One of the first things I look at when hired as an operations consultant is whether managers are managing people or processes.  Successful, growing companies spend 80-90% of their “managerial” time managing processes.  Struggling companies spend most of their time managing people.  It really is a leadership paradigm.

The graphic below is one I use to help businesses develop their operational focus.

Many times, when things go wrong, they have lost control of their processes and are now spending a lot of time talking about people.  Process changes and reassignment of people must be planned out from left to right (above).  This means being customer centric.  “How will this action effect my internal and external customers?”  This also requires an intimate knowledge of our processes and why they are structured the way they are.