COE Summit 2025

The COE Summit is the cornerstone of the Center for Operational Excellence’s annual events calendar—a premier gathering where operational excellence thinkers and practitioners come together for three days of learning and connection. It’s a highlight not only for the COE team, but for our broader community of member companies, lean-focused organizations, and continuous improvement professionals. The 2025 theme—OpEx and the power of people—struck a powerful chord. This theme emerged from conversations with leaders seeking to understand the challenges and opportunities that come with leading and working with people in a rapidly changing world.

The Center for Operational Excellence recently hosted the 12th Annual COE Summit. This year’s conference focused on the power of people and the critical connection between strong teams and strong performance. Through four engaging keynotes, 20 breakout sessions, and exclusive opportunities for hands-on learning, the COE Summit equipped participants with tools and tactics for connecting, collaborating, and reach their full potential with OpEx. In this blog, Joe Boroi—a COE Summit participant and IBM technology leader—reflects on his experience and learnings.

The best leaders are always right, right? Wrong.  I know you know the type… they must have the last word in the conversation, they consistently assert rather than inquire, they “just know.” They “may not always be right, but they are never wrong.”

This project focuses on revolutionizing hospital operations by transitioning from traditional push systems to innovative pull systems that ensure seamless, continuous patient flow from the Emergency Department to admission and discharge. The initiative targeted bottlenecks caused by batching decisions and tasks in clinical settings, which often create "idle time" for patients and constrain hospital capacity.

In today’s business world, successful organizations understand the critical connection between people and performance. Strong processes start with strong cultures and teams. It’s time to unlock the power of the people. 

The challenges that face us today require a different form of leadership. One that is more adaptable to the changing environment and circumstances. When leaders engage in this form of leadership, they will find that they can achieve their results in less time and sustain the efforts for longer. This concept comes from the research of Ronald Heifetz on adaptive leadership.

Why do some OpEx programs implode, collapse, lose steam, or head off in unintended directions with unpredictable consequences? And why does this happen despite the best, herculean efforts of the OpEx professional to keep the organization marching in the right direction? We can point the finger to a key ingredient in the OpEx mix: when an organization’s PEOPLE and CULTURE are not aligned with the organization’s strategy, direction, and pursuits, then success, if achieved, will occur purely by CHANCE. And that approach is simply not good enough.