Aug 4, 2026 · 10 min · 6 segments
Host Christy Frazier, with Melissa Dunn and Jon Harrison, discuss the next two expectations: championing operational excellence and making sound decisions. Jon argues organizations must balance a…
Jon HarrisonHost
Kristi FrazierHost
Melissa DunnHost
Okay, and these fall still under the V or the values, right? So the first one, the last one we talked about was champion values.
You might say champion operational excellence, why is that under values? 'Cause that sounds like numbers, not behavior.
Well, my feeling was a very common core value in a company is commitment, and from the s- company level to the employee level.
When you interview at a job and they say, "We're gonna pay you this much money, and we're gonna pay your medical benefits, and we need you to do X," that's tied to some kind of numbers.
And so to me, operational excellence has to be, uh, high up on the list, so to speak.
And I will say, if you're a decision-maker listening to this, if you're an HR person or a CEO, vice president, manager, whatever, I, I understand this.
I think a lot of organizations shy away from training from, with a, an outside group 'cause they don't talk about numbers.
They talk a lot about behavior, and let's have fun at work, and let's respect people.
So I think leaders, uh, need to be a champion again or an ambassador of operational excellence.
So that's where that one came from, and that ties to staff and hourly too because you're getting paid.
There is an expectation in return for that pay that you're going to get us some numbers too.
Could be a little restaurant, could be a store at the mall, it could be a major company like Sears.
Operational excellence is, uh, usually broken into a three or four categories, employee satisfaction, safety, quality, timeliness, delivery, something like that, and then profit or some kind of, or some kind of financial measure.
The go-to normally is, is overall employee satisfaction, but I think there's a piece to problem-solving and being able to work with people in a capacity that brings about resolve that is often skipped sometimes.
So if you can talk about that just a little bit from the perspective of, like, long-term solution thinking versus short-term solution and people who help to work, keep the peace, so to speak, is similar to values, but there's an overlap in that in de- in how people interact with each other.
Okay, and these fall still under the V or the values, right? So the first one, the last one we talked about was champion values.
You might say champion operational excellence, why is that under values? 'Cause that sounds like numbers, not behavior.
Well, my feeling was a very common core value in a company is commitment, and from the s- company level to the employee level.
When you interview at a job and they say, "We're gonna pay you this much money, and we're gonna pay your medical benefits, and we need you to do X," that's tied to some kind of numbers.
And so to me, operational excellence has to be, uh, high up on the list, so to speak.
And I will say, if you're a decision-maker listening to this, if you're an HR person or a CEO, vice president, manager, whatever, I, I understand this.
I think a lot of organizations shy away from training from, with a, an outside group 'cause they don't talk about numbers.
They talk a lot about behavior, and let's have fun at work, and let's respect people.
So I think leaders, uh, need to be a champion again or an ambassador of operational excellence.
So that's where that one came from, and that ties to staff and hourly too because you're getting paid.
There is an expectation in return for that pay that you're going to get us some numbers too.
Could be a little restaurant, could be a store at the mall, it could be a major company like Sears.
Operational excellence is, uh, usually broken into a three or four categories, employee satisfaction, safety, quality, timeliness, delivery, something like that, and then profit or some kind of, or some kind of financial measure.
The go-to normally is, is overall employee satisfaction, but I think there's a piece to problem-solving and being able to work with people in a capacity that brings about resolve that is often skipped sometimes.
So if you can talk about that just a little bit from the perspective of, like, long-term solution thinking versus short-term solution and people who help to work, keep the peace, so to speak, is similar to values, but there's an overlap in that in de- in how people interact with each other.
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