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9817 Crescent Park DrWest Chester, OH 45069513-759-7000info@crescentpark.comcrescentpark.com/aboutThe Crescent Way is designed to ensure we never lose sight of our customers’ true needs, the delicate balance between Purpose, Process, and People.The Crescent Way is designed to ensure we never lose sight of our customers’ true needs, the delicate balance between Purpose, Process, and People. The Playbook to become a Great company
ContentsCrescent Storyline … 2Introduction … 2Industrial Age (1850 to 1979) … 41850 … 41865 … 51895 … 61914 … 61917 … 61925 … 71935 … 81962 … 101969 … 101971 … 111979 … 11Progressive Era (1980 to 2012) … 121995 … 131996 … 142000 … 152002 … 152009… 162012 … 16Age of Intention (2013 to Present) … 172015… 172016 … 18Crescent Way … 20Compass … 21Strategy … 21Engineered Solution … 22Standard Work … 22Innovative Leaders … 22Talented People Management … 23Predictable and Reliable Quality and Performance … 29An Innovative and Engaged Community … 29A Promising Future … 29It’s Our Choice … 31Hubris Born of Success … 32Undisciplined Growth … 32Denial of the Brutal Reality … 33Grasping for Salvation … 33Surrender or Death … 33Do it Right … 34Do it Safe … 34Do it Well … 34To Become a Premier Service Provider … 352022 RE VISION1
Crescent StorylineIntroductionThree things have been consistent in the history of Crescent: First, the company is People-centric; secondly, creative change is part of its operational psyche and history; and nally, Taylor family members have pragmatically discovered and carefully perfected best practices in servicing customers for nearly two centuries and counting.After 170 years, the cumulative eect of rening best practices in the service industry has positioned the Taylor family and Crescent as industry leaders. Under the guidance and vision of ve generations of Taylor owners, Crescent’s People have made an art form to Do it Right, Do it Safe, and Do it Well. Today, Crescent is a premier service provider in Contract Packaging and Parts Fulllment whose People are well prepared to take Crescent to new heights.How did it all start? What events led the company to the successes it enjoys today? A careful search of the old City of Cincinnati Directories indicates the business formally began in 1850, listing John Rex Taylor as a “boss teamster”, eleven years before the Civil War. But you must go back two years prior, to 1848, when John Rex Taylor, (Chris Taylor’s 2 Table of Contents
great-great-grandfather) at the age of 17 years old, left Bath, England to begin a new life in America. During this time America was a global haven for those who sought opportunity and freedom, and John Rex wasn’t going to miss out.Young John Rex landed in New York City, passed through immigration procedures, and became a U.S. Citizen after arriving at Ellis Island. He didn’t waste much time and, after gathering his belongings, he began to trek west. Destination: the growing metropolis of Cincinnati. At that time, there were no railroads and the teenager traveled by coach through Pennsylvania’s mountains. Can you imagine how he must have felt as he viewed the panoramic, unspoiled scenery as his horse-driven coach rumbled over the mountains to Pittsburgh? Once he got to Pittsburgh, he boarded a riverboat on the Ohio River to take him to Cincinnati, where a new life beckoned. The events that follow will provide a road map of the Crescent story…3
Industrial Age to At that time, Cincinnati was experiencing spirited growth because of its strategic loca-tion. Shipping and trading on the Ohio River had spawned scores of manufacturing and transportation companies and the population had surged to about , inhabitants.No one knows for sure what prompted this teen aged young man, a stranger in a new land, to turn to transportation as a chosen profession - but that’s exactly what John Rex Taylor did. He began his own transportation business by working for the American Book Company as an independent hauler, hauling products from the riverfront to various companies in Cincinnati. John Rex created a bedrock, management philosophy that continues to be a hallmark of company practice even today: nd a distribution niche, serve it well, provide the best quality, and grow with your customer.Pictured left are John Rex Taylor’s rst horse & wagon, with his rst two employees and horses Mabel & Gracie. e company was known as Taylor Drayage Company. e horses were known as Dray horses and the men on the wagon as “Drayman.” e stables were located on the banks of the Ohio River. e word “Drayage” 4 Table of Contents
was coined because we used “Dray” horses to pull the wagons. While this process seems to make perfect sense, it was a practice that was new in the transportation industry at that time. Local transportation was still in its infancy with horse-drawn hauling as the prime mover.1865 John Rex Taylor and his wife had two children, Edward Taylor (pictured le) and John L. Taylor. Edward, who became the second generation to enter the grow-ing business, was born sometime around . He joined his father in and helped grow the hauling business. Edward Taylor’s tenure running the company was during the advent and growth of the railroad industry. Like a kaleidoscope, American society was continually changing - and so did Taylor’s small hauling company, which constantly reinvented itself.5
