Why Manufacturing Leaders Shouldn't Wait for “Normal” to Come Back

From February 1 to December 31 of last year, there were 21 tariff changes — new announcements, revisions, pauses and partial rollbacks. For some shops, the swings felt less like trade policy and more like a teen’s relationship status (on, off, it’s complicated, check back next week). Add in material pricing wobbles, strained capex budgets and a perpetually tight labor market, and it’s no wonder that a lot of manufacturers I’ve talked to describe 2025 as “a lot.”

When I interviewed financial strategist Mike Sibley for this feature story, that kind of market uncertainty was what we’ll call a “known known.” Rather than particular tariff clause or ROI equation, what stood out was how cleanly these unstable environments separate leaders into two camps: the ones waiting for “normal” to come back, and the leaders who’ve processed these conditions as a new operating baseline.

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“Cash flows have been good,” Sibley told me. “But there is this continuing concern about pricing pressures.” Shops aren’t drowning, generally speaking; they’re operating with a thinner margin for error. In that environment, bad or unlucky decisions often show up fast and hit hard.

The “When Things Settle Down” Trap

If you’ve been in the machining industry for any length of time, you’ve probably heard versions of this from your team (if not yourself): We’ll fix pricing once things calm down; we’ll get serious about retention once hiring gets easier; we’ll tighten up our investment strategy when we’ve put out this fire! In reality, these are all ways of saying: Our real strategy starts later.

Leaders who fall in the first camp (“the waiters,” let’s call them) sometimes build plans around an imagined version of pre-2020 conditions: stable lead times, predictable trade policy, a stronger labor pool. (Remember, this is imagined.) The “designers,” meanwhile, assume things are likely to stay choppy and act accordingly.

Pricing: From Shrug to Story

While tariffs may be inconvenient to some shops’ bottom lines, they’re a convenient example here because they force everyone to put their cards on the table. When last spring’s tariff round landed, most of Sibley’s clients treated them as a temporary nuisance: use up inventory, nudge prices where you can, absorb the rest and wait it out.

By midyear, it was obvious that “wait it out” wasn’t working. Sibley says the shops that adapted didn’t just raise prices; they clearly identified the story behind the numbers. They fixed how tariffs flowed through inventory and margin instead of dumping them straight to the P&L. They updated standard costs on key parts and product families. Some even started calling out tariff exposure line by line so customers could see what was changing and why.

Regardless of your stance on tariffs, the broader lesson is clear: in a shifting market, a pricing model you can’t explain — whether to yourself or to a customer — is a liability.

Culture You Design vs. Culture You Inherit

“Wait for normal” isn’t just a pricing-related issue. The temptation to ride things out is just as strong on the workforce side. Once things calm down, the thinking goes: We’ll have more time for training and career paths.

Meanwhile, Sibley is seeing “boomerang” employees — people who left smaller manufacturers for large-scale operations, only to come back after being treated like the proverbial cog in a machine. “The pressure and the culture at the small and medium sized businesses are not nearly what it is at these large manufacturers,” he told me.

Leaders who treat culture as a strategic advantage are doing two things right. First, they show up — on the floor, in one-on-ones and in ways that make expectations clear and fair. Second, they draw a line of sight between today’s job and tomorrow’s opportunity. Training and cross-skilling are part of an operating plan.

Shops where that doesn’t happen can only hope for high retention rates. At one client Sibley described, a wave of replacement hiring showed up almost like its own line item. “Training costs — you could see it on the P&L — just through the roof,” he says.

Capex: Adult Conversations About Risk

“Years ago, you would see companies buying a new machine or a new technology, and not necessarily think through: What’s the benefit I’m going to get?” Sibley says. Now, Sibley’s first question to leaders who bring up large investments is different: How does this fit the overall strategy, and what performance are you expecting in return?

Leaders who treat 2025 as the baseline don’t just ask whether a machine can run faster or hold tighter tolerances. They ask what happens to mix, staffing, quoting and cash when that asset hits the floor. They consider the unglamorous line items — facility work, integration, training, the ramp from first cut to full productivity — because they’ve been burned by neglecting them.

Choosing Your Baseline

There is a question Sibley asks himself every time he meets a new client: Are they looking for feedback or confirmation?

“The CEOs who thrive are the ones working on the business, not just in it,” he told me. They still know what’s happening on the floor, but they don’t let themselves get stuck there. They carve out time to plan. They bring in advisors and act on what they hear. They ask their teams for data and respond to what it shows.

If you lead a manufacturing company, you can’t control the tariff schedule, geopolitical turmoil, shipping container costs or major weather events. What you can control is whether your strategy is built for the world you wish you had or the one you’re actually in. In other words, are you running your business like a waiter or a designer?

One practical exercise as you plan the rest of 2026: Pay attention to how often the phrase “once things settle down” shows up in your meetings, your budget notes or even your own internal monologue. Every time you catch it, try asking a different question instead: If this is normal, what would we design on purpose?