Lululemon cut guidance twice this year. The leggings weren't the problem.

Lululemon cut guidance for the second time this year on September 3. The stock fell 20% that day.

Leadership pointed to soft leggings and women's tops. That's the symptom. What's the real story?

I've been inside a public company when the numbers weren't where they were supposed to be.

Asked to execute something related to the fix.

It's usually short-term. And most often, a quick, and sometimes painful, deviation from the normal way the business is run.

I get it, the business is accountable to shareholders.

What many don't realize, however, is how operationally complex it is.

Living between your front line and the last minute strategy pivot is an operations team who is ready to apologize for the pain they are about to cause.

The strategy itself is rarely the problem. It's the mechanics. An ERP that captures 5% of what actually runs on the floor. A BI dashboard nobody trusts enough to forecast from. A stack of SaaS tools bought one problem at a time, none of them talking to each other. And underneath all of it, the one person who can explain why the numbers move the way they do, because they've been there long enough to know.

That person is carrying more of your forecast than any system you've bought.

You don't need Lululemon's problem to have this problem. You need one process that only makes sense because someone who's been there for years can explain it. Most operations have 3 or 4 of these running in the background right now.

This week, find one. Ask the person who owns it to walk you through it. Learn one piece you didn't know. Then thank them.

That's not a small gesture. That's how the knowledge in one person's head starts becoming part of your business.

Reply and tell me which process you picked. I read every one.

Thanks for reading,

Sarah