1895 Edward Taylor, the nd generation, used more modern horse & wagon hauling books from the American Book Company factory based in Cincinnati, Ohio. Taylor would transport books from their factory to river barges, local railheads, and local stores around the Cincinnati region (pictured le).e infant transportation industry in America was undergoing a great deal of change during this period. e railroad system was growing quickly as it stretched its tentacles in virtually every direction and nally became “transcontinental” when east tracks met west tracks at Promontory Point, Utah in . Up to this point, the company, had hauled product from the riverboats to local customers. Now the company was busy hauling product to-and-from the railheads to various customers.John, Edward’s father, lived to the age of and passed away in , some years aer founding the company bearing his name.1914 In , the year America entered World War I, Edward Taylor passed away and the third genera-tion of Taylor’s, John Rex Taylor II, the grandfather of Chris and David Jr. and father of David Sr., took the reins of the Taylor Drayage Company. 1917 e third generation, led by John Rex Taylor II, purchased the rst truck as Taylor Drayage Company (pictured le), now hauling between the American Book Company in downtown Cincinnati to the railhead near today’s lower Price Hill.e purchase order for our rst motorized truck purchased by Taylor Drayage Company is shown on page at the top le.6 Table of Contents
1925 e rm’s chief cargo remained textbooks - but another “reinven-tion” of the company was beginning to take shape. John Rex Taylor II, pictured above, second from right, walking the boardwalk along the Ohio River banks, reinvented Taylor Drayage by hauling meat for the large American western packers, namely, Rath Packing, Wilson & Company, John Morrell, and Dubuque. ese companies shipped their products into Cincinnati via iced rail cars for distri-bution in the Cincinnati area by Taylor. e hauling of books, however, was still the “meat and potatoes” product line.7
1935 e hauling of meat packed in ice was fast becoming the new cargo of prot (pictured to the le). e hauling of books ceased, and the core service became the transportation of meat products. With this dramatic change in business, in it was necessary to move from the American Book Company to larger quarters located at th and McLean in Cincinnati. is small building, approximately feet by feet wide, would serve as the company’s prime location for the next years.e little company survived well for the next few years, even though there were tough times experienced during World War II, not to mention the ood, which physically picked up the building and moved it feet o its foundation. In June of , both of Rex’s sons (Dave Sr. and John Jr.) entered the business, and with new blood and the energy of young people, the small business began to grow once again, with the inclusion of the fourth generation.John Jr.’s tenure in the business was very short, lasting only six months. He le the company to pursue a career in the edging television industry in Cincinnati, and for the next four years Dave Sr. and his father ran the business. Dave Sr. worked full time at the company, in addition to attend-ing the University of Cincinnati as a Business Administration student.It became obvious that the company’s growth was severely restricted by a building that was by feet so in another , was added. “It seemed huge at the time,” remembers David, Sr. “How would we ever ll that amount of space?” But this bold decision to enlarge the building was almost immediately rewarded when Planters Peanuts became the company’s rst major warehousing account! It was the beginning of a new era, and one of many rms who have since selected the company to distribute their products.8 Table of Contents
David Sr. remembers the initial calamity that it caused. “We took orders over the phone and delivered all of the product the same day in the Cincinnati area. All out of town orders were shipped the same day they were received. We were too dumb to know that none of our competition was doing anything remotely like this. What Service!”is was a wonderful time for the business, as it began to grow with new meat accounts and the Planters business became larger and larger.In , aer seven years, the company realized the building fell short of space, sanitation, security, and operational eciencies.9
