Why is your operations director not delivering results?
In July 2024, we analyzed the situation at a production company near Grudziądz. The owner was furious because his operations director, a man with 9 years of experience, stopped delivering sales and logistics targets. A quick audit showed that the problem was not a lack of competence, but a rusty decision-making mechanism that required 14 signatures for every order over 4,500 PLN.
A rusty decision-making apparatus is a silent killer
Most companies in Poland grow organically, which sounds good, but in practice means chaos. Once, the owner decided everything over lunch, and today he hires an operations director and expects miracles. The problem is that the structure stays the same. At Management Eagle, we see this every week. The director gets a desk and a title, but does not get real power over the wallet. As a result, every important decision still lands on the boss's desk, and the director becomes only an expensive email relay. This is a waste of time that costs an average of 12,800 PLN per month in decision-making downtime alone.
During an audit at one of our 47 active clients, we discovered that the operations director spent 3.2 hours a day approving invoices for fuel and minor repairs. This is absurd. Instead of making sure 83 projects went according to plan, he was playing accountant. This is not a human error; it is a faulty management apparatus. Without a clear cut-off of competencies, the director will always be just a firefighter running with an empty bucket instead of building a fire protection system. We fix the mechanism, not the people – this is our principle, which in this case required shortening the approval path by 60%.
An operations director without power over the budget is just a secretary with a better business card.
The director as a firefighter, not a strategist
Another reason for the lack of results is pushing the director into the daily grind. If your operations director knows which light bulb burned out in warehouse No. 3, it means he is not managing. He is simply doing the warehouseman's job. In a logistics company we examined in Q3 2024, the director personally supervised the loading of each of the 12 delivery cars. He wasted 4 hours a day on this. The result? No time to analyze fuel costs, which jumped by 14% in that quarter. A bird's-eye view of the facts allows you to notice such errors immediately.
Management is not about being everywhere. It's about setting up processes so that departments take care of themselves. When does a director deliver results? When he has time to sit over the hard data and catch where the money is escaping. At Management Eagle, we implement recovery plans that pull the management staff from the production hall to the conference room. Not to drink coffee, but to analyze why 23% of orders have delays of over 2 days. Only after such an audit can the director really influence the company's financial result.
Lack of hard data is management in the dark
We often hear from owners: 'My director says things are tough'. That is not information, that is an opinion. In professional management, we are interested in numbers. If the operations director does not have access to real-time reports, he is guessing. In a production company near Poznań, an audit showed that error reports reached the board with an 11-day delay. During those 11 days, machines were producing defective goods, generating losses of 3,400 PLN per shift. Without unnecessary words: it was a failure of the information system.
Process renovation must start with spreadsheets. The director must know today what happened yesterday at 2:00 pm. Without this, he won't deliver results because he doesn't know where the machine is seizing up. We introduced a simple reporting system there that reduced reaction time to 2.5 hours. The result? A 17% increase in efficiency in just 4 weeks. Hard data, zero guesswork – this is the only way for the operations director to regain control over the result. If you don't give him the tools to measure work, don't blame him for missing the target.
If you don't measure a process, you don't manage it. You just hope that somehow it will be okay.
How to fix the management mechanism in 3 steps
The first step is always a hard audit of roles. We must list what the director is responsible for and what he can actually decide. If these two lists don't overlap, we have a problem. At Management Eagle, we use our proprietary decision mapping method for this. Step two is cutting out unnecessary touchpoints. If the director has to ask for permission to buy a spare part for 300 PLN, the system is sick. We set decision thresholds that free up time. Last year, in a construction company, this shortened invoice processing time from 6 days to 1.5 days.
The third step is implementing operational rhythms. These are not boring meetings, but short, 15-minute fact-based briefings. The operations director must be the leader of these meetings, not their secretary. Thanks to this, the entire structure starts working for one result. At Management Eagle, we don't believe in motivational stories. We believe in a functioning apparatus. After fixing these three elements, the director who previously 'didn't deliver' suddenly becomes the most effective link in the company. Remember: a bird's-eye view of the facts changes everything.
