Making It in America

I walked into the noisy finishing room at our sprawling factory in Galax, Virginia, and right away the conveyor belt stopped. Inside a furniture factory, silence is almost never a happy sound.

Uh-oh, I thought. What's the problem here?

All the workers were turning from their stations and were now walking toward me.

Was there a safety issue I hadn't heard about? Did somebody get hurt? Was there a problem with one of our machines? It had to be something fairly important. We'd worked hard to cut our downtime. In my long experience on factory floors, people don't usually stop working when the boss comes in.

Finishers do the messiest work in a furniture factory. The job requires speed, care, and genuine artistry. That conveyor runs fast, and if the stain is uneven or the lacquer's applied wrong, you've just spoiled the underlying craftsmanship. A sloppy finishing job is the first thing a dissatisfied customer will notice and complain about.

As the finishers crowded around me, I saw that no one was frowning. Nobody looked mad. Then a lady named Helen stepped up to speak for the group.

"John," she said, staring straight at me in her brown-stained coveralls. "We have something to tell you."

"Okay. What is it?"

"We see what you're going through," Helen said. "We see what you're trying to accomplish for us, and we want you to know one thing. You tell us what you need, and we're gonna do it for you. You tell us what you want, we'll get it done."

I heard her loud and clear. We were still struggling to save this factory and the seven hundred men and women it employed. Few people thought we'd be able to do it. We were the furniture industry's stubborn underdogs, hanging tough in southwest Virginia after most of our large competitors had shifted their production to new facilities overseas. Before Helen spoke, I'd been talking a good game but wasn't honestly sure we could achieve this long-shot American miracle. The moment she made that promise, I knew our competitors were the ones at a distinct disadvantage. We were absolutely going to survive.

I hugged the women, shook hands with the men, and said to them all, "Thank you. I know that. We can always count on each other."

After all we'd been through together—the reorganizations and the speed-ups, the sideways glances from the rest of the industry, the illegal dumping from low-wage foreign countries, all the new technology we'd implemented, the terrible sadness of watching neighboring factories close and good people get tossed from their jobs—I felt hugely grateful for the support I was getting from the floor. I knew Helen and the others weren't just blowing smoke or buttering me up. We were genuine partners here, the kinds of partners who were ready to take on the world together—and I meant that literally. I knew the employees had as much at stake as I did. Their whole futures were on the line.

"Okay," I said finally. "I have my first request."

"What is it?" they asked, as several of them stepped closer to hear.

"Get your butts back to work!" I said. "Let's get this line running! We gotta move some furniture!"

They laughed and clapped and quickly returned to the production line, moving freshly finished pieces of Vaughan-Bassett furniture out the factory door. As I headed to my desk upstairs to absorb what had just occurred, the workers were back at their stations and the finishing room was humming again.

DOING BUSINESS OUR WAY

My name is John D. Bassett III. Some call me JB3. I'm a third-generation Virginia furniture man. With my sons Doug and Wyatt, I run the largest wood bedroom furniture manufacturing plant in the United States. Which is kind of like running the busiest Chick-fil-A on Mars—there aren't too many others. But one, I keep discovering, can be a very powerful number. I've been described as driven, demanding, dedicated, profane, charming, iconoclastic, generous, and stubborn. Especially stubborn. Over the past three decades, our little company has been at the center of one of the epic battles of modern capitalism. We have weathered globalism, ever-changing technology, a crippling fiscal crisis, and profound industrial change. We stayed in America as virtually all our competitors rushed for the exits, shifting their production to high-volume factories in low-wage locations overseas. We were under enormous pressure to join the panicking stampede. But we refused to budge. We stuck with our people instead—their talent, their dedication, our history together, and the uncompromising quality of American workmanship. It's never been easy, but I am extremely glad we did.

It's the awesome power of one.

Our big bet on America has caused quite a stir in our industry and beyond. Some people are still shaking their heads at us. They can't imagine why we didn't just roll with the tide. But to many, our company has come to symbolize the strong fighting spirit that still burns inside the American worker, despite all the forces busily trying to snuff that spirit out. People say we're a much-needed antidote to all the defeatist talk they keep hearing. The way I see it, we are living, breathing proof that dedicated management and loyal employees, working together as a team in this great country of ours, can hold their own against anyone anywhere and achieve just about anything!