1962 e company moved and constructed a new building located on Mitchell Avenue near Spring Grove, comprising about , of usable space. With this move came another name change: Taylor Distributing Company, now focusing on the warehousing and transportation of confec-tions, foods, and refrigerated meats. In Vick Chemical (known for its famous brand Vapor Rub, among others) was added to the company’s product line and once again used all the available warehousing space. A year later, Rex Taylor, who had all but relinquished his mainstream management workload but kept busy toiling shorter hours in payroll and accounting, passed away in .1969 Shortly after the death of Rex Taylor, the company leased a building next to the Mitchell Avenue operation and purchased a large building across the street, a building formally owned by the now-defunct Albers Super Markets.ese purchases brought the company’s warehousing space to approximately , , a tremendous jump!Being a visionary administrator, Dave Sr. knew the company needed a major cutting-edge infrastructure to remain compet-itive. In he began a series of changes with the installation of the rm’s rst IBM keypunch equipment. is enabled the company to control stock movement within the warehouse more easily and essentially launch the rst generation of data processing. A few years later, the company moved technically further ahead of regional competitors by purchasing additional data equipment that lled a foot-by--foot room.10 Table of Contents
1971 By , our available warehousing space was again running low. It was apparent the company needed a modern, new structure to service the needs of our food accounts. On faith alone, the company purchased a tract of land on Sharon Road at Cincinnati’s outer edge in anticipation of another expansion.Construction was completed on a modern , building located on Sharon Road. At that time, we formed a new corporation, Taylor Warehouse Corporation, which became the warehousing operation, and we maintained the Taylor Distributing name for the trucking company. is building was expanded in and again in , with a total of , of state-of-the-art warehousing space.1979 Acting in concert with the expansion, Dave Sr. took infrastructure improvements to the next sophisticated level. He created an unheard-of management tool in the logistics business – an IBM System computer, which replaced the massive unit record we had collected. Dave Sr. was the program designer, the tech support, and the I.T. department all rolled in one. In those days, he did everything!Again, another Taylor innovation to continuously improve our service culture.11
PROGRESSIVE ERA-In the early ’s, the h generation came into the business. John Taylor’s three sons entered the business along with David Sr.’s two sons, David Jr. and Chris, and the cousins took over new respon-sibilities. While their duties intermingled, John’s sons were responsible for trucking while David’s sons focused on distribution and warehousing. e rst order of business was to bid on the Ohio State storage of Liquor for the south-ern region of Ohio. We were successful in our endeavor and ran this operation out of a ware-house in ueensgate. is account was handled by Chris Taylor, and since he lived near down-town, he spent quite a bit of time in supervis-ing the operation. e account lasted for about ve years, however with declining liquor sales and a captive building, we decided to close the operation and concentrate our e orts in other directions.12 Table of Contents
Now with seven family members working in cramped quarters within the same building, it didn’t take long to discover that something had to be done to expand the operation. In the company purchased acres in an industrial park located north of Cincinnati just outside the I- circle. e company broke ground in on Crescent Park Drive and built a , modern distribution facility and named it Crescent Park Distribution Centers. Chris and Dave Jr. started running this new operation, while John Taylor’s sons operated the Sharon Road facility.1995 Aer two quick expansions in for , and another in for , , in the warehousing and transportation business stalled. e family was confronted with the need to ll large, partially lled buildings. In the weak business climate, another bold decision was made that once again changed the course of the business. “We wanted to become one-stop shopping,” said Chris Taylor. He, his brother, Dave Jr., and father, Dave Sr., made the decision to invest a . million packaging operation into the warehouse site with the goal of becoming an all-in-one processing site for manufacturers. It was a huge gamble, but it worked.13
1996 Our unbridled success with Kra presented an unusual opportunity to build our rst “embedded” distribution facility adjacent to a Kra manufacturing plant located in Mason City, Iowa, known as Crescent Operation MC. e facility was designed, built, and started up in six months, through the middle of an Iowa winter! e facility started with employees and runs hours a day, days a year, and processes about million pounds of freight per year. e Mason City facility was expanded in , and a second plant was constructed. Crescent moved to a new , refrigerated facility located within Kra’s manufacturing site. What made it work was the fact that the company already warehoused and shipped products for Campbell’s Soup and Kra, and others.Aer adding the packaging area, the company capitalized nicely on the growth of “warehouse club” retailers such as Sam’s, Price-Costco, and BJ’s - all of whom demanded dierent packaging congurations. In turn, the larger food companies needed quick reaction times and thus relied upon Crescent Park to ll the gap.14 Table of Contents
