What a Divisional Leader Will Tell You About How They Succeeded Implementing OpEx

Why do Operational Excellence Programs Fail?

We've all been in environments where we've had the flavor of the month. We've had programs that have come and gone.

What I think was lacking was being able to truly connect all the elements of those programs and actually transform the culture and mindsets. They also lacked the capabilities to be able to really drive us to a new level.

So what we tend to try to do is drive that business case of change down to each individual person. It varies at a corporate level. What happens in the corporate headquarters is important to corporate headquarters, not as much so in the individual manufacturing sites.

So, we have to find a way to talk to people really where it's relevant, where it's meaningful, and where it's actionable. To really drive that business case for change, and to get that engagement and involvement from all of our employees.

Why Implement An Operating System?

One of the pleasurable unintended consequences that we've seen from an Operating System is what it has done to inspire the employees. It has transformed their roles, moving people out of firefighting. They actually started adding value and been much more strategic in what we do, and driving performance.

It is tremendously transformational to an individual who has history of coming in and fighting the same issues over and over again, to see those things put to bed and to see the ability for them to actually take on more. And what you find is your employees are capable of doing so much more than we give them credit for.

So we, as leaders, have to play the role of servant leaders, making sure that we're teaching, we're training, we're coaching and we're actually bringing out the best of them. Because when you invert the pyramid, you're thinking about how many production employees we have and we can reach the full potential of those employees. That's really when we can deliver what's possible.

Why is Alignment Key for OpEx Implementation Success?

First of all, I'd encourage the leadership to spend time together and really understand what it is they're doing - make sure they understand. They don't have to be versed to a degree to be able to execute every tactical component of it, but they need to understand in principle in a line why they're signing up for an Operating System. They also need to understand what it is that they seek to achieve out of the Operating System.

That alignment is absolutely critical. We want to make sure, as leaders, that we show a unified front, that we don't have breaks in the ranks as we transform the balance of your organization. I would say that's probably the area that I would say is the biggest challenge. Make sure you get your leadership on and that we're truly walking the talk.

I would say the major challenges that I've seen in an Operating System is, first of all, that alignment. It's so critical to get the alignment. People tend to want to move very fast and maybe not be as thorough. And I'd say what my advice, my counsel, my learnings have been is to ensure that there's there's full engagement and it's full alignment across the leadership level.

We have to make sure that we're not only talking about the business case for change, which is the why. We also can articulate the vision of where we want to go, which is the what, and then as importantly is bringing to bear the programs to ensure that we're teaching people how. And then we're moving together to transform and to be able to bring everyone along with us. If you move too fast, you choke the organization. If you move too slow, you starve the organization. You've got to find the right pace to really be able to drive the change, which is big, it's cultural, and it can't be underestimated. But it's got to be at the right pace for the organization.

Why Do We Need the Right OpEx Education and Coaching?

With the Operating System we found the know-how and the comprehensiveness of the approach. What we lacked when we started our journey was really the knowledge base, the expertise. And when we started we actually had a misstart. We basically took a book and started to implement from A to Z. The reality, With the System we got a better practical solution with which we were able to augment our people, our lack of knowledge base within the organization.