin
Emerson, and the ‘heir apparent’ slated to take over the
president position as his grandfather and father had before him.
Unfortunately for the Emerson family, the grandson had clear
intentions of going to graduate school and pursuing a career in
architecture, and had no plans to carry on in the family
business. Because his grandfather, the company founder, had
recently passed away at 92, and his father was being forced to
retire due to severe health problems, the Emerson family had
reluctantly come to the hard decision to sell the company.
Although his brother-in-law had half-jokingly informed Michael
of the company thinking he would never go from making high-
tech snowboards to lawnmowers, there were a number of aspects
that appealed to Michael about the whole concept. Before he
had died, Michael’s father had actually owned a small business
repairing lawn mowers. Although Michael was only seven when
his father died, he had fond memories of spending time with
him in his workshop while he carefully took the lawnmowers

4. apart and reassembled them. Another plus was the company’s
location. It was located in a small town that his wife’s family
had vacationed in summers while she was growing up. Michael
had actually been there a number of years back while
participating in a snowboarding competition and recalled liking
the town very much. Obviously, the line of business was quite
different than snowboards so it would also provide him the
opportunity to test his business skills in a different venue. He
decided to fly to Vermont in September and meet with the
founder’s grandson and find out more about the company.
During his visit, Michael was given an extensive tour of the
company and spent 5 days meeting with the grandson and the
corporate attorney gathering as much information as he could
about the operation. He was quite impressed with what he
learned. In its 72 years of operation, the company had made a
profit every year except during four years of the Depression.
The financial records did indicate that the profit margin had
been slowly, but steadily, decreasing over the last 10 years as
the company accumulated increasing costs in some critical
areas. The founder’s grandson informed Michael that his
grandfather was very insistent on sticking to certain ways of
doing business, and although his father had increasingly noticed
that these practices were costing the company money, he had
been reluctant to make changes given the founder’s strong
position on the matter. Michael was not overly concerned about
this trend because it was evident what the problem areas were
and he felt that they could be taken care of with a few “quick
twists.” The model of lawn mower the company produced was
well constructed, had a good reputation for quality, and a solid
customer base. The company also enjoyed ties with a strong and
stable network of suppliers and distributors. In addition,
employee turnover rate was much lower than average for that
particular industry and the grandson stressed that the company
consisted of a very loyal and committed workforce of around
300 employees. He noted, in fact, that a fair amount of the

5. employees were actually related (e.g., cousins, siblings) and it
was not unusual to have “third generation” hires working along
side their parents and sometimes grandparents. Another plus in
Michael’s mind was the fact that the company had existed this
long as a non-union shop. He had run into some difficulty with
the union in his last company and was hoping to avoid that in
the future.
Sitting in his hotel room his last night in Vermont, Michael
became increasingly excited about the possibilities as he
outlined some ideas for some fundamental changes to both the
product line and the way the company could operate under his
reign. He felt that the company had the foundation to be
something great but was a bit antiquated in terms of its product
orientation and its processes. Over breakfast the next morning
with the founder’s grandson, Michael expressed strong interest
in acquiring the company and sketched out a few of his ideas
for change. The grandson listened attentively to Michael’s ideas
and then politely interrupted him. “I agree whole-heartedly with
where you are going with this, and I do think this place does
need to move into the current century” he said with a chuckle,
“but in the spirit of full disclosure, I have to tell you that this
company is very much a typical ‘New England’ style institution
– a very conservative, traditional, paternalistic, bureaucracy.
Don’t get me wrong…my family has treated the employees very
well over the years. That’s why the turnover is so low. People
like working here. Until he turned 90, my grandfather was here
every work day along with my father closely overseeing the
operations. My grandfather and my father knew every employee
by name, knew about their families – who had a baby and whose
kid went off to college, what they liked to do on their family
vacations. Hell, I know for a fact that they’ve helped put some
employees’ kids through college, or lent a hand when numerous
employees were struggling with mortgage payments and things
like that. But I guess my point is that people here are used to
this company being run in a certain way, and in general, I think

