The Operational Excellence Society is a “think tank” that creates and aggregates content for individuals who wish to be high-performance members of high-performance teams at high-performance organizations.
We define Operational Excellence as; “a state of readiness that is attained as the efforts throughout the organization reach a state of alignment for achieving its strategies; and where the corporate culture is committed to the continuous and deliberate improvement of company performance AND the circumstances of those who work there – and is precursor to becoming a high-performance organization.“
The Mirror Nobody Wants to Look Into
On Leadership, Self-Delusion, and the Six Dimensions That Separate the Real from the Counterfeit I was brought in to work with a company in Florida at the tail end of COVID. They employed a little over 100 people and were a regional manufacturer, first generation family-owned, struggling with profitability just enough to know that real peril was on the horizon. The owner — I’ll call him Warren — had built a great deal of what the company had become. His fingerprints were on everything. He was proud of that, and not without reason. In fact, Warren’s company was the subject…
featured articles
The Mirror Nobody Wants to Look Into
On Leadership, Self-Delusion, and the Six Dimensions That Separate the Real from the Counterfeit I was brought in to work with a company in Florida at the tail end of…
The Ground Worth Fighting For: Key Terrain in Military and Business Strategy.
This past December (2025) I had the opportunity to attend Thayer Leadership, thanks to one of my clients, Integra-Cast, a member of the Spartan Aerospace Group, and its CEO, John…
Best Practices For Becoming a High-Performance Organization
I started XONITEK in August of 1985 in Endicott, New York. I still own its latest incarnation, now located in Sheridan, Wyoming. Having owned my own businesses for the last…
Design Thinking for Operational Excellence
I was the Chairman at an Operational Excellence and Business Transformation conference in Amsterdam this past March (2023) which was produced by CParity. The lead-off workshop was on Design Thinking…
Best Practices for Designing and Deploying an Operational Excellence Program
These approaches can also be applied to Continuous Improvement, Lean, or Six Sigma Programs. I started my first business, XONITEK, in August of 1985. I still own its latest incarnation…
The 9 Questions To Ask About Operational Excellence
Summary; Most companies preparing to launch an Operational Excellence Program do not take a moment to contemplate what their program is hoping to achieve, or even if what they are…
Expert Contributors
The Engineering Throughput Paradox – Using Nearshore Engineering Resources
Throughput is not the goal. Aligned throughput is. In product development, speed is often mistaken for progress. Teams push for faster cycles, more prototypes, and quicker releases. Calendars fill. Backlogs…
Growing a Business Successfully Requires a Look in the Mirror
Achieving sustainable growth in any business can often be challenging. A recent study of growth, published in the Harvard Business Review, of 10,897 publicly held companies over a 43-year period…
Facts and Values; The Keys to Operational Excellence in Sales and Marketing
The leaders of B2B companies often face a conundrum in sales and marketing. Their products, services, and talented people solve customer problems daily. Their approaches to awareness, conversion, and retention…
Harnessing core values for success
This article is provided courtesy of theleanmag, a content partner of the Operational Excellence Society. Imagine steering a ship in tumultuous seas without a compass—this is like leading a business without…
What does Excellence taste like?
This article is provided courtesy of theleanmag, a content partner of the Operational Excellence Society. In the culinary world, excellence is often measured by the ability to create unique flavor profiles,…
Five core practices for OpEx
It’s all about the people… … the problem is, that seems hard… The joke often goes that managers pick up the Operational Excellence bible and flip through the chapters: hmmm…
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the opex vault
Operational Excellence through Emotional Excellence
“Operational excellence is a philosophy of leadership, teamwork and problem solving resulting in continuous improvement throughout the organization by focusing on the needs of the customer, empowering employees, and optimizing…
Building a Business Excellence Program in Multi-Nationals
I see many questions asked regarding the development of a BE /OE/CI/LSS (Business Excellence Operational Excellence/Continuous Improvement/Lean Six Sigma) program. There is no right or wrong answer since every business…
To weather a crisis, build a network of teams
Imagine you are a tenured CEO of a company. You have led your organization through many adverse events. You have followed a playbook, and moved to a “command and control”…
From “Metric” to “Magnificent”!
How to move from simply measuring customer satisfaction to taking action that drives growth. Many companies measure and report the purported satisfaction or loyalty of their customers. However, the ‘metric’ is…
