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How Operations Can Make or Break Your Company

Business operations are everything that keeps a company running effectively.

I have had several experiences in my life as a customer that point to an organization’s great operations.


For example, Chick-fil-A always has great customer service, Amazon has remarkably fast delivery, and a local Houston restaurant, St. Arnold Brewery, has quick return time on food and drinks.


Each of these businesses have systems in place that allow them to serve quality products in an effective and productive manner.


But what happens when a company has poor operations or flawed systems? Dysfunction, low performance, and high stress.


Bad Operations in Action

One of my friends has worked at a job for some time, and during her time there, she shared with me several incredible examples of how operations can make or break an organization.


The first example was with a manager who was a very friendly person, but not very strict at all. Because this manager was not strict, unsupervised employees would disregard most of the facility rules whenever possible.


The manager had not put systems in place to reward mature behaviors and condemn immature ones, which resulted in downstream problems of constant customer displeasure that persisted and grew. It was problematic to say the least.


The next example of poor operations was through the leadership of a director.


This director often hired unqualified staff and refused to fire them when they proved their inadequacies. This led to more operational problems as the organization struggled to serve the customers effectively with unprepared and unskilled staff.


For example, more than once customers left the organization dissatisfied and unserved because the staff had been on their phones during the whole interaction.


But why am I sharing all of this?


To educate you. Operations can make or break an organization.


When leadership does not focus on having well-running operations and effective systems to anticipate problems and implement solutions, everything beneath them suffers


But just as bad operations can negatively affect an organization, good operations can do the opposite.


How Good Operations Can Change the World

In a business that I worked for a while ago, a shift in leadership — and because of that, a change in operations — completely reversed the business’s productivity.


This difference was that the new leader created 3 systems that almost guaranteed effective operations:

  1. Holding people accountable to the workplace identity of serving to the best of our abilities at ALL TIMES.

  2. Teaching us to communicate clearly with customers to eliminate miscommunications.

  3. Demanding quality in staff and employee performance to ensure company efficiency.


These systems are not easy to implement, but they completely changed the workplace environment, staff effectiveness, and customer satisfaction.


It is much easier to create effective operation systems from the get-go than to try to revise broken operation systems, so when leading your business, focus on the three systems above.


By defining identity, communicating clearly, and allowing for quality employees, your operations will flow smoothly and your company will thrive.

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