6. change is hard for them. It’s hard to believe, but there are still a
number of operating practices in place that my grandfather
instituted when he started the company. Like the Friday
executive meetings. From the day the company was large
enough to warrant hiring its first manager, my grandfather
would hold a meeting every Friday to discuss the company’s
operations and strategy and to give management their ‘marching
orders’ for the next week while drinking scotch and smoking
cigars. It’s a tradition at the company. It’s pretty much the only
time that large conference room is used. My father and
grandfather insisted I attend a number of the meetings and they
were pretty amazing – it was like sitting in on an exclusive
‘old-boys’ club with lots of back slapping, politicking,
managers lobbying for more resources for their departments, or
for promotions for themselves. Lots of major decisions being
made in those meetings over scotch and cigars. As you saw from
the organizational chart, the company is very formal and ‘top-
down’ in terms of decision-making. There is a very clear chain
of command and notions such as ‘employee empowerment’ and
‘self-managing teams’ that we studied in business school do not
apply here. Personally, I couldn’t stand it, but the employees
don’t seem to mind. Their jobs are well defined, they know
what is expected from them, and they do it and do it well. I’m
not saying someone couldn’t make changes here, I’m just saying
you might have your work cut out for you is all.”
After returning to Oregon, in October Michael decided to make
the move to Vermont and purchase Bedford Mower. He spent
the next few months doing extensive research on lawn
equipment, its design, manufacture, and market. He finalized
his strategy for making the company more profitable and
competitive. Given that the acquisition came during the
company’s slow season, right after Christmas, he contacted the
three Vice Presidents and informed them that Bedford Mower
would be closed down for three weeks to allow for some
remodeling and restructuring. He asked that all employees be

7. notified that due to the new ownership transition, they would
have three weeks paid leave, and were to report back to work on
February 1st in the town hall building to meet the new owner
and president of Bedford Mower.
Michael felt that in order for Bedford Mower employees to fully
appreciate that “they were all embarking on a new, energizing,
innovative path” the company was going to need a new look.
When he walked around the building, everything spoke of
stodgy tradition and bureaucracy. All the walls were painted
standard issue beige or light green, and lined with pictures
dating back to the company’s inception. They depicted the
founder standing next to the first lawn mower he had designed
and built by hand, the founder and the first salesman dressed in
suits while cutting the grass of potential customers as a means
of demonstrating their product, the company’s first building,
and numerous photographs of company picnics and employees
throughout the years. Because they were a part of the
company’s history, Michael couldn’t quite bring himself to
throw them away, but he ordered them taken down and put into
storage. He didn’t want the employees dwelling on the past, he
wanted them in the mindset of thinking about the future. He
hired a corporate interior consultant and together they picked
out vibrant colors for the walls, and arranged to have several
pieces of Michael’s contemporary art collection hung in the
main hallway.
Part of Michael’s overall strategy was to reorganize the
company from a traditional functional department structure
(i.e., all the marketing and sales employees located in one
department, finance employees in another) to a cross-functional
product team structure whereby existing, and new, product line
areas would be staffed with employees from each of the
functional areas. So instead of a finance employee working with
other finance employees in the distinct Finance department, that
employee would now be working with members of marketing,

8. sales, and operations, in a product specific area. Another
addition was that under the restructure, functional employees
would now report to a newly appointed product manager for that
particular product line, as well as their traditional functional
manager. This product-oriented structure was one that Michael
had used in his snowboard company and it worked very well for
them. In order to facilitate the new form of interaction across
functional area employees, Michael had the workspace
redesigned from a series of small offices to a series of open
workspaces organized by short cubicle walls with product line
employees clustered together. Michael also ordered all of the
desks, many that looked old enough to be antiques, donated to a
local charity and had them replaced with new, sleekly designed
desks and chairs that were more space efficient. A total remodel
of the corporate conference room was completed including the
removal of the bar, pool table, old leather lounge chairs, and
ash trays.
In mid January, Michael called a meeting with the three
presiding Vice Presidents (of Marketing/Sales, Finance, and
Operations/Manufacturing) in which he discussed the changes
he wanted to be made in the company. When the Vice
Presidents walked into the conference room, they were quite
surprised to see all of the physical changes that had taken place,
and unsure as to why three people they had not previously met,
two woman and two men, were sitting around the new
conference table fully engaged in conversation with the new
president. Michael quickly introduced the four strangers as
“talented employees” from his former company who had agreed
to come on board and work with him at Bedford Mower as
product managers. When the VP of Operations commented, “but
we don’t have product managers here,” Michael smiled and said
“Well we do now, and let me tell you how that is going to
work.” He noted that the company needed to think bigger and
broader than just their current focus on producing residential
lawn equipment for domestic markets, and also needed to adopt

