The Front Lines

When business picked up, the knives came out. Charlene Pedrolie had just introduced the latest management methods at the big, old flagship factory of Rowe Furniture Corp. Workers had been organized into "cells." Cross-training had been instituted. Four layers of supervision had been wiped out.

But when orders surged for the 1995 fall season, the cells couldn't keep up. Workers were pressured by stress under the new rules and frazzled by change; one had a nervous breakdown. Skeptics questioned not only the new processes but the new boss -- a 34-year-old Yankee female, a complete outsider in an old-line Dixie company.

Yet today, attitudes have changed 180 degrees. Output and earnings are surging, making Rowe a hot stock in the furniture group. How Ms. Pedrolie pulled it off teaches a valuable lesson not only in the management of change but also in the attainment of corporate power.

Rowe Furniture was stuck midway through a major transformation when it recruited her in April 1995 from a plant manager's job at General Electric. Rowe's research showed that people hate buying upholstered furniture. They want a much wider selection than any showroom can display, yet they refuse to wait months for a special order. So Rowe created a computer network on which customers could match fabrics and styles, promising speedy delivery and a midrange price.

The marketing solution, however, created problems upstream. Rowe's factory had to produce a much wider variety of products in much less time, all with no increase in cost. Making that happen was Ms. Pedrolie's assignment.

In her mind, there was a little mystery about the method. She would annihilate the inefficient old assembly line. Sewers, gluers, staplers and stuffers would be brought together in cells of roughly 35. Through cross training, everyone in the cell could do every job related to making a sofa, instead of doing one job on every piece. When anyone had time to spare they could help someone getting backed up.

Supervisors, used to pushing for the maximum performance in a single task (more cushion! faster sewing!), would be eliminated. Perhaps most important, workers could act on their own ideas for improving productivity.

When Ms. Pedrolie outlined the plan to her fellow officers during a meeting at the local Holiday Inn. "We sat there and thought, 'She's crazy,'" recalls Steve Shelor, a company vice president.

So Ms. Pedrolie resolved to pull off the plan with blinding speed, leaving no time for second-guessing. Though given to spontaneous cheers ("all right!" "way to go!"), she was stern. Some managers who resisted her changes got the ax.

The production workers, for their part, returned after the brief plant makeover agog to see their power tools dangling from the ceiling in clusters instead of in a long, straight line. Suddenly they were working alongside -- and forced to communicate with - three dozen cell members. Accustomed to having