Operational Excellence Mixtape - June 12, 2026
News, articles, books, podcasts, and videos about how to make the workplace better.
Operational Excellence, Improvement, and Innovation
IKEA opts for growth over cuts with AI
Last week I shared how Schneider Electric is bucking the “AI-layoff” trend by reinvesting in higher-value work. IKEA is doing the same by shifting customer-service roles away from transactional tasks and toward consultative ones, while using AI to launch a paid consultancy model that opened entirely new revenue streams.
Using AI purely as a cost-cutting tool is a limiting view. The organizations getting it right are treating it as a growth engine.
When operational excellence becomes a liability
Execution is necessary. It's also not enough. Markets move, assumptions expire, and organizations that are heads-down on delivery can miss the shift entirely. The leaders handling pace of change well have learned to do two things at once: execute, and continuously pressure-test the thinking behind what they're executing. Here’s why operational excellence can become a liability in a rapidly changing landscape.
HSBC redesigns compliance process around AI’s strengths
AI won’t save a bad process. It’ll just run it faster. That’s the oldest lesson in process improvement, and it applies here too.
HSBC learned it the right way. Their anti-money laundering process was generating false positives at scale sending compliance teams chasing alerts that led nowhere. They redesigned from the ground up, then brought in AI. The result: a 60% reduction in false positives and a compliance function that actually functions.
Creating a Culture of Improvement
The brilliant jerk trap
Every time a team or organization circles back to a high-results, high-damage leader, the same bias is at work. The Oilers’ reported interest in Mike Babcock is the latest example. I’ve written about this before - the pull toward “brilliant jerks” is strong and predictable. So are the consequences. If culture matters to you, hire like it does.
What companies get wrong about decision rights
The more matrixed an organization becomes, the murkier decision-making gets. And the usual fixes - a dusty RACI, a reflexive escalation -don't actually help. They just slow things down. Here are four mistakes organizations make when determining decision rights, and what to do instead.
Coaching - Developing Yourself and Others
Designing behaviour change that sticks
Willpower and mandates rarely produce lasting change. What does? Designing the right systems and environment. BJ Fogg, author of Tiny Habits, joined Michael Bungay-Stanier on Change Signal to talk about exactly that, and it's worth a listen whether you're working on personal habits or organizational transformation.