“My goal is to reduce inventory,” Bruce explained.

“What is the Time Span of your goal?” I asked. “You have to reduce inventory. By how much and by when?”

“Good question. All the managers just got this email from our corporate office. We need to take a hard look and get our inventories down.”

“So, tell me, if you had to reduce your inventory 30 percent by the end of next week, would that be different than if you had to reduce inventory by the end of May?”

Bruce chuckled. “Of course. If we had to reduce inventory by next week, I would put the brakes on hard. Slash pricing and blow this stuff out of here, just some hard nosed, tactical stuff.”

“And what would be your decisions if the Time Span was end of May?”