As Joe listened to them explain their messages further, he also realized that they weren’t all on the same page — the tone of some of the speeches was stern, others were conciliatory, others were attempts at humor, with the emphasis on attempts… Joe was anxious. “Folks, I’m afraid to tell you this, but I’m getting mixed messages — are we the quality leader, the pricing leader or the luxury leader? Are we black-and-white or the colors of a rainbow?” Joe’s voice rose in pitch, “Are we playing hardball, soft-selling, or are we stand-up comedians?” Dotty, the head of research, piped up, “Joe, you didn’t even see my presentation yet.” Joe cooled down. “Sorry, Dotty, I didn’t know you had a presentation, please proceed.” Dotty proudly stood up and began to unveil her presentation. “Customer-Treatment Standards — how dealers need to grow their relationship with our customers.” As Dotty spoke, Joe’s left eyebrow raised a little, then even more until he blurted out, “Dotty, why are you lecturing us on customer treatment? That’s not your specialty.” Dotty was taken aback and responded, “Because of you. You said we needed to present a customer treatment program. I 昀椀gured that I might as well give it a shot since we don’t have anyone here at the company who’s really an expert. You know, someone who really knows our customer intimately.” Joe barked back, “Well who does?” Dotty coolly replied, “You mean other than our dealers?” Joe was stunned. “It’s our product, our company, we can’t have the dealers take the lead on customer treatment — that’s our job — my job — I’ll just have to present it.” 6