Weekly operations insight for founder-led companies — practical notes on stabilizing, streamlining, and scaling, from Sarah Wilson.
SubscribeInput 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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