acey Fine Furniture Company of Denver has been using the I-Power continuous improvement system since June 1995. In the brief period since, Kacey has earned and saved millions of dollars.

Sales have more than doubled... while adding only 25% more showrooms. Staff grew only 20%. And I-Power was the engine driving that growth.

INTERNAL IMPACT

But booming growth is not the only wonderful result of I-Power -- by far. Not only did I-Power create a wonderful way for Kacey to solicit and reward employees' creativity, it also had some important direct influences on the business beyond the impressive boost in sales...

Turnover dropped from 35% before introducing I-Power, to around 15% now.

Absenteeism has dropped by 25% since the business introduced I-Power.

The spirit of the Kacey work environment is noticeably better. Its employees are energized -- because they are encouraged to think... participate... contribute... develop... experience... enrich and enhance the company for the continuous and profitable growth of everyone who works there.

HOW IT ALL STARTED

For several years, Leslie and Sam Fishbein -- Kacey's husband-and-wife executive team -- had been using "Open-Book Management." They taught employees about the company's financial "numbers," and their role in improving performance.

Problem: Sam and Leslie werecertain that everyone in the company -- as well as the company itself -- would be performing at a much higher level if there were a way for individuals to offer their input... and have it acted upon. The challenge was coming up with a system to achieve those goals, simply and smoothly.

Solution: I-Power. Kacey pays employees $5 for an A -- great idea... and $1 for a B -- good idea. At the end of each quarter, the top 50 to 60 ideas get a "best-of-the-best" award -- between $10 and $50 each. At year-end, the person who submitted the top idea for the year gets $200.

In its first month alone, Kacey's 150 employees generated more than 1,500 A ideas -- as well as hundreds of B ideas. That level of involvement in a new program was unprecedented at Kacey. Yet that was only the beginning of a sustained, successful enhancement of Kacey's corporate culture.

Example: Wednesday evenings are known to be slow for furniture stores. So -- when Joan Fouts, new manager of Kacey's Colorado Springs, Colorado, showroom, suggested a way to boost Wednesday night sales, Leslie Fishbein, Kacey's president, gave approval to try it out.

Joan's idea: Compile customer cards from people who had visited the store -- but who had not yet purchased anything -- and then call them personally to invite them to a special, private sale on a Wednesday night.

Result: That first sale was so successful that now all five Kacey showrooms hold monthly, private sales for the same type of customer. Wednesday night sales -- formerly a $20,000-to-$25,000 salenight -- have quadrupled.

That's $720,000 to $900,000 more in sales per year -- from just a single I-Power idea. And Kacey gets hundreds of ideas from its staffers every month.

Everyone at Kacey knows that Leslie and Sam are looking for any improvement... so they understand that some of the small ideas they come up with are just as valuable as the big ones. Examples:

Put handheld spotlights on all our trucks to help find customer addresses after dark.

Add a dumpster to the customer pickup area to keep the area cleaner.

Paint guidelines on the loading dock driveway because the area is very tight for some drivers.

Create a list of most common "in-home" service problems that can be corrected before the merchandise is loaded for delivery.

Send out a small mailing offering an extended warranty to customers whose factory warranties are expiring. Result: This brought in about $10,000. More mailings are planned.

Change the required deposit on special orders from 30% to 33%. Result: This will increase cash flow by $300,000 per year.

Give support personnel a day in each department of the distribution center for more training and a better understanding of paperwork, procedures and policies.

Take another look into the idea of accepting American Express cards as payment from customers.

This last idea, which surfaced in the early months of the program, was a double lesson for Leslie and Sam...

Lesson I: I-Power helps business managers to be receptive to valuable ideas that they might otherwise simply dismiss.

Lesson II: I-Power helps businesses to improve their operations in ways that directly benefit the bottom line.