“And what if your team gets ahead of the production schedule during the day? Should that be part of the agreement you have with them?” I asked.

“Oh, they never get ahead,” Gail disagreed.

“Sure they do. When you post the production schedule, you allow for line changeovers, material inspection, and machine slowdowns. There are days when everything goes right, the stars line up. When they get ahead, what should your team do?”

Gail had never considered this. “I guess, it would be the same deal. If they get behind, or if they get ahead, they should come and find me.”

“Because, what decisions would you make, as a manager, if your team is ahead of schedule?”

“I could throw a pizza party,” Gail laughed. “Seriously, I could pull a couple of people over to another project, to machine maintenance, there are always secondary priorities.”

“And your team doesn’t know about these secondary priorities?”

“It’s not that I am hiding things from them, but we always have some design prototype we are working on. Short term, my team needs to get the daily production out, but if I can put a couple of people on a prototype for a half-hour, we might have a brand new product for our sales team. We have a management briefing every week from our R and D department where I find out about special projects.”

“And who decides these priorities on the floor?”

“I do,” Gail nodded. “It’s a critical part of my role, to coordinate both daily production and special projects. I have to use my best judgment.”