That's the story of our company, our furniture, and our dreams. Born in America. Made in America. Stayed in America. I don't think we should ever have to leave.

If I sound patriotic, it's because I am. America has been hugely generous to me and my family. American workers and American consumers made "Bassett" one of the most famous names in furniture and turned many of my relatives into multimillionaires. I wasn't about to walk away from that legacy and that long-standing debt. Growing up in the time and place that I did, I was taught values that have always stuck with me: The worth of a dollar. The joy of quality workmanship. The need to look out for those less fortunate. The importance of treating people fairly and decently. Those lessons were reinforced by my experience in the United States Army serving on the German border. The call of duty and honor. The need to apply myself. The fact that America is still worth defending. The knowledge that our freedoms and beliefs stand for something special all around the world. I had never been inclined to turn away from struggle before, and I wasn't about to turn away now.

How we are pulling this off—finding the right strategy, getting the best out of our employees, building a product that people find desirable—is an important story and an inspiring one. It features some wonderful characters and some unexpected twists. It couldn't be more timely than it is right now, as America is readjusting to an increasingly dicey international terrain and a rapidly changing world economy.

To get to where we are, we had to ignore the constant prodding of respected experts. We stood up to sweeping business trends no one thought we had a chance against. We beat a fresh path through a thicket of obstacles and obfuscation while others gave up.

The results have been immensely gratifying. We rescued an American factory. We saved an American town. We preserved hundreds of jobs in a proud American community—jobs people really depended on. We doubled down on America just as others were boarding Air China flights to Beijing. We kept building well-crafted American furniture at a time when fewer and fewer people even tried.

We had something all the top experts and their holy spreadsheets could never quantify. We had people on our side. Decent, hardworking, dedicated people who simply refused to fail. The most underused asset in America today is not technology. It's not political power. It's not the Internet. It's people working together as a team. We've all got to learn to energize our people and get the most from everyone.

With the right kind of leadership, one company really can change the world.

THE RIGHT STRATEGY FOR CHALLENGING TIMES

In her bestselling book, Factory Man, author Beth Macy told the story of the rise and near-collapse of American furniture manufacturing and the bold path followed by our feisty firm. (She did call me an "asshole"—twice on the first page of chapter 1! I've chosen to overlook that because, on the very same page, she also described me as a "larger-than-life rule breaker who for more than a decade has stood almost single-handed against the outflow of furniture from America." I guess that's what writers call "a balanced portrayal.")

Making It in America is the story of how we managed to accomplish all this—in step-by-step, practical detail. In the pages that follow, I will reveal exactly what it took. Relying on my decades of business experience, I will take you inside our private thinking and our fresh leadership approach. I will describe the heartfelt values and modern business tactics that helped us surprise everyone. Most important, I will explain how you can apply our people-first leadership to any competitive challenge you confront. For the first time, I will lay out my Twelve-Point Plan for Growing Your Business and Keeping Jobs at Home. These are principles that have guided us from beginning to end. I don't know where we'd be without them, and I'm certain you'll find them valuable, whatever business you are in. They are battle-tested and clearly understandable. They are flexible, scalable, and ready to go. They are effective whether you're managing a smoothie stand in a strip mall or a far-flung conglomerate.

If you can get your head around these concepts and follow the steps I describe, they will change your business life forever, as they have fundamentally changed mine. It's not just Vaughan-Bassett. It's not just the furniture industry. It's any business, anywhere. We're making it in America, and so can you!

If taken to heart, our approach will save jobs, lift profits, enrich communities, boost the economy, and expand opportunities for everyone—from the shop floor to the tech lab to the office cubicle to the service center to the executive suite. If we can do it in our company, you can do it in yours. Whatever challenges your business is facing, whatever resources you have at your command, you just need the right people and the right approach with them. If we can all just pull together, there is no limit to what we can achieve.

LET THE JOURNEY BEGIN

I am often inspired by the wise voices of history. I spend a lot of time listening to them.