2000 Answering to the specialized needs required in pack-aging and warehousing and transportation services, the company further dened its operations by forming two separate enti-ties. Taylor Warehouse and Distributing became one company owned by the John Taylor family while the other entity called Crescent Park Distribution Centers, located on Crescent Park Drive, became owned and operated by the Dave E. Taylor Sr. family.In the year Crescent Park stood on the brink of becoming a national player. “ere’s opportunity,” says Chris Taylor. “If we keep providing clients with quality service and innovation as my forefathers did in the past, we might consider managed growth into other areas of the country,” he says. “We’ll see.”2002 In the year Crescent Park stood on the brink of becoming a national player. “ere’s opportunity,” says Chris Taylor. “If we keep providing clients with quality service and innovation as my forefathers did in the past, we might consider managed growth into other areas of the country,” he says. “We’ll see.”15
2009 Crescent Park Corporation expanded in the local Cincinnati market, establishing its second “Embedded” operation but rst true Contract Packaging site co-located within a customer’s distribution center in Cincinnati, known as C.C was responsible for contract packaging one of the world’s largest skin care brands on the market. is business would soon expand and grow with the customer in , to a new Crescent embedded operation in Memphis, Tennessee called P.e focus was on three core services: ()Promotional Services, ()Contract Packaging and ()Integrated Logistics. is same year, we set another ‘rst’ by opening our very rst “Dedicated” contract packaging site for one of the world’s leading confectionary companies in the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania market, known as E.2012 Looking to expand and grow in an increasingly compet-itive market, Crescent Park rebrands and renames itself “Crescent.” e word ‘crescent’ has its origin in the Latin word crescere, which means “to grow, growing, increasing, and developing.” For Crescent, that meant becoming a Premier Service Provider while provid-ing opportunities for all of Crescent’s People to grow and develop to meet their own desired potential.16 Table of Contents
Age of Intention2013 to Present2 015 Crescent continued to evolve, with a new executive leadership team focused on establishing a new and formal strategic process for future growth, driving culture change, and leading expansion.Leveraging the strength in its operational diversity, Crescent maintained its focus on growing our Multi-Customer, Embedded, and Dedicated Contract Packaging oper-ations, while also looking to expand Parts Ful lment services and supporting the Transportation operation based out of Cincinnati, Ohio.17
2016 Crescent architects the Crescent Way of doing business, a meth-odology to guarantee high quality service performance by aligning the P’s of Purpose, Process, and People. The Crescent Way is how we deliver service to our customers and is designed to ensure we never lose sight of our customers’ true needs, from 2016 to beyond. In the words of John Rex Taylor, “nd a service niche in the marketplace. Serve it well. Provide the best quality service. Grow along with your customer.”18 Table of Contents
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Crescent WayFrom the day of its conception, every company is given the ability to make choices. Some companies, typically poor ones, don’t make any choices and let the cards fall where they may. Others, typically better ones, recognize their ability to make choices and in doing so create goals for their companies. The array of choices available to the founders of companies is limitless. A founder chooses whether the company is public or private, whether it will produce a product or provide a service, what products and what services, which customers, where the company will be located, in what countries will the customer sell products or provide services, and more. All of these, plus many more, are choices the founder of a company must carefully consider. As important as all these choices are, there is one overriding choice a founder must make for the company, one that will set the stage for that company’s culture: “Will the company be Great?”On the surface the question seems to only have one answer. Of course, we want to be great! But the brutal reality of what is involved in being a great company has produced thousands of companies who are content with merely being okay, or just good. In his book, Good To Great, Jim Collins clearly states the enemy of being great is being good. Why? Because to so many company leaders, being good is just plain old good enough, and the energy and eort it takes to being great is just, well, too much work.To be a Great company, the company must infuse into its make-up a set of disciplines which becomes the company’s pillars for becoming Great. A Great company has values and a vision. It has direction and a path forward. It has a planned means on how to produce its product or provide its service. It has standards for its performance and its quality. Its leadership continuously seeks out new and better way to produce 20 Table of Contents
