20 years of employment at Williams Company .refused to recognize the need for this change in the belief that the glory days of yore would return at the end of the recession By 1995 ,the recession had been over for at least two years yet Williams Company had no new product lines . Revenue was down , sales for the standard product [with and without modications }were decreasing , and the employees were still resisting change . Layoffs were imminent In 1996 , the company was sold to Crock Engineering .Crock had an experienced machine tool division of its own and understood the machine tool business .Williams Company was allowed to operate as a separate entity from 1995 to 1996 . By 1996 , red ink had appeared on the Williams Company balance sheet . Crock replaced all of the Williams senior managers with its own personnel . Crock then announoed to all employees that Williams would become a specialty machine tool manufacturer and that the "good old days " would never return .Customer demand for specialty products had increased threefold in just the last twelve months alone . Crock made it clear that employees who would not support this new direction would be replaced The new senior management at Williams Company recognized that 35 years of traditional management had come to an end for a company now committed to specialty products The company culture was about to change . spearheaded by project management , concurrent engineering , and total quality management Senior management's commitment to product management was apparent by the time and money spent in educating the employees . Unfortunately ,the seasoned 20 year plus veterans still would not support the new culture .Recognizing the problems ,management provided continuous and visible support for project management in addition to hiring a project management consultant to work with the people .The consultant worked with Williams from 1996 to 2001 . From 1996 to 2001 .the Williams Division of Crock Engineering experienced losses in 24 consecutive quarters .The quarter ending March 31. 2002 ,was the rst protable quarter in over six years . Much of the credit was given to the performance and maturity of the project management system .In May 2002 .the Williams Division was sold . More than 80% of the employees lost their jobs when the company was relocated over 1,500 miles away . Questions a. Why was it so difficult to change the culture of the company ? b. What could have been done differently to accelerate the change