International Granite & Stone

The team had been solving problems the same way for years: throw more people at it. That works until it doesn’t. Profitability took the hit, waste and rework crept in, and the same issues kept showing up in the same weekly meetings without ever getting resolved. Leadership made the calls from the outside, and most of the floor didn’t really know what was going on or why. The Direction wasn’t shared. The Design, how decisions got made and who owned what, ran straight to the owners every time. And the Dynamic between leadership and the people doing the work had gone quiet.

The work started by getting clear on core values and what the company was actually aiming at, then building the structure to support it. Problems stopped traveling all the way up the chain, people were given the room and the responsibility to solve them at the managerial level. Meetings got a real cadence and a reason to exist. The numbers came out into the open, so the team could see what was working and what wasn’t, in black and white.

The shift showed up in the day-to-day. Production, cleanliness, safety, and scheduling tightened up. Fewer mistakes meant less money lost, and more of it staying in the business. People who used to show up late started showing up early. The leadership team got more open and more honest, and the floor went from following orders to owning outcomes.

One voice from the team: “Since moving to this new structure, we’ve become much more efficient and productive. We’re making fewer mistakes, which saves us a lot of money and puts more right into our bottom line.” — Michelle Henderson, People & Culture, International Granite & Stone