Editor’s Note: This article stands on its own, but the themes connect closely to the principles outlined in the Experience Center Operating Model, where I detail how enterprise operations must be intentionally designed for durability, governance, and scale.
The Rigged Pilot
You Cannot Scale on Temporary Scaffolding
Years ago, I was leading a transformation program that I believed would fundamentally improve how we operated.
The strategy was aligned, the economics were modeled, the early metrics were strong.
We were redesigning a core operational workflow, introducing new technology, tightening performance standards, and reshaping how leaders coached to outcomes. It felt disciplined. It felt intentional. It felt like the kind of modernization enterprise operations requires to remain competitive.
The pilot team was outperforming expectations.
Cycle times were improving. Quality indicators were climbing. Employee engagement was holding steady despite the change.
Executive visibility increased. There was positive momentum in leadership reviews. The narrative was forming: this works.
And I will be candid, I was proud of it.
After more than two decades in operations leadership, you do not celebrate early. You learn to be skeptical of quick wins. But this felt different. It looked like operational rigor meeting strategic direction. It looked like a blueprint for scale.
Then a colleague pulled me aside after a leadership review.
He did not criticize the initiative. He did not question the objective.
He simply said, calmly:
This is a rigged pilot.
There is a specific kind of discomfort that hits when someone names what you have not yet admitted to yourself.
It was not anger. It was not embarrassment.
It was recognition.
Because when I replayed the last three months in my mind, I saw it clearly.
We had assigned our strongest leaders. We had our most adaptable team members in the cohort. We were reviewing performance daily. Exceptions were being handled manually behind the scenes. Other priorities had been quietly deprioritized to protect results.
It was pristine.
It was protected.
It was not reality.
That was the moment I understood something I now repeat often: you cannot scale on temporary scaffolding. A pilot protected by intensity, oversight, and exception handling may stand briefly, but it will not carry enterprise weight.
And what unsettled me most was this: I had not intentionally rigged it.
But I had optimized for success under observation, not survival under normal operating conditions.
That moment changed how I think about transformation.
Because what he exposed was not a flawed idea. It was a fragile operating system.