Manage Talent for Operational Excellence.

The talent is to have appropriate behaviors, it is the good use of intelligence, as defined by José Antonio Marina, Spanish philosopher. Living beings behave based on rewards and punishments. It is part of nature. In a business environment, a series of indicators have been defined to reward and punish behaviors. All this seems logical. What I invite the reader to do is evaluate if in your organization you identify some behaviors that go against other people or other areas.

Have you noticed that there are conflicts and clashes of interests? Not only with customers and suppliers, where a notion of winning - losing prevails, that is, to have more profits one commercial entity, must negatively affect the other. The reflection I want to propose is that even in an organizational system that theoretically is looking for a common goal, the growth of the company, conflicting behaviors are evident between the areas, between people. People behave as they are measured and rewarded. If the behaviors are not adequate, the indicators should be evaluated.

Indicator risks between areas 

Now let's get to the issue of indicators. A phrase that is repeated frequently is "what is not measured is not controlled, nor is it improved." I totally agree with this statement. What I want to show is that the indicators that are used today are based on a mistaken belief. The belief that the sum of local optimum is the same as the global optimum. If you sell a lot and if the other is efficient in production and the other is very good with money management, then the company will be profitable. This sounds great in theory, but in reality, sellers sell what has not been produced, the factory produces what is not sold and everyone needs money to grow.

The above, generates that the commercial areas clash with the manufacturing areas, the liquidity of the organizations is limited because the manufactured products are in the inventory and have not been sold. A lot of conflict situations occur. If we evaluate the local performance of the areas, each one is doing what most contributes to the indicator and supposedly to the company, but in the global the results are not positive. Local optimal indicators generate local behaviors. These behaviors generally generate conflicts and results far from those desired, which affect organizations and in particular the individuals that compose it.

Operational excellence as a solution 

Companies strengthen the importance of their indicators because they need to grow. No businessman expects to keep his profits the same, he always expects to increase his results. This puts constant pressure on the system so that it performs better. The only way to improve is by changing. This is how we can say that change in organizations must be permanent. Given this search for better results and if we add the uncertain market conditions, we can say that organizations need a management group that evolves faster and faster. It is not enough to be good, just as it is not to have a high standard quality, it is required to be excellent.

We can define excellence from its linguistic origins, but in the business environment, the definition of Operational Excellence requires further analysis. The translation to the definition presented by Busines dictionary * on the term is: “The labor philosophy where problem solving, teamwork and leadership, generates continuous improvement in an organization. The process involves focusing on the needs of customers, keeping employees positive, empowered and continually improving the activities they develop in their workplace. ” Our interpretation, from Leversens, is that Operational Excellence is the generation of reliable and consistent value to the stakeholders of the organization.

Go to the next level

It is imperative that employees trust their colleagues, bosses and subordinates. Also, that customers always receive what they were promised. The absolute condition of the word “always” implies that the organization must have mechanisms that protect the system from variations in the market, supply and operation. Subsequently, work should be done to reduce these variations. System providers must also be sure that the organization respects and meets the agreed conditions. Finally, the shareholders will have the confidence to obtain the expected results and will be able to focus their management attention on the decisions that take the organization to its next level of performance. In other words, Operational Excellence must demonstrate the flow without turbulence of a company, constantly seeking to increase its flow.

In conclusion, Operational Excellence is the search for synchronization and system speed. It is a global optimum and requires a change in the way indicators are defined and controlled. Flow indicators that are simple and generate coalition when defining improvement initiatives. Mechanisms that generate appropriate behaviors in terms of execution, problem solving and organizational growth.

Companies must be environments where the potential of individuals is exploited and results are achieved that are much larger than the sum of each worker.