9. a leaner, flexible structure and operating processes. He reported
that they were missing a big opportunity for larger profit
margins by not being in the professional lawn care market and
by not having more of an international presence. He also
commented that the current chain-of-command structure was too
“management heavy” which was causing the company to incur
unnecessary salary costs and resulting in slower response time.
The VPs exchanged worried glances and one said, “Well, we’re
certainly all for what is in the best interest of Bedford Mower.
To that end, as you can see, we have brought along copies of the
company policies and procedures manuals, as well as the results
of our last strategic planning meeting to help you get more
acquainted with us and how we’ve been able to operate
successfully for so many years…” Michael interrupted the VP
saying, “I’ve seen all of that. That’s what Bedford Mower was
before. What we are here to talk about today is how Bedford
Mower is going to be reinvented!” With that, he proceeded to
outline the following changes.
· The company would add two new product lines: (1)
professional lawn equipment, and (2) a line of residential
equipment to serve more international markets.
· The company would maintain their two current product lines
of (1) residential mowers and (2) small lawn tools, but these
would no longer be the sole focus of the company.
· A Japanese equipment design firm would now be responsible
for ‘updating’ the design of the company’s current mower line,
and for providing the design ideas for the two new product
lines. The existing two-person, in-house design department
would be eliminated.
· Parts for product lines would now be purchased from a large
manufacturer in India that provided quality parts at a much
more competitive price than the local parts supplier currently

10. used. Use of the current local supplier would be phased out
within two months of the company’s reinstatement of operation
in February.
· Work processes in the non-manufacturing side of the company
would move from a functional design to a new cross-functional
product design focusing on their four defined product lines
· Two layers of non-manufacturing management would be
eliminated – a layer of mid-level managers and the immediate
work group supervisors. The mid-level managers were to be let
go and the supervisors given the option of assuming their
former non-supervisory position, or being let go.
· There was to be more decentralized decision-making taking
place within the product line groupings with the product line
managers reporting directly to the president.
· Most employees on the non-manufacturing side would now
report to two managers, their functional area manager as well as
their new product line manager.
· A new, more high-tech extension of assembly line equipment
would be installed in the manufacturing site to replace some of
the existing assembly line equipment. Both lines would be run
temporarily until the assembly line employees became
acquainted with the new line – at which point the old equipment
would be permanently removed.
When Michael concluded, the 3 VPs sat for a few minutes in
silence not quite knowing what to say. Finally, they began to
voice strong concerns about a number of Michael’s initiatives
especially the movement into the new product areas and the new
structuring. They argued that the company had developed a
strong identity and brand around their core product, the

11. residential lawn mower, and that moving away from this target
into “uncharted” product areas could cause them to lose their
established brand base, and go under if the new lines failed. The
VP of Operations/Manufacturing added, “Why do we have to
mess with how people work? Around here marketing folks work
with other marketing folks, they don’t work with finance and
operations folks. And I mean no disrespect to your friends here,
but why do employees need another manager to report to? I
think this is going to be very confusing.” The discussion
continued for 2 ½ more hours with Michael mainly defending
his decisions against the VPs’ increasingly stringent arguments.
Finally, Michael said, “Look. I know change is tough, but it’s
necessary for advancement in any area. This company cannot
continue on as it had been operating, and I made this acquisition
to move it in a different direction. If any of you feel that you
cannot make this work, I understand and will respectfully
accept your resignation. My hope, however, is that you will all
stay on and help me move the company into a new and exciting
era.” With that he provided them with the list of mid-level
managers who were to be let go, a memo that would be sent out
that week to all employees explaining the new changes, and a
list of action items that he needed them to accomplish between
now and the company’s re-opening.
More than anything, Michael hated meetings. In fact, he had a
sign on his office wall that read “Excessive meetings are the
tool of those who do not have the capacity to get things done.”
As such, he also informed the VPs that the Friday Executive
meetings that had taken place since the company’s inception,
would no longer be held. He noted that with the new, leaner
structure and decentralized decision-making process in place,
communication between levels should be more efficient and that
it did not seem necessary to have all managers meet with him
every week. His plan was to have the cross-functional teams
meet on a weekly basis with their product line manager, and
have the three product line managers meet with the “top

