It was a tense moment for me in the color-and-materials studio of BMW. A senior manager in the finance department was grilling me: why, he wanted to know, did my team insist on using costly materials that the customer would never see? Didn’t I know that people buy our cars for their looks and their fine engines? Just at that moment, a visibly distressed senior designer walked up to us, carrying a preproduction middle console from one of our new sedans. Disregarding the finance manager, she opened the console lid, reached her fingers into a dark pocket deep inside, and asked me to do likewise. “Feel this,” she said. “The supplier is having a terrible time getting the texture right in here. The surface is not good, Herr Bangle.” As she waited for my response, the finance manager watched me intently.
A version of this article appeared in the January 2001 issue of Harvard Business Review.