Everybody Matters

In most organizations today, something devastating happens every Monday morning. Picture this: employees gather around the coffee machine, animated and laughing about their weekend adventures, their children's accomplishments, their favorite sports teams. But as the clock approaches 8 AM, you can literally watch the life drain from their bodies. Shoulders sag, faces grow serious, and the vibrant human beings transform into resigned workers shuffling to their desks. This tragic transformation happens millions of times every week across the globe, representing one of the greatest wastes of human potential in our modern world.

The statistics are staggering. Research shows that 88 percent of the American workforce goes home every day feeling that their organization doesn't listen to or care about them as individuals. These aren't just numbers on a spreadsheet—these are our mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, sons, and daughters, all trapped in environments that view them as functions rather than full human beings. But what if there was a different way? What if businesses could become places where people discover their gifts, develop their talents, and go home each day feeling valued and fulfilled? This book reveals how one manufacturing company transformed from near-bankruptcy to extraordinary success by embracing a revolutionary principle: everybody truly matters. Through their journey, you'll discover how to create workplaces that send people home not just with paychecks, but with renewed purpose and dignity. You'll learn practical strategies for building cultures of trust, recognition, and continuous growth that benefit everyone—employees, customers, shareholders, and communities alike.

Ken Coppens never imagined that his job security would depend on scavenging for aluminum cans at Green Bay Packers games. As a laid-off production worker from Paper Converting Machine Company, Ken found himself walking the three blocks from his house to Lambeau Field with two black garbage bags, hoping to collect enough recyclables to buy diapers for his infant son and gas for his car. The irony was bitter—PCMC had once been considered one of the best places to work in Green Bay, offering good wages and steady employment. But by the time Ken was trudging through stadium parking lots, the company was hemorrhaging money, losing $25 million on $200 million in revenue.

Ken's story epitomized what had gone wrong at PCMC. The company lived in constant crisis mode, lurching from one emergency layoff to another. Ken would sometimes work overtime on Saturday only to be laid off the following Tuesday. In his first six years with the company, he never worked longer than eighteen months at a stretch. The unpredictability was devastating not just financially, but emotionally. "I had really strong feelings of failure and inadequacy, with some periods of depression," Ken recalled. The culture had become toxic, filled with distrust and a corrosive "us versus them" mentality that pitted union against management, office against factory floor.

When Barry-Wehmiller acquired PCMC in 2005, everyone expected the worst—more production moved overseas, more layoffs, more broken promises. Instead, something unprecedented happened. The new leadership announced that manufacturing for a product line that had been moved to Brazil would return to Green Bay. More shocking still, they promised to build a "great American manufacturing company" with the same people who had been labeled as part of the problem. As CEO Bob Chapman told the assembled workers, "We believe in you. We can turn this business around, and we can do it with the people who are here today."

The transformation that followed proves a fundamental truth about human nature: people aren't broken, systems are. When you create an environment where people feel valued, trusted, and empowered to contribute their best ideas, they respond with extraordinary dedication and creativity. PCMC didn't need new employees; it needed new leadership that understood that the company's greatest assets weren't its machines, but the human beings who operated them. This shift from seeing people as costs to be managed to seeing them as gifts to be unleashed became the foundation for everything that followed.

The breakthrough moment came during a mundane morning coffee break at a newly acquired facility in South Carolina. Bob Chapman watched employees laughing and joking as they discussed March Madness basketball brackets, their energy infectious as they debated team prospects and shared friendly wagers. But as 8 AM approached, Chapman witnessed something that would change his understanding of work forever. The closer it got to the official start time, the more the enthusiasm drained from people's bodies. Shoulders sagged, faces became serious, and the vibrant human beings he'd just observed transformed into resigned workers shuffling to their stations.

This observation sparked a simple but revolutionary question: "Why can't work be fun?" Chapman gathered the customer service team and proposed creating a game around their daily work. The highest weekly parts seller would win $100, and if the team met its collective goal, everyone would get $100. The team's initial reaction was skepticism—they rattled off objection after objection about why it wouldn't work in their different market segments and complex customer relationships. But Chapman pressed forward, asking them to try something radical: instead of rigidly dividing territories, anyone could take any order.