12. management team” (the 3 VPs) every month. He also informed
the VPs that he was a big proponent of open forum meetings,
and that he had arranged to have the town hall available the last
Friday of every month to hold a company-wide meeting where
anyone could ask questions, or discuss anything they felt was
relevant to the company or their jobs.
The next day he met with Mrs. Hockson, the manager of the
Human Resources department, who had been with the company
for 40 years. He informed her of a number of steps that needed
to be taken in that area. He shared that he has aware of the
company tradition of “legacy hiring” by which employees’
relatives tended to be given preference in hiring decision.
Because he was concerned that this practice could lead to
nepotism and less than optimal hiring and operating decisions,
he was implementing a new policy that prohibited the hiring of
current employees’ direct family members. Those who were
already employed could stay, but no additional family members
were to be considered for job openings. When the HR manager
stated that the town, and the family members, was the viable
employment base for the company, he recommended that the HR
department begin broader recruitment efforts that would include
2 towns within 45 minutes of Bedford. Michael also told her
that given the transitions that were taking place and some pretty
hefty start-up costs he had incurred, they would need to
postpone the employee performance reviews, and associated
wage increases, for about six months. When she expressed
concern about this decision, Michael noted “I have always been
more then generous with my employees and when people here
get to know me, they will see that. We will catch everyone up
in due time – right now is just not that time.” As Michael, got
up to leave, the HR manager hesitated for a moment and then
said, “Well you know Mr. Francis, a tradition around here is the
company president’s barbeque that is held every July at his
home. It’s quite the big deal with all employees invited as well
as our distributors and suppliers. Some of them even fly in from

13. other parts of the East coast. And I’m the one in charge of
planning the whole event – which I like to get started on in
February. I know that you and your wife bought that nice piece
of property down by the lake which would be a perfect spot for
the barbeque and I’m sure your wife would want to get involved
in the picnic plans as well.” Quickly, images flashed through
Michael’s head of the old company photographs he had removed
depicting horse shoe competitions and softball games and whole
hogs on a barbeque spit. Then his mind quickly transitioned to
the fact that he had promised is wife, a strict vegetarian and not
your typical picnic-planning type of woman, that they would
finally take their delayed honeymoon in Europe for the month of
July. He turned to the HR manager and said “You know, I was
really thinking about doing something different this year.
People are probably bored with the whole picnic thing by now.
What if we have some type of winter sports event in which all
employees can get involved? Wouldn’t that be fun? I like that
idea -- let’s talk about that in a few more months.”
Michael arrived early to the town hall on February 1st to go
through his Powerpoint presentation one more time before all of
the employees arrived. He had asked his former employees, the
new product line managers, to get there early also to help him
set up as well. His wife had offered to be there with him as
well, but he told her that probably wasn’t necessary. He hated to
admit it to her, but he was pretty nervous about the meeting and
was having second thoughts about this new venture he had taken
on. Things with the VPs had not gone well during the transition
time and he felt like the only people he could rely on for
support and encouragement were his four product line
managers. He had also become increasingly aware of the rumors
that were running rampant throughout the town. He had pretty
much stopped going into town to eat at the local restaurants or
shop at the hardware store because it felt like every time he did,
he would overhear people bashing the new Bedford Mower
owner and the change he was forcing on the company, and

14. lamenting the fact that he was going to run them out of business
within the first year. Not knowing who Michael was at the
time, the town people had felt free to be quite open with their
criticisms. Michael stood behind the stage curtain and peered
through an opening as the employees slowly filled the hall. He
was struck by the fact that with the exception of the three VPs
and the HR manager who were taking seats in the front row of
the audience, he knew no one. Mrs. Hockson gave him a quick,
reassuring smile, but the three VPs completely avoided eye
contact with Michael. He had asked his product managers to
join him up on the stage so that he could introduce them more
easily…admittedly, he also wanted them there for morale
support.
When it was time to begin the meeting, Michael walked
confidently out onto the stage and announced, “Hello, my name
is Michael Francis, and I’m the man who is going to help you
move this company out of the last century!” He had enough
time before the lights dimmed in preparation for his
presentation to quickly look around the audience and see
scowls, arms folded in defiance, or people nudging each other
and rolling their eyes. He proceeded to have a moment of total
panic as the first slide appeared with the words “Introducing
Innovative Lawn Technologies, Inc. formerly Bedford Mower”
and he experienced great remorse over his last minute decision
to change the name of the company, as a flood of angry
responses emanated from the darkened room. He quickly
proceeded to go through his presentation at a record pace
finishing in half the time he had planned. As he requested that
the lights be turned back up, he could barely look at the
gathering of employees. Nevertheless, he told them that he
knew what he was implementing represented a lot of change,
and it would take awhile to get used to things, but after they
did, he was confident that they would be as excited about the
new direction of the company as he was. He then said that he
would like to hear any ideas, concerns, or questions that anyone

