Operational excellence - salomons.coach

26 Sep

What Gets Seen, Gets Repeated – Firefighters vs Preventers

Infographic titled 'What gets seen, gets repeated' showing two columns: left red section 'Visible. Immediate. Reactive.' with a red alert siren, a worker on the phone, factory silhouettes, and a '22:00' breakdown; caption 'IS A HERO.' Right green section 'Invisible. Deliberate. Proactive.' with a worker at a laptop displaying a rising graph and icons labeled 'Identify risk', 'Address causes', 'Prevent failure'; caption 'WEEKS EARLIER – PREVENTION' and 'IS ALMOST INVISIBLE.' Bottom banner reads 'Shift recognition. Reward prevention. Build resilient operations.' and shows salomons.coach.

A manager who fixes a breakdown at 22:00 is a hero. The manager whose work prevented it six weeks earlier is almost invisible. Drawing on a coaching case with an Operations Director, this post shows what preventive leaders actually do, why organisations overlook them, and the routines a senior leader needs to put in place so prevention gets seen, rewarded and repeated.

18 Jul

An Obeya Room Is Not a Wall Full of KPIs

Team in a strategy workshop around a wall of charts and sticky notes

An effective Obeya room is more than a collection of dashboards and performance indicators. Discover how clear purpose, management routines, ownership and leadership discipline turn visual management into a system for better decisions and sustained improvement.

26 Jun

The Daily Firefight Hijacks Your Leadership, Not Just Your Calendar

Diagram titled 'The Operational Pull' showing an adult at center (A) with a glowing circle, arrows pointing from A to three top categories: 'Mid & long-term goals', 'Developing people', and 'Managing up'. Text 'ADULT' and 'the stance you choose' under A, and 'the daily firefight pulls your stance down' with a downward arrow toward two circles labeled P (Parent) and C (Child) at the bottom, indicating rescue and control dynamics.

Every leader knows the day that vanishes into ad-hoc fires. The real cost isn't lost hours, it's a hijacked stance. A transactional analysis lens on staying strategic, developing people, and managing up when everything is urgent.

20 Jun

The Reliability Paradox: 5 Habits of Reliable Operations

Promotional banner for 'The Reliability Paradox' featuring a dark blue gradient, bold left-aligned title and an illuminated orbital diagram on the right.

Efficiency makes an operation look strong. Reliability under the unexpected asks for almost the opposite. Karl Weick's five principles of high-reliability organizations — and what they looked like on a real hub floor.

08 Feb

From Firefighting to Learning: The Leadership Shift Operations Need

Firefighting is rational, but it traps organizations. Under pressure, leaders act on what is visible and urgent, fixing problems to keep operations moving. Yet this behavior prevents learning, reinforces firefighting, and consumes leadership capacity. Sustainable performance requires shifting from solving today’s issues to redesigning the system that creates them.

04 Apr

Innovation: Aerodynamic Trucks

By salomons.coach
In Blog, Turning strategy into operational results, Video

Between 2010 and 2013, I worked with TU Delft and PhD researcher Gandert van Raemsdonck on pioneering aerodynamic innovations for TNT’s European Road Network. As head of business, process, fleet, and environmental development, I joined a unique coalition of engineers, researchers, and industry partners exploring how airflow, drag, and turbulence could be reduced to make transport cleaner and more efficient. Our side-wings and rear-flow experiments were ahead of their time, and even featured on RTL Nieuws. It was an early lesson in how powerful innovation becomes when diverse minds join forces to shape the future of logistics.