the products or services. It knows how to attract and retain talented People. These six disciplines are instilled into the fabric of all Great companies at the onset and are rened over time.Crescent made the choice to be a Great company. We don’t desire to merely be good at what we do. Crescent took it a step further and stated in its vision its desire to become a Premier Service Provider. Crescent is not declaring it is great or that it is the Premier Service Provider. It is stating that it chooses to be great, and to become a premier service provider in the industries we serve. In choosing this vision we instill six disciplines, each of which are equal in importance and all six are required for Crescent to become Great. Our six disciplines are:CompassThe Crescent Compass brings together into one integrated picture Crescent’s Values and Vision. The Crescent Compass provides clarity about who we are and what we desire to become. The Crescent Compass acts as a beacon, keeping us on course to our desired direction by adhering to our established values. To sustain success, it’s important we revisit our Compass from time to time to calibrate our vision, the direction we chose and our values.StrategyTo always ensure we have a clear path forward at Crescent we use a Strategy Map. Crescent’s Strategy Map is a power tool designed to describe key business objectives in a simple one-page cause-and-eect visual diagram. Once the strategy map is dened, agreed to, and understood, we use our Annual Strategic Plan (ASP) to determine the required initiatives to execute our strategy year over year. Once we have executed our strategy we recommit to the process and reestablish the next strategic plan. Each Strategy Map has a life span of ve years.CompassStrategy21
Engineered SolutionWe have a business because our customers have a need, a need requiring a solution. Our mindset at Crescent is provide each customer with an Engineered Solution, a solution uniquely designed to meet their need, both in the short term and in the long term. Our Engineered Solution is developed into the Best Valued Solution for our customer. A uniquely designed solution only Crescent can provide, and one that stands out from our competitors.Standard WorkTo be successful in the service industry there are two very basic characteristics a service company must exhibit: they need to be reliable, and they need to be predictable in providing high performing, high quality services. Crescent is process-centric, meaning we embrace the use of standard work. Our diligent use of standard work ensures our proposed engineered solution is delivered to our customer according to the plan for which it was designed.Innovative LeadersBeing innovative with how we address problems is instilled into the Crescent Culture. Innovative Leadership is a basic need at Crescent to help our teams navigate the many challenges faced each day. Our customers and the industries in which they operate demand a continuous improvement service culture. Our processes must be rened daily, providing a continuous stream of incremental improvements resulting in value to our customers. Our ability to foster innovation into our leadership ranks provides us with the ability to deliver the Best Value Solution.EngineeredSolutionStandardWorkInnovativeLeaders22 Table of Contents
Talented People ManagementEvery service company in the world has one thing in common, their business is reliant on People. The better their People, the better their ability to provide great service. A company can never truly become great, or become a Premier Service Provider, if they don’t strive to make their People great. Talent Management is accomplished at Crescent through the diligent use of the STAR process. The STAR process allows us to design and engineer our culture to attract, retain and develop our talented People.All six of these rings are disciplines fused together into one solid ring we call the Crescent Way. Each of the six - Compass, Strategy, Engineered Solution, Standard Work, Innovative Leaders, and Talented People Management - are necessary and all six must be fully instilled for Crescent to be successful. The integration of all six rings into one ring creating the Crescent Way, provides us with a methodology, a framework, to become great and to become a Premier Service Provider.In 1997 Jim Heskett revealed a revolutionary fact in his book The Service Prot Chain, concluding employee satisfaction led to customer satisfaction which led to protability. Although his ndings were debated, in time another conclusion was made supporting Jim Heskett, by Jim Womack, author of Gemba Walks, which today we know as the law of the 3P’s.TalentedPeopleManagment 23
