208 50 TOPEXECUTIVECOACHES
work of the logistics division, I want the organization and its leaders to think
about order fulfillment, which crosses all those boundaries and many others.
In other words, I want leaders to look at their businesses in two new ways:
first, that operational innovations can be a new and valuable source ofstrate-
gic advantage; and second, that doing work differently does not require addi-
tional structural forms but rather an end-to-end orientation. Since most
executives are not accustomed to these kinds of ideas, coaching in this area
involves a fair amount of mental stretching.
There’s nothing glamorous about the work I do. Deals are exciting. Hostile
takeovers are dramatic. When an insurance company develops a new and prof-
itable way of processing claims, however, or a manufacturer transforms its dis-
tribution process, it’s not going to make headlines in the Wall Street Journal.
Ye t such operational innovation is the stuff of real strategic advantage.
I don’t presume to offer advice on the particulars of a business situation.
The executive knows his or her business much better than I do. He or she has
talents that I don’t, and it would be absurd to think that they need to hold my
hand to do their job. My role is to help them get a new perspective on busi-
ness that will help them create competitive advantage.
When I do this work, I am never doing it alone. I am not a guru who
preaches from the mountaintop. Instead, I work collaboratively with man-
agers inside the organization who already have this point of view and are try-
ing to get their leaders to have it as well. As a rule, people who are not at the
top of the organization often understand these ideas better than those who
are higher up. They’re closer to the problems. They haven’t been acculturated
away from it. They have to deal with the consequences of traditional ways of
doing things.
To ge t h e r , w e make a multipronged effort to establish the operational and
process innovation perspective in the minds of the leadership. My job is to
articulate and communicate the ideas in ways that senior executives can ab-
sorb. There’s a teaching element to that, and there’s also a questioning ele-
ment. I sit with them and listen. They have a lot of questions they need to
ask as they grapple with the implications. What might this mean? How will it
affect what we currently do? What is it, in fact, that we do now? The ques-
tions are all part of the struggle each person goes through in trying to inter-
nalize the conceptual shift. My job is to help them in that internal debate so
that they can emerge with a new theory for how their organization can ex-
tract value from its operational and process strategy. If there’s no struggle,
there’s no progress.
At the same time, my colleagues within the organization are collecting
performance information that substantiates the concepts I am teaching to