The results were astounding. Within thirteen weeks, sales had increased by over 20 percent. But the real transformation wasn't in the numbers—it was in the people. One team member explained how their entire approach had changed: "We would keep our head down and try to look busy, hoping that somebody else would pick up the phone. But now, because of the game, we're going down to the switchboard operator asking how she decides who gets which call." They weren't doing what they were told to do; they were naturally doing what champions do, and customers noticed the difference immediately.

The power of making work fun lies in tapping into people's natural competitive spirit and desire for recognition while giving them ownership of their success. When people know the score at all times, when they can see how their individual efforts contribute to team victory, and when winning brings both personal satisfaction and team celebration, work transforms from drudgery into engagement. This isn't about childish games or forced frivolity—it's about creating conditions where people's innate creativity and problem-solving abilities can flourish. The lesson is clear: you don't need to train people to serve customers better when they're having fun and invested in winning. Their natural talents emerge when the environment supports rather than suppresses their humanity.

The call came while Bob Chapman was visiting the company's Italian operations in early 2009. PCMC had just lost a major order as the global financial crisis reached devastating proportions. What had begun as concerns about reduced new orders quickly escalated into a much more serious threat—existing customers were canceling or postponing orders they had already placed, orders against which they'd paid substantial non-refundable deposits. Chapman sat in his Italian hotel room facing a stark reality: the economic tsunami was about to hit Barry-Wehmiller hard, and traditional business wisdom dictated immediate layoffs to preserve financial stability.

But this wasn't 1995 or 2000. By 2009, Barry-Wehmiller had spent years building a culture based on the principle that "we measure success by the way we touch the lives of people." Chapman faced a moment of truth—would these values survive when the stakes were highest, or would they crumble under financial pressure like so many other corporate value statements? The easy path would have been to follow the example of Citicorp, Bank of America, and General Motors, each laying off tens of thousands of employees. The difficult path required asking a different question: "What would a caring family do when faced with such a crisis?"

Chapman's answer became legendary in business circles. Instead of devastating a few people completely, Barry-Wehmiller would ask everyone to share a little pain so that no family would face catastrophic loss. Every employee would take an average of four weeks of unpaid furlough, executive bonuses would be suspended, and the 401k match would be temporarily eliminated. Chapman himself cut his salary from $875,000 to $10,500—his starting salary from 1968. The announcement came not through a cold corporate memo, but through a personal video message where employees could see the genuine care and concern in Chapman's voice.

The reaction was extraordinary. Rather than resentment, there was overwhelming relief and gratitude. People had been walking on eggshells for months, fearing they might be next to lose their jobs entirely. The furlough plan didn't just preserve employment—it affirmed that the company truly cared about its people as human beings, not just as production units. Some team members even volunteered to take extra furlough time for colleagues who couldn't afford to lose four weeks of pay. When you treat people with dignity during the worst of times, they respond with loyalty and altruism that money can't buy. This approach to crisis management proves that maintaining your values under pressure isn't just morally right—it's strategically brilliant.

Randall Fleming was the kind of employee most managers write off as a lost cause. Standing six-foot-two with a bodybuilder's frame, the former military man worked in the dingiest corner of the factory in Phillips, Wisconsin, deliberately isolated from his colleagues. Outside of work, he played in a heavy metal band, dressed in a black cowboy hat, sunglasses, and a long trench coat that made him look "like a demon out of hell." When Barry-Wehmiller introduced its culture change initiatives, Randall's response was swift and loud: "I want nothing to do with this. This is just a corporate ploy to get us to work harder." He actively discouraged coworkers from participating in improvement events and made his contempt for the new approach clear to anyone who would listen.

But George Senn, Randall's supervisor, had learned a different approach to leadership through Barry-Wehmiller's leadership development programs. Instead of writing Randall off or forcing him to comply, George practiced what the company calls "courageous patience." For four long years, George continued to invite Randall to participate, continued to show faith in his potential, and continued to create opportunities for him to contribute—even when Randall's response was dismissive or hostile. The breakthrough came when Randall finally agreed to take a Barry-Wehmiller University leadership course, pushed by a friend who promised to help him move if he didn't find value in the experience.

