National

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Director of Sales: Under pressure to meet your numbers, think your targets are unreasonable. Adamant that declining sales are due to industry and product offering issues, but wary of raising your concerns to the CEO because of his temperament. Too, you get a new BMW if you meet your targets. Turbo Tiller could be the solution to your problem, but you’re wary that red tape delays, so put pressure on R&D to get to the market on timely basis. You received R&D’s warning memo but think this is not your problem. Too because MFG got the same memo, you assume they’ll take care of the problem.

You took steps to train sales staff on safe operating procedures, your arranged a class on how to address and downplay these concerns with customers.

V.P. Public Relations: 3 years with NFG. 6 months ago you learned that NFG had released a product with known safety concerns. Learned that most department heads were not concerned. You’ve been monitoring the situation but been preoccupied with other matters. You are responsible to gain information about public opinion – present to the CEO. You learn that many consumers don’t trust NFG because of the way they handled a chemical spill 5 years ago. Too, rumors are circulating about NFG hiring practices. You need to minimize negative publicity – but face media. There is no crisis mgt plan in place.

Division V.P.: To the CEO, “Mr. / Mrs. CEO, I think it safe for us all to assume that we know why you called this meeting. So, if it is ok with you, I’ll kick things off and then go around the table for each of the other managers to speak.

Sir / mam: We have a problem with the Turbo-Tiller. Our decision to release this tiller with the same shield that’s used on Ultr2A Tiller has come back to bite us. As you know, a young boy lost his arm after getting entangled in a tiller that was being operated without the shield.

The decision to use this legacy shield was a calculated risk. Myself, Mfg and Sales agreed that the chances of someone getting hurt were minimal. But we were wrong. One child has been injured, and numerous farm animals have been killed. Each because operators had to remove the legacy shield in order to clean the blades. Unable to reinstall the shield themselves, they left it off and continued to operate the tillers.

We’ve since found that maybe as many as 85% of the Turbo-Tillers in the field are being operated without shields.

That is our problem in a few words. But we’re here to explain to you what we’re doing about it. To get started let me turn to Bryanna, R&D.