Managing People;

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Among every chief executive officer's toughest challenges is keeping employees focused on what matters most -- which, in the case of William H. Wilson's Pioneer/Eclipse, is "customers and quality." For Wilson, president of the cleaning-system manufacturer, inbstilling that focus was a two-step process.

First he initiated a "CQ" (customers and quality) campaign, handing out CQ badges, buttons, and posters, and placing CQ notes in pay envelopes. "The problem in my manufacturing plant was that employees didn't relate to customers," Wilson says. "They didn't realize that their boss is the customer."

To hammer home that lesson, Wilson puts his employees in closer contact with customers. He rotates managers into the customer-relations department, where they deal with the people who use the company's products. And he takes customers on tours of his plant, where they are introduced to line workers. The point, Wilson says, is simple: "We want to live and breathe the CQ program."