From “Get It Done” to “Built to Last”

Transformation must begin with choice, not chance. When leaders treat improvement as a series of reactions—tacking people onto invites, issuing blunt directives, and hoping connections form organically—they leave alignment, ownership, and impact to luck. A deliberate approach designs the outcomes first, then builds every meeting, metric, and routine to support those outcomes.

A real client example of ad hoc behavior

The leadership team needed to align on what had to happen across planning, production, maintenance, quality, and warehouse to reduce downtime and delivery variability. Instead of redesigning the meeting to produce clear inputs and outputs, the leader simply added those functions to an existing invite for an ineffective planning meeting. When pointed out his operators and supervisors needed Leader Standard Work (LSW), he told them to “build it” without specifying what LSW should accomplish, how it would be coached, or how it would link to the Management Operating System, business outcomes and metrics. No intentional mapping of decisions to meetings, no integration of LSW into daily routines, and no deliberate thought about how leading measurements would drive production and feed back into learning and adjustment.

The result was meetings that checked boxes but didn’t change behavior, LSW that existed in name only, and metrics that told a confusing story because they were not connected to agreed actions.

Why thoughtful design beats reaction

·       Clarity of purpose produces aligned behaviour. When everyone understands the meeting’s decision rights, expected inputs, and expected outputs, discussions become focused on decisions, not status updates.

·       Intentional design creates accountability. If LSW is specified with expected outcomes and coaching checkpoints, it becomes a tool for capability building, not another task on a to‑do list.

·       Integration prevents waste. Meetings, LSW, and metrics must be deliberately tied together so data drives actions and actions change outcomes.

·       Starting with the end in mind reduces rework. Define the desired business end-state first, then plan the smallest set of deliberate steps that will get you there.

What a deliberate approach looks like — practical steps

1. Define the outcome

·          Decide the end state: e.g., reduce unplanned downtime by 30% within six months and improve on‑time shipments by 15%.

·          Specify behavior changes: what people must start, stop, or do differently to achieve that outcome.

2. Map decision forums to decisions and inputs

·          Design each meeting by listing the decisions it must produce, the inputs required, who owns those inputs, and the outputs that trigger subsequent actions.

·          Replace “invite more people” with “rebuild the agenda” so every attendee has a clear role and deliverable.

3. Connect Leader Standard Work to outcomes

·       Define LSW with explicit behaviors, frequency, coaching triggers, and expected observations tied to the target metrics.

·       Build coaching moments and escalation rules into the LSW so it becomes a mechanism for continuous improvement.

4. Align metrics to decisions and routines

·       Choose a small set of leading indicators that directly inform the decisions in each meeting and drive LSW focus.

·       Ensure everyone knows which metric movements require immediate action versus those for trend analysis.

·       Ensure the set of leading indicators have a clear line of site to the important lagging indicators.

5. Create deliberate steps and a short feedback loop

·       Put in the PDCA cycle:   review outcomes in the designed meetings, and update actions and LSW based on evidence. Celebrate the wins and identify the losses with clear actions

·       Capture learning as a part of the agenda, not as an afterthought.  Have a Meeting effectiveness and MOS Maturity conversation at the end of each cycle.

·       Build daily reflection into the LSW for all leaders to think what can be done differently each day to be more effective.

6. Communicate and enforce the new design

·       Communicate the why, who, what, and when for the new cadence.

·       Use simple visual tools (one-page decision maps, LSW cards, metric dashboards) so habits form quickly.

·       Build a culture of constructive intolerance for non-standard behaviour.

Reaction versus thought — how the scenario would have differed

Reaction:  Adds maintenance, quality, and warehouse to a meeting; attendees circulate status updates; no one leaves with a clear decision or action owner.

Thought: Redesigns the meeting agenda to produce a single set of decisions (root-cause prioritization, resource allocations, and improvement owners); submits required inputs 48 hours in advance; uses a 10‑minute decision window; assigns follow‑up actions with deadlines.

Reaction: Tells people to “get LSW” with no examples or coaching plan.

Thought: Defines three LSW behaviours tied to the targeted metrics, delivers a workshop, assigns coaching pairs, and reviews LSW adoption weekly in the aligned meeting.

Reaction: Metrics are collected but not used.

Thought: The team selects 2–3 leading indicators that feed the decision list; a short visual dashboard highlights exceptions that trigger immediate actions.

Transformation is not a roll of the dice. It’s a series of intentional, aligned choices that convert ideas into sustained behaviour. The difference between a leader who reacts and one who thinks is not charisma or budget—it’s discipline in design. Redo the agenda, connect the routines, define the LSW, and choose metrics that force decisions. Do that, and the next time you add someone to an invite, they’ll come prepared to a meeting that changes something worth changing.