The Wall Street Skinny 188. Business Operations 101: The Part of the MBA that Finance Professionals are Sleeping On (Part 1 of 2)
In this episode, we sit down with Don Kieffer, senior lecturer at MIT Sloan School of Management and co-author of There’s Gotta Be a Better Way, to talk about what actually makes companies run well. Don has spent decades helping organizations, from Harley-Davidson factory floors to biotech labs, design better systems that unlock real performance. We break down the five-principle framework he developed with his co-author, Nelson Repenning, an MIT PhD, MIT Sloan professor, and leading expert in operations and systems thinking, for building operational excellence: solving the right problem, structuring for discovery, connecting the human chain, regulating for flow, and visualizing the work.
Through stories that range from front-desk hotel check-ins to a corrugated cardboard plant and even private equity fundraising pipelines, Don shows how tiny operational tweaks can deliver huge impact. We explore why firefighting cultures keep companies stuck in a “capability trap,” why automation without fixing the human system first is a mistake, and why the best private equity playbooks focus on execution, not spreadsheets. For founders, operators, and investors alike, this is a practical, no-fluff conversation about how businesses actually scale.
Before diving into operations, we also touch on recent rumblings in credit markets, continuing our discussion on the failed refinancing of First Brands and the liquidation of TriColor to bank fraud write-offs and how credit default swaps can amplify market stress. It’s a lively, two-part arc: first, the operational playbook; next, how top investors at Private Equity firms think about value creation inside portfolio companies.
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