The plant managers of ABC Corporation’s five plants have met at a common location at 8:00 am every Monday morning for 20 years. The people serving as plant managers have changed several times during this period, but the meeting has not. Every Monday morning all five plant managers are seated around a conference table in the home office. It is not uncommon for the managers to have no pressing business to discuss and the meeting amounts to nothing more than a Monday morning coffee session. Not only is the meeting inconvenient, but it is also costly, time-consuming, and occasionally interferes with the work of the plant managers. Finally, one of the plant managers had had enough. He decided to conduct a cost-benefit analysis of the meeting.

When he presented it at a meeting of the plant managers, ABC’s CEO and the other plant managers were shocked to learn that the company could save $50,000 if the managers met only when there was pressing business to discuss.

QUESTION

How does this case illustrate the need to constantly review the status quo and ask “Why?”?