When the Operation Is Telling You Something

Sometimes the operation isn't broken.

It is just no longer keeping up with the business.

That can happen in a lot of ways.

Maybe the business is growing faster than anyone expected.

• A new customer brings significant volume.

• A new product changes the way orders need to flow.

• A new facility is being planned.

• A new system is being implemented.

Those are good problems to have.

Other times, the story is different.

• A project has gone sideways.

• The warehouse is struggling to hit its commitments.

• The team is tired.

• Workarounds have become the norm.

• The same problems keep showing up.

And sometimes, nothing dramatic has happened at all. The business simply evolved.

• The processes didn't.

• The training didn't.

• The technology didn't.

• The way people work didn't.

Slowly, the operation moved into a new reality while the operating model remained rooted in the old one.

That is where things can become interesting.

The Operator Is Usually Not the Problem

One of the things I have learned over the years is that good operators are incredibly resourceful.

• They know their business.

• They know their people.

• They know how things really work, not just how the process document says they work.

When something goes wrong, they find a way around it.

Need more capacity?

Add people.

Need to get orders out?

Work longer.

System slowing things down?

Create a workaround.

Process not working?

Find another way.

That isn't poor leadership.

In many cases, it is exactly what an experienced operator has learned to do.

• Keep the boat upright.

• Keep the customer happy.

• Keep the team moving.

• Solve today's problem.

• And then do it again tomorrow.

The challenge is that this kind of operational skill can sometimes hide a deeper problem. The operation may still be functioning while the operating model is slowly becoming unsustainable.

• The SLA may be green.

• The report may look acceptable.

• The orders may be shipping.

But what is it costing the operation to make those numbers look good?

That is a different question.

What Has Changed?

When I get involved in an operational problem, I don't want to begin by telling someone what I think is wrong.

• I want to understand.

• What is the initial pain point?

• Where is the friction?

• What has changed?

• What is different about the business today than it was when the current process, system, staffing model, or facility was designed?

And then I want to see it. Not just hear about it in a conference room.

This is where I often come back to three actuals:

The Actual Place.

What is actually happening in the physical operation?

The Actual Process.

What is actually happening in the process?

The Actual People.

What is actually happening with the people who have to make it work every day?

Those three things can tell you a lot.

• They can also tell you things a report cannot.

• You may discover that a system is creating a bottleneck.

• You may discover that a process has accumulated exceptions over time.

• You may discover that the workforce is compensating for a problem that leadership has never seen.

• You may discover that the technology is capable of more than the operation is using.

• You may discover that the process is fundamentally sound and the real issue is something else entirely.

That is why understanding comes first.

Seeing Through the Same Lens

There is another reason to start there.

Trust.

An operations leader should not have to convince an outside advisor (or internal one) that they know their own operation.

They do.

My job is not to walk in and become the smartest person in the room.

It is to understand enough of the operation that we are looking at the same problem.

That matters.

If the operations leader says, "This is where we are struggling," I want to understand why they believe that.

• I want to see what they see.

• I want to understand the history behind it.

• I want to learn the culture.

• How does this team respond to change?

• What have they been asked to absorb already?

• Where are people tired?

• Where are they resistant?

• Where are they capable of much more than they are currently being asked to do?

Sometimes the answer is not obvious.

And sometimes the thing that looks like resistance is actually experience telling us that the proposed solution doesn't fit the operation.

That is worth listening to.

Then Step Back

Once I understand the operation, I need some time to think. This is where experience becomes useful. Not because experience gives you a magic answer.

It doesn't.

But experience gives you patterns.

• You have seen a system create a bottleneck before.

• You have seen a process become dependent on workarounds.

• You have seen a project technically succeed while the operation struggles to adopt it.

• You have seen organizations add labor to solve a problem that really belonged in process or technology.

• You have also seen solutions that looked wonderful on paper and never had a chance on the floor.

That perspective can bring new possibilities into the conversation.

• Maybe the answer is better process.

• Maybe it is better use of the existing system.

• Maybe it is automation.

• Maybe it is a different technology.

• Maybe the project itself needs structure.

• Maybe the people need different skills or better preparation.

Often, it is some combination.

The important thing is that the solution should fit the problem.

Significant Enough to Matter

There is a temptation in operational improvement to believe that the best answer is the biggest answer.

• The newest technology.

• The largest transformation.

• The complete redesign.

Sometimes that is exactly what is needed.

Sometimes it isn't.

A solution has to be significant enough to change the outcome.

But it also has to be close enough to the reality of the operation that people can adopt it.

That balance matters.

Because a technically brilliant solution that the operation cannot absorb is not a successful solution.

The goal isn't simply to design something better.

The goal is to help the operation become better.

That requires people to understand it.

People to believe in it.

People to use it.

And eventually, people to make it their own.

The Operation Is Always Telling Us Something

I have come to believe that most operations are telling us what they need.

Sometimes we are just too busy operating to listen.

• The overtime tells us something.

• The workaround tells us something.

• The bottleneck tells us something.

• The frustrated employee tells us something.

• The recurring exception tells us something.

Even a perfectly green report can tell us something if we look closely enough at what it took to make it green.

The question isn't always, "How do we fix this?"

Sometimes the better first question is:

"What is the operation trying to tell us?"

That question changes the conversation. It moves us away from blame and toward understanding. It respects the people who have been keeping the operation moving. And it creates space to ask a better question:

What is the next right step?

Sometimes that step is a new system.

Sometimes it is a better process.

Sometimes it is developing the people.

Sometimes it is restructuring a project.

And sometimes the first step is simply seeing the operation differently.

Good operations are never finished.

• Businesses change.

• Customers change.

• Technology changes.

• People change.

The work is not to create an operation that never needs to change.

The work is to build the ability to recognize when change is needed, understand why, and move toward it with purpose.

That is where steady operational leadership can make a difference.

Not by taking the operation away from the people who know it best.

But by helping them see what is changing, understand what it means, and find a path forward they can actually carry.