15. would like him to address. The audience was eerily quiet. He
was prepared for the VPs to take this opportunity to publicly
voice their numerous oppositions to his ideas, but they just sat
in their seats expressionless. Michael made several attempts to
get the audience to engage in some discussion by offering
things like “Well I’m sure there have been plenty of rumors
flying around about me and what I plan to do here, so if anyone
has any of those to share, I’d be happy to address them.” Still
nothing. Finally, an employee raised her hand and asked if any
members of the Emerson family were present at the
presentation. Michael indicated that they were not. Another
spoke up, asking if the Emerson family had been consulted on
any of the new changes that were taking place. Getting a bit
defensive, Michael responded that they had not expressed any
interest in participating, and since they were no longer the
owners of the company, he did not think he needed to consult
them. After a few more failed attempts to initiate discussion,
Michael began to close the meeting. Suddenly, one of the new
product line managers quietly reminded him that he had yet to
introduce them to the employees. He turned and quickly
introduced them one by one announcing that these were “the
talented individuals who would be leading the new product
lines.” The managers noted that they received no warmer of a
welcome than had Michael as their introductions met with only
a few, half-hearted, intermittent bouts of applause. Michael
closed with “Well, I am looking forward to working with all of
you. Now please, go over to the newly renovated building and
get acquainted with your new work place!” He quickly turned
and headed back stage followed quickly by the product line
managers. As they headed out back to the parking lot, Michael
called “We need to get out of here for awhile – do you guys
have your boards with you?” They did, and all climbed into
Michael’s SUV with their gear and headed for the nearest
mountain.
Over the next few months, Michael had little interaction with

16. the employees. Part of this was due to his promise to himself to
not become a workaholic and to maintain his work-life balance
philosophy he maintained at his former company by which he
would only be in the office Mondays thru Wednesdays. He now
had a great administrative assistant and he stressed to her and
his top management team that he was always available by cell
phone or his blackberry if problems arose and he was needed.
But the reality was, that even when he was physically present,
he found it hard to be around the employees. Walking around
the building, his attempts to make conversation with people
were met with abrupt responses. They weren’t actually openly
rude, but they sure weren’t friendly. He held only two of the
all-employee open forum meetings so far, and no one said a
word in the meetings except him. It became obvious that the
meetings were a waste of everyone’s time. When he approached
the VPs with inquiries as to how things were going, he received
responses such as “Well, we’re all doing our best to acclimate
to the changes…but it’s hard,” or “I guess things are going as
best as they could be under the circumstances.”
Five months into the company’s reopening, the product line
managers invited Michael on a Saturday night to drive with
them to the next town for dinner. Sitting in the restaurant, one
manager said “Listen Michael, we didn’t drive 45 minutes to the
nearest town just for the calamari. There are serious problems in
the company and we didn’t feel comfortable talking to you
about it in Bedford given that, literally, everybody and his
brother seems to work at ILT. We know you’ve been a bit
depressed about how things started out at ILT and the four of us
decided to wait it out awhile and see if things would turn
around, but this whole product line concept is simply not
working. Seriously, we have really tried, but at this point, you
are pretty much paying us for doing nothing because there
really are no product teams operating at ILT.” Michael was a bit
surprised to hear this news because he had been meeting with
the product managers every month, and although the teams had

17. not made great strides, there was clearly some progress being
made in terms of developing the two new product lines and
updating the existing lines. “Well” said another manager
sheepishly, “the little bit of progress that you have been seeing
is pretty much a result of our personal efforts, not that of the
product teams.” They proceeded to inform Michael of the
numerous failed attempts at product team meetings for which
employees would either fail to show up, be present but not have
anything to contribute, or spend time bickering with their team
members from other functional areas. The latter incident was
becoming increasingly common as team members came to the
meetings clearly with agendas from their functional managers
that had everything to do with gaining more resources and
product control for their respective functional areas, and
nothing to do with working cooperatively with other areas to
advance the product line. The two managers from the new
product lines communicated that it was also evident that
employees on their teams had no interest in helping to launch
any new products and would spend the majority of their time
defending the old, existing product lines.
First thing Monday morning Michael asked the VP of Finance to
meet with him and bring him numbers. During their meeting,
the VP informed Michael that ILT had been losing a lot of
money over the first six months and they had a serious cash
flow problem at this point. He reiterated his earlier concerns
that the purchase of the new assembly line equipment was too
costly, and any possible small increment in production that it
could offer, would not warrant the expense incurred by its
purchase. He further relayed to Michael that the Operations VP
had informed him personally that the new line equipment was
not providing any real value added over the old equipment and
that it’s purchase was clearly a bad business decision. Michael
was shocked by this piece of information because he had done
such careful research on the new technology and had seen it in
action at other companies’ plants. He just couldn’t understand