DefineServiceEngineered Service SolutionServicePlanningServiceDeliveryQuality and SafetyAuditG.S.D.(Get Stuff Done)Select the TeamTrain the TeamRecognize the TeamAssess the TeamRightRightRightCustomer's NeedCrescent's NeedSet Key StandardsThrough the infusion of Compass, Strategy, Engineered Solution, Standard Work, Innovative Leadership, and Talented People Management, Crescent can create the Crescent Way, following the law of the 3P’s:Purpose - our customers’ and company’s true needs, and our commitment to performance and quality.Process - how we deliver our high performing service and how we deliver performance and quality.People - those who deliver on our customers’ needs by delivering performance and quality.Great companies approach being pro table in a di erent manner than mediocre or bad companies. Great service companies view pro t as a symptom. Following the conclusions of Jim Heskett, employee satisfaction leads to customer satisfaction which leads to being pro table. Through the creation of the Crescent Way, and by following the law of the 3P’s, Crescent can create a service culture capable of world class performance and quality.24 Table of Contents
The successful application of the law of the 3P’s is reliant on our understanding of two things we need to both know and act upon:• The Voice of our Customer• The Voice of our PeopleIf we don’t know the Voice of our Customer, our purpose will be misguided. If we don’t know the Voice of our People, our People will not be engaged. If we do not fully apply the law of the 3P’s our mission to be great will fail.The law of the 3P’s concludes our People must know and understand our Purpose, our reason for being, our reason for what we do. To do this our Purpose must be clear and it must be communicated clearly to everyone involved. Our People deliver on our Purpose through our Processes. Our Process must therefore be aligned with our Purpose and our People. As simple as that may sound, the level of communication to adhere to the law of the 3P’s is very intentional and must be consistent. The application of this law allows our customers and our people to experience the Crescent Way and not your way, his way, her way, or my way, but only one way – the Crescent Way.The Voice of our Customer and the Voice of our People are critical bookends to the Crescent Way. Our Purpose, which is to deliver on the needs of our customer, can only be accomplished through our People as they adhere to our standardized Processes.Voice of Our Customer x Voice of Our People = ChoiceIn the same manner that 1 X 0 = 0, we must have both VOC and VOP to have choice. If we have one without the other our options for choice are zero. The Crescent Way of thinking gives us choice. 25
The Crescent Way is how we choose to deliver our services to our customers. The Crescent Way is designed to ensure we never lose sight of our customers’ true needs. The delicate balance between Purpose, Process and People we practice, challenge, and rene daily, ensures the Crescent Way provides a clear path to adding value to our customers. The Crescent Way evolved over decades of hard work where we continually learned from our mistakes and sought counsel from our customers and our People. In combination with Crescent’s culture, we achieve a level of alignment guaranteed to provide value to our customers, allowing protable growth and opportunities to reinvest in our company’s future.We cannot pick and choose what portions of the Crescent Way to use. We use it all. The Crescent Way is dynamic and will continue to evolve to meet the changing needs of our customers. Newly appointed managers will adapt and internalize the Crescent Way. Newly appointed managers will not implement their way; they will implement the Crescent Way. The Crescent Way is our mindset, our brand. It is how we collectively view and operate our business. It is a combination of critical processes all woven into a model, framed by our culture, to strengthen our customers’ competitive advantage. The Crescent Way is how we expand our brand universally, delivering a premier service oering to all our customers. The Crescent Way model is comprised of three fully aligned and integrated parts (the 3Ps). The rst part is Purpose.In Purpose, our goal is to:• Dene the Service• Engineer a Service SolutionFrom conversations with our key customers, we gain insight into why outsourcing is critical to their long-term success, being sure to make note of their expectations and desired outcomes. Using our Key Customer Engagement Process (KCEP) we 26 Table of Contents
especially seek to understand why Crescent is unique in the minds of our customer. Understanding our uniqueness helps us dierentiate ourselves from our competition. By clearly understanding Purpose, we move to the second part of the Crescent Way, Process.In Process, we adhere to four critical fully aligned steps:• Service Planning• Service Delivery• Quality and Safety Audit• G.S.D. (Get Stu Done)The disciplined use of these four steps delivers our promise to our customers, providing the highest level of service performance, in the safest manner possible. Process guarantees our service delivery is consistent, providing our customers with predictable performance and high quality at the lowest cost possible. In Process, our collective energy is focused on the elimination of waste. Waste dilutes our prots, preventing us from re-investing in our future through upgraded technology, facilities, People training, equipment, and materials.The third part of the Crescent Way is People. At Crescent the ecient and eective use of our People is our source of competitive advantage. Our People deliver on our Purpose through our Processes. To continually improve our Processes, our delivery system, our People need to be fully engaged in our Purpose.27
