From Low Performer to Best in Class

"Tell me what you need to do this job well," she asked, and went on to retrain them as customer service professionals. She banned profanity, and recast customer interactions as opportunities to say "yes" rather than "no."

Changing the Conversation

At the root of the low morale and the in-plant's poor performance was a long-standing focus on one priority to the near-exclusion of all others: minimum use of the budget. The shop boasted five offset presses and a Xerox DocuTech, along with a mail operation, but print volume was exceptionally low. Tarter says she found the photocopier locked in a vault, and at two years old it had run just 500 copies.