The Beauty of Operations

Systems Have Souls

Do Systems have Souls? This question has interested me for a long time. An organisation is a system,  whether a profit maximising corporate, a religious sect, a government department, the military or an NGO. And hence the question arises whether the organisation has a soul. Have you worked in an organisation? Did you feel its soul? Perhaps there are too many soulless organisations out there which are nothing more than mind-numbing zombies. But that does not rule out that some organisations do have a soul. It feels alive. What makes them a living system? How to convert a zombie into a soulful organisation?  

I have studied organisations from the perspective of operations management. People think operations management is a dry subject. And very few are excited by the prospect of working in factories with greasy machines, smoky environments, harsh lights, pounding machines and pungent smells. Workplaces, whether sweaty factory floors, pharmaceutical clean rooms, the heated atmosphere of the kitchen of a bustling restaurant during peak service hours, or the air-conditioned conference rooms of corporate offices, are functional in nature, a far cry from aesthetics inherent in any art form. Yet, I have been fortunate to have been able to see the Beauty of Operations. And my life has been dedicated to bringing that beauty into the classroom and making others see that beauty.