In People we follow a simple process known as S.T.A.R.:• Select the Team• Train the Team• Assess the Team• Recognize the TeamCrescent’s Culture is reliant on our disciplined use of these four steps to ensure we always have the right People on the team. Our People are the source of innovative new ideas, which improve our Processes, allowing us to deliver on the Purpose.The 3 Ps of the Crescent Way interact with each other via intersecting pathways to provide transparent information on our results to both our customers and our People. This level of visibility guarantees mutual trust. Our communication pathways, enhanced by technology, allow our teams to collaborate openly and freely between each other and our customers on all Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and Service Level Agreements (SLAs) necessary to:Improve Quality Improve Safety Improve ProductivityDo it Right Do it Safe Do it WellOur Compass, Strategy, Engineered Solutions, Standard Work, Innovative Leadership, and Talented People Management all combine to create the Crescent Way, our operating framework providing us with Improved Quality, Improved Safety, and Improved Productivity. This path we take to be great delivers to us three remarkable results, setting the stage for us to become a Premier Service Provider.28 Table of Contents
1. Predictable and Reliable Quality and Performance2. An Innovative and Engaged Community3. A Promising FuturePredictable and Reliable Quality and PerformanceThe Crescent Way creates a culture whereby we exhibit a set of behaviors which motivate all of us to Do it Right, Do it Safe and Do it Well. These behaviors are expected of us by both our People and our Customer. Generated by the Crescent Way, these behaviors produce a foundation whereby our service is both predicable and reliable. In short, our People and our Customers can count on us to consistently deliver quality and performance, making Crescent very sustainable over the long term.An Innovative and Engaged CommunityUsing the SCARF model, the Crescent Way stimulates an environment where everyone’s ideas are welcomed. This environment engages and motivates People to become part of the solution and enhances our community to naturally focus and deliver on our customers’ true needs’. Our Innovative and Engaged Community does not stop with merely meeting our customers’ true needs, once accomplished, we engage on how we improve our ability to meet their future needs.A Promising FutureThe Crescent Way provides us with a directional beacon clarifying our values and vision while establishing a strategic path forward. The Crescent Way measures our level of success identifying opportunities for improvement and sources of waste. The Crescent Way keeps us in the forefront of our customers’ needs, allowing Crescent to grow and for all of us to grow along with it.QualityPerformanceInnovativeEngagedCommunityPromisingFuture29
CompassStrategyEngineeredSolutionStandardWorkInnovativeLeadersTalentedPeopleManagmentQualityPerformanceInnovativeEngagedCommunityPromisingFutureWe Instill To Create Which DeliversTo Become a Premier Service Provider:30 Table of Contents
It’s Our ChoiceBeing Great by choice is far superior to being Great by accident, but both require the tenacity to never take “what is” for granted or to ever feel any level of entitlement having achieved this level of success. The advantage of being Great by choice is to be fully aware of the required disciplines necessary to sustain being Great, and not slipping backwards and embracing being good, mediocre, or merely okay.There are countless companies, both big and small, who achieved a level of greatness to only let it slip from their grasp and line of sight. The journey to becoming great takes time and its composed of many, many, incremental steps forward. Sadly, the trip back to being okay is also comprised of a series of backward steps, all small, that incrementally build o each other until it is too late.At Crescent we celebrate our success. We acknowledge those who have contributed to our success, and we allocate our resources to assist those who are struggling with success, but what we do not do is believe our own press. Instead, after we celebrate and acknowledge our success, we raise the bar and begin again. The rst step of decline for Great companies is to believe in their own press, to become too prideful, to be hubris based on their success. Jim Collins, the author of How the Mighty Fall, outlined ve steps, or traps, a company can fall into which ultimately led to failure. Let’s look at these from the perspective of a service company:1. Hubris born of success2. Undisciplined growth3. Denial of the brutal reality4. Grasping for salvation5. Surrender and Death31
