The Human Link: Ensuring Operational Culture Aligns with Strategic Excellence

Cracks in the Foundation: Identifying Destructive Behaviors

The erosion of operational excellence is rarely the result of a single event. Rather, it is the product of thousands of small, disrespectful behaviors that become normalized in daily life. These acts, although seemingly minor, create an environment where trust breaks down and commitment fades. Based on the analysis of daily behaviors, we identify three key "value destroyers":

1. Interruption as the Norm: When interrupting and talking over others becomes common practice, the impact goes beyond poor manners. This behavior sends the message, "my voice is more important than yours," demotivating the team from sharing ideas and stifling frontline innovation.

2. The False Idol of Multitasking: Being absorbed in a laptop during a meeting is not a sign of efficiency, but of profound disinterest. This behavior devalues the contribution of others, communicates that their time is not important, and generates a disengagement that no incentive program can fix.

3. Leadership Disconnection: Leaders who are late to meetings or do not respect the time of others set a standard for the entire organization. This behavior creates a culture where a lack of discipline is acceptable, making the implementation of any operational excellence system, which relies on rigor, practically impossible.

While top executives define corporate values (the "Big-C" culture) , middle managers act as the true architects of daily operational culture. Their role is not simply to "implement" the culture, but to "translate" and "enrich" it in their teams' practices (the "small-c" culture). For example, if the company's "Big-C" culture is "safety first," a frontline manager can create a "small-c" culture by establishing a practice where proactive risk identifications are celebrated. This act of translation turns an abstract value into a tangible behavior.

The Variable Your Dashboards Don't Measure

Organizations invest millions in systems and processes in their pursuit of operational excellence, filling dashboards with metrics on efficiency and performance. However, they often underestimate the most powerful and volatile variable of all: the human factor. The best strategies can be silently sabotaged by a toxic operational culture. Research from MIT Sloan Management Review is revealing: in setting culture, "feeling respected" is an almost 18 times more powerful predictor than any other factor. Excellence, therefore, is not just a technical matter; it is, fundamentally, a cultural matter.

Building from the Center: The Role of Middle Managers