As I was starting on this journey, some special words were planted firmly in my head, focusing me, energizing me, and reminding me of how much I owed the country I loved.

They were the words of a young president, delivered January 20, 1961, a frigid Friday in Washington, D.C., as I was away in the U.S. Army. John F. Kennedy had just taken the oath of office on the steps of the U.S. Capitol and was addressing the American people for the first time as their president. Everywhere you looked, the world was facing danger at least as severe as today's. The rush of the arms race. The height of the Cold War. An increasingly bellicose Soviet Union. People had much to feel anxious about. Whatever the new president said that day, it had to be strong.

His message arrived on tall shoulders. Kennedy's speechwriter, Ted Sorensen, had been studying President Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address and the oratory of other presidents at especially perilous times. Since election night, the president-elect had been consulting with some of the smartest people he knew, including former presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson II and Harvard economist John Kenneth Galbraith. But historians say his real inspiration came decades earlier during the future president's prep school days at the Choate School in Wallingford, Connecticut, where the importance of giving, not just taking, was the credo of longtime headmaster Seymour St. John.

The speech that day was one of the shortest inaugural addresses ever delivered by a U.S. president, thirteen minutes and thirty seconds from the first word to the last, not counting the long ovation at the end. But the president's remarks quickly took their place among the greatest orations of American history. It was Kennedy's belief that America could no longer rely solely on its military might to keep the world safe and prosperous. A strong military was vital, he believed. But America also had to lead with diplomacy and help lift other nations in need. Sometimes, he was convinced, it was crucial to do right for the sake of the common good.

"In the long history of the world," he said that day, "only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger." Notice the optimistic spin? These aren't burdens. These are opportunities. We have been "granted" this special role. Kennedy's goal, as mine would later be, was to motivate Americans, not to frighten them.

"And so, my fellow Americans," the young president finally declared, "ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country."

I was moved by those words the first time I heard them while serving in the army in Germany. They have stayed with me ever since. But what do they mean exactly? What is it we owe this country of ours? Our freedom isn't free, of course, and America isn't America without the support and commitment of its citizens. We can't just take from our country. We also have to give.

This land we live in is the greatest democracy ever and the most admired country on earth. What are our responsibilities in return? Frankly, on most days we aren't asked to do much. Pay our taxes, follow the law, and not much else. We enjoy an extraordinary level of freedom. We live fairly comfortable lives. We have to work for a living, and many people do feel pressed financially—given the cost of living today and the lifestyles we seek to maintain. But we have a history of long prosperity, the benefits of amazing technology, and the pleasures of nearly endless diversions and entertainment. We have no military draft anymore. In our country, people are not forced to serve if they don't care to. When I grew up, my three brothers-in-law and I all went into the military. One went to the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis. The other three of us went to civilian colleges, but we all started our adulthoods in uniform. Some American families still have that connection to the military, but the vast majority do not.

As a business leader, it seems to me we have to do something more than reduce labor costs, avoid taxes, produce as cheaply as possible, and maximize our margins regardless of the human cost. What kind of legacy is that? Running lean and earning profits are certainly important business aims, but they aren't the only goals great leaders have. We must owe something more to the country that has been so generous to us. As President Kennedy reminded us more than half a century ago, we also have to give. We have to produce valuable products. We have to create decent jobs. We have to support the communities we live and work in. We have to boost the nation's economy, lift the tide for everyone, and willingly pay our fair share. You don't hear so much about that anymore from today's bottom-line consultants and business school experts. But those are the values that made America a great place to live and gave us the strongest economy the world has ever seen.

Somehow or another, those of us in business have to protect and nourish this national miracle of ours—and still make profits as we do.

When I'm gone, I want to be known as someone who cared about his people. I want everyone, not just those at the top, to do well. I want to leave the nation I love with stronger communities, better jobs, greater companies, a keener work ethic, and more security than when I arrived. The only way that will happen is if we focus more on each other's needs and achievements. That's where my principles really kick in.

It's never easy, but that is what this journey of ours is all about. Each of us has the power to make this happen. Stick with me here. The rewards can be extraordinary.