How Operational Excellence is Achieved

One of the necessary conditions of Operational Excellence is to establish the mindset to achieve sustainable improvement. In order to achieve sustainable improvement, it starts with the leadership. Having the right measurements is the key to Operational Excellence.

The purpose of measurement is to induce people within the organization to take action that is aligned with the goal of the organization.

“Tell me how you measure me and I’ll tell you how I will behave.” ― Eliyahu M. Goldratt, Critical Chain

Transcription:
So how is operational excellence achieved through three things? Focus on the needs of the customers. And again, the word focus. We want to understand the significant needs of the customer. Yes, the customer might tell us they have multiple needs, but what are the significant needs? Second is empowering employees. The employees in your organization are the most valuable asset. The people working in the process are the experts. We need to leverage that knowledge. I'm amazed by leveraging the knowledge of the people in the process, how much improvement can be made. And again, I've seen improvements as much as 200% improvement.

Then third is focusing management attention. What is management attention? That's our ability to stay on task and complete something before we move on to something else. So hopefully from working from home, people can understand what focus management attention is, right? So if you're not in the office getting interrupted every 5 or 10 minutes, that's not focus management attention. I can actually sit down and complete something before moving on to the next activity. That's focus management attention. That interruption throughout the day is a cultural issue, right? So depending on your culture, it might be a calm environment, might be a chaotic environment. So we need to focus on how to change that culture.