Weekly operations insight for founder-led companies — practical notes on stabilizing, streamlining, and scaling, from Sarah Wilson.
SubscribeA soft July retail headline hid categories moving in opposite directions, and why the buy decision belongs at the category level rather than the top-line number.
Read issue →The price increase you approved in the spring only reaches your P&L if operations carries it all the way to the invoice — here's how to check in an afternoon.
Read issue →The quarterly numbers came back green while two of your best people quit — the single bottom line most operations run on hides the cracks until they've already broken something.
Read issue →Lululemon's second guidance cut of the year got blamed on soft leggings, but the real story is the operational mechanics underneath — and the one person carrying more of your forecast than any system you've bought.
Read issue →Succession planning sits on every operator's list and almost nobody's calendar — because the naming exercise we were taught no longer fits a flatter business.
Read issue →Input costs just hit a 14-month high, and if your close takes three or four weeks the margin shift won't reach you until it's too late to do anything about it.
Read issue →A leadership assessment ranked me near the top for driving change and in the bottom 2% for being comfortable with it — and that discomfort is exactly why the rollouts work.
Read issue →Only about 11% of companies have AI actually changing how work gets done — the difference is they redesign the process before automating it.
Read issue →The automation quotes are on your desk and a retirement party is on the calendar — why capturing your best people's knowledge before they leave decides whether the robots actually work.
Read issue →Your team isn't reactive because they're busy — they're reactive because the operation is built that way. What it takes to move from fighting the same fires to fixing why they keep starting.
Read issue →A held decision is still a decision, and a season of deferral is a large bet that nothing changes. Split open calls into reversible ones to decide now and irreversible ones that get a decide-by date.
Read issue →Plenty of people are looking for work, yet your spring role is still open. It's a skills gap, not a headcount one — the case for build, buy, borrow.
Read issue →Every approval started as a good idea, then became “sludge.” Pick the one process your team complains about most and strip out a step that no longer earns its place.
Read issue →Somewhere along the way, the update stopped being a window into the work and became the work itself. How to tell when meetings and status decks have become the job.
Read issue →July 1 is the real midpoint of the year and a more honest checkpoint than January ever was. Three questions for a lightweight mid-year review.
Read issue →Every team hits target, the report is green, and a customer still calls about a late, wrong order. The watermelon metric, and what to put on the scorecard instead.
Read issue →40% of stressed leaders are eyeing the exit — but the bigger risk is the ones who stay and check out. Why retention is an execution issue for operations.
Read issue →54% of manufacturers doubt their frontline leaders can lead through AI adoption. Closing that gap is a capability problem, not a communications one.
Read issue →Stand up a heavy PMO and it gets dissolved in two years. The case for “PMO Light” that teaches the business to execute rather than running projects for it.
Read issue →Safety scores come back green, then your best person quits. Stop asking whether people feel safe to speak up — watch two behaviors instead.
Read issue →Software gets you the last 40%, not the first. Why cleaning up the process before buying the tool is what actually delivers the gains.
Read issue →Your team isn't making the calls you would because the thinking behind your standards was never transferred. How to tell a communication gap from a training gap.
Read issue →Accountability isn't a culture problem — it's a design problem. Why clearer systems, not more workshops, close the follow-through gap.
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