Helen Bowers was stumped. Sitting in her office at the plant. she pondered the same questions she had been facing for months: how to get her company’s employees to work harder and produce more. No matter what she did, it didn’t seem to help much. Helen had inherited the business three years ago when her father, lake Bowers. passed away unexpectedly. Bowers Machine Parts was founded four decades ago by lake and had grown into a moderate-size corporation. Bowers makes replacement parts for large-scale manufacturing machines such as lathes and mills. The finn is headquartered in Kansas City and has three plants scattered throughout Missouri. Although Helen grew up in the family business, she never understood her father’s approach. lake had treated his employees like part of his family. In Helen’s view, however, he paid them more than he had to. asked their advice far more often than he should have, and spent too much time listening to their ideas and complaints. When Helen took over, she vowed to change how things were done. In particular. she resolved to stop handling employees with kid gloves and to treat them like what they were: the hired help.
In addition to changing the way employees were treated. Helen had another goal for Bowers. She wanted to meet the challenge of international competition. Japanese firms had moved aggressively into the market for heavy industrial equipment. She saw this as both a threat and an opportunity. On the one hand. if she could get a toehold as a parts supplier to these finns. Bowers could grow rapidly. On the other, the lucrative pans market was also sure to attract more Japanese competitors. Helen had to make sure that Bowers could compete effectively with highly productive and profitable Japanese firms. From the day Helen took over, she practiced an altogether different philosophy to achieve her goals. For one thing. she increased production quotas by 20 percent. She instructed her first-line supervisors to crack down on employees and eliminate all idle time. She also decided to shut down the company softball field her father had built. She thought the employees really didn’t use it much, and she wanted the space for future expansion. Helen also announced that future contributions to the firm’s profit-sharing plan would be phased out. Employees were paid enough, she believed, and all profits were the rightful property of the owner—her. She also had private plans to cut future pay increases to bring average wages down to where she thought they belonged. Finally. Helen changed a number of operational procedures. In particular. she stopped asking other people for their advice. She reasoned that she was the boss and knew what was best. If she asked for advice and then didn’t take it, it would only stir up resentment.