The Just Don't Get It!

everyone had a voice in shaping solutions. The bottom-up flow gave operators and front-line staff a structured way to share practical, high-impact ideas— like repositioning equipment to cut material handling time. The top-down flow gave plant managers critical insight into competitive pressures, enabling them to explain the urgency, align teams with strategic objectives, and lead change with context. The initiative also fostered inter-plant knowledge sharing, with teams transferring proven ideas from plant to plant. And it gave employees the freedom to voice concerns about unintended consequences. This built trust and improved execution. In addition, by clearly defining the supervisor's role as a translator between management intent and operational reality, the process relieved them of administrative overload and allowed them to lead improvement efforts effectively. The impact was massive: according to Donnelley's 1998 annual report, the initiative was implemented in 29 plants with savings of $2-3 million per plant, with minimal capital investment. This generated a 170 basis point improvement in company-wide gross profit.

129