18. why its use was not resulting in a higher production rate of
mowers. In looking over the expenses more carefully, Michael
noticed that the cash outlay for parts had been excessively high
during the first two months of the company’s reopening –
although it had subsequently lowered closer to the average
amount. The Finance VP explained that there were consistent
seasonal fluctuations in parts purchasing and that this spike in
costs was not out of the ordinary.
On Tuesday morning, Michael walked over to the manufacturing
facility and hung out in the observation room for about an hour
unobtrusively watching the production line operate. This was
the first time he had actually spent time there while the line was
running since his visit before he purchased the company. He
was surprised to see the old piece of line equipment still present
on the assembly line floor. As part of the purchase deal for the
new equipment, the sales person had promised to remove the old
equipment at no cost, joking that they would probably be able to
find a good home for it in some museum somewhere. He was
further surprised to see that employees were still using the old
equipment while the new equipment sat on the line totally
unused, except evidently as a place for the workers to place
their cups of coffee. Michael returned to his office and called
the sales person who had sold him the new equipment, inquiring
as to why his company had not removed the old equipment as
they had promised. The salesman informed Michael that the
morning drivers from his company had showed up to retrieve
the equipment at ILT, one of the manufacturing managers
informed them that they had found something different to do
with the old equipment and they would take care of it
themselves. After lunch, Michael returned to the manufacturing
observation room and over the next two hours, watched again as
the new line equipment stood untouched. He gave a quick call to
the training technician the salesperson had sent out to spend the
day with the assembly line workers and their managers four
months earlier demonstrating how to use the new equipment.

19. When Michael inquired as to how the training session went, the
technician indicated that he thought it went “alright…although
the workers had that deer-in-the-headlights kind of look on their
faces as I was going through the demonstration.” He added that
he told the workers not to worry about being intimidated by the
new technology – that although it was “pretty complex,” they
would “eventually get the hang of it.” “I told them that once
they get used to the thing, they were going to love it – its
production rate was lightening fast compared to that dinosaur
they had been using and it was going to save them all kinds of
man-hours. I jokingly told them that the thing could easily do
the work of 20 of them, but they didn’t seem to think that was
very funny.”
At the end of the day, as Michael was getting into his car, he
recognized a young employee from the manufacturing
department who had sought Michael’s advice a few times about
purchasing a snowboard. Michael called him over, and opened
his trunk to show him the latest model of snowboard his
company had produced before he sold. After they talked for a
few minutes, Michael told the young employee that he had been
over to the manufacturing facility several times and was
confused as to why no one appeared to be using the new line
equipment. The employee looked very uncomfortable but when
Michael assured him that he was not going to get in any trouble,
he admitted that they had never really used the new equipment
at all. He said “We were honestly going to try the new
equipment, we were willing to give that a try and some of us
were pretty excited about it too, but when that trainer came out
to show us how to use the thing, it was pretty darn confusing.
He went through all the steps pretty fast and he seemed like he
was in a bit of a hurry to get done. He kept telling us that if we
got messed up to just consult the manual he was leaving, but
that thing was confusing too. Our supervisor was getting really
mad about the whole thing, and then when the trainer told us
that the machine would do the work of 20 of us, that was it.

