“Human actions are led by feelings, passions and affects and reason plays its role on a secondary level in the process of rationalisation” (Hume). Put another way, rationality alone is not enough to motivate us into action.

So why are so many of the Operational Excellence approaches I have observed focused on reason, process and logic, and why do we continue to believe this will inspire our teams?

Many of the approaches I have seen consider the journey from What to How and very rarely get to Why when I would argue the journey should start at Why and work the other way!

The first stage companies take is to look across their activities, which can typically be a a mix of organic and inorganic growth with legacy operations, and realise What is being done is different in each location. Significant effort is expended to define the What is done so it is consistent, for example a standard Operating Management System is introduced. The next stage is the How – there is a sudden realisation that whilst everyone maybe doing the same thing they are doing it in different ways. We think there must be only one ‘best’ way and get on with creating more standards, guidelines, procedures and processes to provide a consistent How across our operations. Anyone recognise this journey?
 
This is all based on good reason and logic, but is it enough to inspire an operations organisation? Is it enough to create a movement to transform our operations delivering true operational excellence?
 
How can we create a more inspiring, passionate and motivating call to action through an Operational Excellence approach?. I think this can be achieved by starting the journey with Why. The questions of What and How are rational, the question of Why can spark emotion!
 
So what if your Operational Excellence effort started by defining why an organisation, function or team exists, what is its purpose? Create and communicate an inspiring purpose, align the organisation behind the Why and then empower your teams to define the best How and What!