Hubris born of successUndisiciplined growthDenial of the brutal realityGrasping for salvationSurrenderDeathStages to failureHubris Born of SuccessWe enter this rst stage if we allow ourselves to feel we are entitled to our success, becoming arrogant and forgetting all the hard, tenacious work it took to get here. We allow rhetoric about our success to take the place of our Key Performance Indicators and our review / upgrade of the Crescent Way, both of which are more nely tuned to assess the brutal reality of our current situation.Undisciplined GrowthIf we allow ourselves to move into stage one, stage two follows quickly where we feel we can do anything. We rationalize our struggles allowing our arrogance to push aside our strategy and replace it with becoming completely opportunistic. Our past struggles with new launches are forgotten and we push ourselves forward in the relentless pursuit of more.32 Table of Contents
Denial of the Brutal RealityIn stage three, internal battles begin to form. Competing camps among levels of management begin to arise between those struggling and those who are rationalizing what is happening on external forces. Ironically, during this phase the lag indicators may be looking good, whereas the lead indicators are telling a dierent story. The battle between the camps is which story to believe, did we grow too fast, or is this just a temporary market condition we are facing? Companies tell themselves it’s just another cycle, we have all been here before, we can weather this issue. In stage three companies can make the choice to reverse the impending decline, to revisit the disciplines which contributed to their success and turn the company around back onto the Crescent Way.Grasping for SalvationIn stage four, the lag indicators have begun to reect what we saw in the lead key performance indicators in stage three. In short, the bottom line is now impacted. We are experiencing customer loss, loss of our talented People to burnout, lack of creativity, and blame has become our default behavior. In stage four leaders are once again aorded the choice to right the ship by going back and reinstalling the six rings of discipline which created our success, or they can ignore the disciplines, grasping at ideas in the moment which are nothing but unproven strategies and unrealistic visions.Surrender or DeathThe longer a company remains in stage four, grasping for silver bullets, unrealistic remedies, and tactical recovery strategies, the deeper the spiral and losses leading to either surrender or death. It is often stated if a company is not growing, it is dying. It’s a true and proven statement, the key is healthy growth which matches the capabilities 33
and capacities of the company. To stretch is good, to overextend is not. In this nal stage, companies will typically see key leadership gures leaving the organization like the crew of a sinking ship. For a company to begin this journey of peril, they take their eye of the ball, losing sight of what was done to be successful in the rst place.The Crescent Way framework will ensure Crescent does not fall into these traps, or if we should we quickly course correct and move back out. To be sustainable in this innite game of business, the Crescent Way must be sustainable. We can never allow ourselves to believe we have won the game, as the game we are in is timeless and relentless. We must daily rene the Crescent Way, it must remain dynamic, and we must have an assurance process to ensure sustainability. If each of our leaders and businesses embody the Crescent Way, we will have a promising future, an innovative and engaged community and an unprecedented high level of productivity and quality.Do it RightDoing what is right for our customers, doing what is right for our company and doing what is right for our People.Do it SafeCreating a safe environment where all forms of risk are assessed and controlled, and where People’s ideas, opinions and well-being are respected.Do it WellOptimizing all our resources to eciently and eectively perform all tasks well.34 Table of Contents
To Become a Premier Service ProviderCrescent is a Community focused on growing our People to provide a path forward for our Key Customers, strengthening their competitive advantage.The infusion of our Compass, with our strategy, our engineered solutions, our standard work, innovative leaders, and our talented People management, creates our framework of success we call The Crescent Way. The Crescent Way aligns the 3P’s, allowing us to know our customer, to know our People and, through our processes, deliver a great service to meet the true needs of our customers and brand us as a Premier Service Provider. CompassStrategyEngineeredSolutionStandardWorkInnovativeLeadersTalentedPeopleManagmentQualityPerformanceInnovativeEngagedCommunityPromisingFutureWe Instill To Create Which DeliversTo Become a Premier Service Provider:35
DefineServiceEngineered Service SolutionServicePlanningServiceDeliveryQuality and Safety AuditG.S.D.(Get Stuff Done)Select the TeamTrain the TeamRecognize the TeamAssess the TeamCustomer's NeedCrescent's NeedSet Key StandardsCreating an environment where People can work to their natural best.36 Table of Contents
9817 Crescent Park DrWest Chester, OH 45069513-759-7000info@crescentpark.comcrescentpark.com/aboutThe Crescent Way is designed to ensure we never lose sight of our customers’ true needs, the delicate balance between Purpose, Process, and People.The Crescent Way is designed to ensure we never lose sight of our customers’ true needs, the delicate balance between Purpose, Process, and People. The Playbook to become a Great company