20. Our supervisor told the trainer that we had it now, and he could
leave. When he left, the supervisor called us all over, patted the
old equipment and said, “I say we stick with what we know, and
what’s not going to take over our jobs,” and from that point on,
we’ve been using the old equipment. And I’m real sorry about
that cause I know it cost you a lot of money.” Michael thanked
the employee for his honesty and went home to try to figure out
what to do about the situation.
Very early the next morning, Michael received a phone call
from their new parts supplier in India. He said that he just was
checking it to see how things were going and when they might
be expecting their first parts order from ILT. He communicated
that based on his early conversations with Michael, his company
had been putting aside the previously discussed quantity of
parts for ILT, but no orders had yet to be placed. He apologized
for calling Michael directly but said he had made numerous
attempts over the last three months to get in contact with the
operations managers by email and phone, but had no luck in
hearing back from them. Michael said that he would look into
the situation and email him later that day. After they hung up,
on a hunch, Michael called the small New England parts supply
company that Bedford Mower had used for years. The president
of the company took Michael’s call directly and expressed how
delighted he was that ILT had not only decided to stick with his
parts company, but had actually increased their supply order
substantially in the months of February and March. He shared
that with all of the new changes taking place, he had been
concerned that the fact that Bedford Mower had been doing
business with his father’s parts supply company for over 50
years might not matter to a new owner. Before hanging up, the
president thanked Michael again for his business, and said he
looked forward to meeting him in person at this year’s barbeque
gathering. Looking back over the financial statements again,
Michael realized that someone had obviously placed, and paid
for, a huge order of supply parts from the existing supplier in

21. the first few months of ILT’s opening with the intent to
stockpile the parts in lieu of ordering from the new Indian
supplier.
Friday afternoon Michael received a call from the HR manager,
Mrs. Hockson. She apologized for calling him at home on his
“day off,” but said that she had come across some disturbing
news that she thought she should discuss with him. He told her
that he would drive right in and meet her at her office. On his
arrival, she informed Michael that it had been brought to her
attention that union representatives had been invited into the
manufacturing facility a number of times now to meet with the
assembly line employees. She stressed that she had nothing
against unions, her husband was a union employee, but she
knew that the Bedford Mower had prided itself on providing
working conditions that made the presence of a union
unnecessary, and she just thought that Michael should be
notified right away. Dejectedly, Michael asked her if there was
anything else he needed to know about. She reluctantly added,
that she had just done the calculations and ILT’s employee
turnover rate had jumped 13% over the last five months – an
unprecedented amount for Bedford Mower. In addition, there
had been a marked increase in the number of informal
complaints made to her from employees who did not like the
way they were being treated by other employees during the
product line team meetings. She looked at Michael and said,
“I’m sorry to say this Mr. Francis, but things are going downhill
here fast and something needs to be done.”
Instead of returning home, Michael decided to head to his office
and call a few friends who also owned small companies, in
hopes of getting some much-needed guidance. When he reached
his office around 6:00pm, he was surprised to see his
administrative assistant still at her desk. When he asked why
she was there past 5:00, she blushed and said she thought she
would just hang around for a bit and try to catch up on some

22. extra paper work. No sooner had she uttered these words, than a
burst of loud laughing emerged from the conference room down
the hall. His assistant nervously looked toward the conference
room and then quickly looked back down at her desk. Michael
headed for the conference room and upon opening the door
found the three VPs making their rounds about the room
liberally pouring scotch for what appeared to be all of ILT
managers and supervisors. Cigar smoke filled the room. The VP
of Operations quickly caught Michael’s attention as he made a
dramatic show of picking up one of the ‘no smoking’ signs that
Michael had placed throughout the conference room and began
to catch it on fire with his cigar. This antic resulted in an uproar
of laughter until one of the managers turned and noticed
Michael standing in the doorway. Suddenly, the room became
quiet. Michael struggled to maintain his composure and said
“What is going on here?” After a few awkward moments, the
Operations VP (no doubt bolstered by many glasses of scotch)
replied, “I’ll tell you what’s going on here! What’s going on
here is that, we, the people in this room who have been with this
company for years, we, the people who really care about thefate
of Bedford Mower, we, the people that the Emerson family and
the people of this town trusted with their livelihood, we, are
trying to save this company despite the best attempts of some
hippie snowboarder from California to run it right into the
ground!! And that’s what is going on here!” Despite his anger,
Michael almost broke out in a laugh after the VP’s drunken
show. He sternly told everyone to have a seat at the conference
table, and leave their scotch behind. He angrily informed them
that despite their opinions, he actually did have the best interest
of the company in mind, that he had not gone out and spent his
entire life savings on a company only so he could run it into the
ground, and finally, that he was a hippie snowboarder from
Oregon, not California. He then called his assistant and
instructed her to order dinner for everyone in the room, and
then join them in the conference room with her laptop and a can
or air freshener. He looked around the room and said “We all

23. have a stake in this problem, and no one is going home until we
figure out a way to solve it.”
* do not cite, quote or use without permission of author, Pamela
Tierney