News, articles, books, podcasts, and videos about how to make the workplace better.
This Operational Excellence Mixtape underscores a simple but often-missed point: new technologies like AI may change how quickly we generate ideas, but real improvement still depends on leadership, engagement, and culture. The featured pieces challenge executive assumptions, emphasize the enduring principles of operational excellence, and remind us that sustainable results come from involving people, avoiding hero-style leadership, and creating the conditions–through coaching and psychological safety–where learning and improvement can actually happen.
Thanks, as always, to Ryan McCormack for this. He always shares so much good reading, listening, and viewing here! Subscribe to get these directly from Ryan via email.
Operational Excellence, Improvement, and Innovation
CEOs assume that AI is helping more than it actually does
It's no surprise that the disconnect between the C-suite and the frontlines extends to the perceived productivity benefits of AI. 40% of “workers” (the article's term – not mine) indicate that AI is saving them no time, while only 2% of CEOs believe that no time is saved. Leaders – get out of your office and actually go see how your people are benefitting from (or not) using AI.
In the age of AI, what has changed in deploying and executing strategy?
GenAI has made it easy to get quick answers and ideas on setting aspirations, designing OKRs, and even designing dashboards within a few clicks – feats that used to take days of exhausting workshops. But deploying, aligning and executing the strategy remains a messy people-dependent leadership challenge. Getting the right things done still requires the ultimate app – leadership.
The principles of operational excellence age like wine
What does it truly take to have a culture of excellence? Founders or leaders with a deep commitment to improvement, strong shared values that are integrated into ways of working, and combining systems thinking with employee-led experimentation. It's not enough to do some projects or send people to training.
“We are a dive-in kind of company; when the idea hits, we brainstorm and adjust the process until it works.” Shannon Family of Wines is an innovator-led, closed-loop organization that continually seeks to reduce waste.
AI agents aren't replacing remote workers anytime soon
The Remote Labor Index is confirming that AI isn't replacing workers now, or probably anytime soon. AI remains more adept at automating well-defined tasks within a project and not as a replacement strategy.
Creating a Culture of Improvement
The average span of control is creeping up
Organizational culture lives and dies on the strengths and capabilities of middle management, but middle managers continue to be under the gun as organizations drive up the mean span of control to 12.1, while the median remains around 6. What's the optimal span of control? It depends. Large teams can still thrive – with the right engagement.
Leading change? Avoid the hero trap.
Change often thrusts leaders onto center stage. Makes sense, as they should ultimately be accountable and research shows that employees prefer the top leaders (and their supervisors) to be the key messengers of change. But being center stage means that leaders might start feeling like they are the star of change, leading to extreme psychological ownership and the risk of ignoring input. Leaders need to remember to focus on the change problem, not just the change solution.
Coaching – Developing Self & Others
If you want 2026 to be the best year of your life, watch this video…
Don't hand your first hour over to your phone! This is one of the many keystone habits that Daniel Pink breaks down int his video to help make 2026 the best year of your life.
5 myths that make us quit before we get good
We like to be good at what we do. But expecting to be good at something right away and then encountering struggles can make us fell like failures. So we quit too soon – well before the big payoff. Anne-Laure Le Cunff encourages us to approach mastery as a set of tiny experiments to avoid limiting our potential.
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If you’re working to build a culture where people feel safe to speak up, solve problems, and improve every day, I’d be glad to help. Let’s talk about how to strengthen Psychological Safety and Continuous Improvement in your organization.