The transformation was remarkable. Randall discovered that his aggressive exterior masked a deep desire to help others and make a meaningful contribution. Today, he teaches inspiration modules in Barry-Wehmiller's Leadership Fundamentals course, helping other skeptics discover their own potential for growth and leadership. He's become one of the most vocal champions of the company's culture throughout the Phillips facility. "Everything about me is different, and everything in my life has changed," Randall reflects. His daughters tell him he continues to change every time they see him, becoming more caring and more focused on making a positive impact in the world.

The Randall Fleming story illustrates a crucial principle: sustainable culture change requires systems and patience, not just inspirational speeches. Barry-Wehmiller created Barry-Wehmiller University specifically to ensure that their leadership approach would survive beyond any individual leader's tenure. They developed detailed curricula, trained internal professors, and created processes for recognizing and celebrating the goodness in people at every level. Most importantly, they accepted that cultural transformation is measured in years, not quarters. If you're willing to be patient with people who don't immediately "get it," if you create systems that consistently reinforce your values, and if you're willing to invest in people's development even when the return isn't immediately apparent, you can achieve transformations that seem impossible. The lesson for leaders is clear: sustainable change requires both the courage to persist and the patience to let people grow at their own pace.

Jenny Copanos joined Barry-Wehmiller as a temporary employee at age 25, lacking confidence and unclear about her place in the world. "Growing up, I never found my niche," she shared. "I wasn't good at sports, didn't join clubs. I was a good student but that was it. I didn't have a lot of confidence in myself." What she discovered over twelve years with the company wasn't just career advancement, but a complete transformation of her sense of self-worth and purpose. Her leaders identified strengths she didn't know she had, offered experiences that allowed her to grow, and consistently told her she was "worth her weight in gold." Today, Jenny leads a six-member team and serves as a professor in Barry-Wehmiller University's Communication Skills Training program.

The transformation extended far beyond the workplace. Jenny credits her Barry-Wehmiller experience with improving her marriage—"I have been able to let down some of the barriers and open up to my husband, Nick, in ways that I couldn't early on in our marriage"—and her relationship with her parents. As a mother of twins, she brings home fulfillment rather than stress, confidence rather than anxiety. "I don't come home from work stressed or angry; I truly feel a sense of fulfillment," she reflected through tears. "I was always happy on the outside but there was something missing inside. Now I am happy on the inside too." This ripple effect of workplace culture into family life represents the true measure of human-centered leadership.

The Baldwin acquisition demonstrates how these principles work even in the most challenging circumstances. When Forsyth Capital acquired the nearly bankrupt printing equipment manufacturer, they found a company that had been reduced to what one executive called "eating your young" to survive quarterly expectations. Rich Bennett, a manager who had been forced to fire ten people in a single morning, described a culture where "only the strong survive" and success meant stepping on whoever necessary to avoid being the next target. The new leadership's approach was radically different: they immediately approved a $75,000 furnace purchase that previous management had denied, organized improvement events that reduced lead times from 41 days to three days, and began treating people with dignity regardless of their geography or function.

The principles behind these transformations are universal and scalable. When you recognize that every employee is somebody's precious child, when you measure success by the way you touch lives rather than just financial metrics, and when you create systems that consistently reinforce human dignity, extraordinary things become possible. This isn't naive idealism—companies practicing these principles often outperform traditional competitors financially while creating immeasurably better experiences for everyone they touch. The choice facing leaders isn't between profits and people; it's between short-term extraction and long-term value creation that benefits all stakeholders. Business can be the most powerful force for human flourishing in the world, but only when leaders have the wisdom and courage to put humanity at the center of everything they do.

The ultimate truth revealed in this journey is elegantly simple: when you genuinely care for people and create conditions where they can discover, develop, and share their unique gifts, they will astonish you with their capability, creativity, and commitment—while delivering extraordinary business results that benefit everyone.

Start by asking yourself a fundamental question: "How would I want my own child to be treated where they work?" Then create those exact conditions in your organization. Implement daily recognition practices that catch people doing things right rather than focusing only on what goes wrong. Replace fear-based management with trust-based leadership that gives people responsible freedom to solve problems and improve processes. During difficult times, resist the temptation to sacrifice people for short-term financial relief—instead, find creative ways to share the burden so that everyone weathers the storm together. Most importantly, measure your success not just by financial metrics, but by whether people go home each day feeling valued, fulfilled, and eager to return tomorrow. Remember that cultural transformation requires patience measured in years, not quarters, and the courage to persist when others question your commitment to putting people first.