Blog: How Operational Strategy Fuels Flourishing Businesses
How Operational Strategy Fuels Flourishing Businesses
Blog Article
This post is part of a two-piece companion to our podcast episode featuring Mark Beebe of Enterprise Stewardship.
👉 Prefer the podcast? [Listen to the full episode here]
👉 Prefer the blog article? [Read the in-depth article here]
👉 Prefer a Q&A format? [Read the full conversation here]
Why Strategy Must Go Beyond Profit
In the world of business, operational efficiency is usually synonymous with cutting costs, streamlining processes, scaling faster, etc. But what if that’s only one-third of the equation?
Mark Beebe, COO of Enterprise Stewardship, offers a paradigm shift. In episode 1 of OpsOwners, Mark explained how true operational excellence isn’t just about improving systems—it’s about cultivating flourishing organizations with lasting economic, social, and spiritual impact. Enterprise Stewardship's unique approach, rooted in values and long-term thinking, is helping Christian business leaders build sustainable, high-integrity operations.
Enterprise Stewardship works with full leadership teams—especially in Christian-led, privately held businesses—to implement systems that drive lasting value. But as Mark emphasizes, “We focus just as much on culture as we do on systems.”
In this post, we unpack the four core pillars that underpin their framework: Purpose, Strategy, Operations, and Execution. We’ll explore the practical steps your team can take to move from functional to flourishing.
Purpose: Defining Why the Business Exists
Understanding Purpose Beyond the Bottom Line
Purpose is more than a mission statement. It answers the foundational question: Why do we exist as a business? At Enterprise Stewardship, this purpose includes three forms of capital—economic, social, and spiritual. While economic goals are the norm, few businesses intentionally measure social or spiritual return on investment.
According to a Harvard Business Review study, companies that are driven by a strong sense of purpose outperform the market by 5–7% per year, grow faster, and have more engaged employees.
Mark warns of the common trap: focusing only on profit can lead to exploitation. “If all you have is economic impact, then you’re probably exploiting people. If you add social impact, you’re being respectful. Add spiritual impact, and you’re a blessing.”
Embedding A Long-Term Vision Into Purpose
One of Enterprise Stewardship’s most radical ideas is to think not just in fiscal quarters, but in generations. They encourage clients to envision impact 50, 100, even 200 years from now. This “generational lens” affects everything from succession planning to hiring.
This concept aligns with the business trend of long-term capitalism. A McKinsey & Company study found that firms that adopt long-term strategies create 47% more revenue and 36% more profit on average over a ten-year period.
Strategy: Who Are You Serving and How?
Clarifying the "Who"
Strategy is defined by clarity—specifically, clarity on who you are serving. At Enterprise Stewardship, strategy is not just a growth plan; it’s a service question. Who is your business designed to bless? Without clear audience targeting, even the best operations will fall flat.
This mirrors the principles of strategic operations management: aligning every internal process with the needs of your core customer. As Michael Porter puts it,
“Companies remain trapped in an outdated, narrow approach to value creation. Focused on optimizing short-term financial performance, they overlook the greatest unmet needs in the market as well as broader influences on their long-term success."
— Michael E. Porter & Mark R. Kramer
The Power of the Four Disciplines
Specifically, Enterprise Stewardship’s model is built on four key disciplines:
Purpose – Why do we exist?
Strategy – Who are we serving?
Operations – How are we serving them?
Execution – What is our impact?
This comprehensive structure forms the foundation for any scalable operations strategy. Whether you’re refining product-market fit or evaluating a service pivot, your strategy discipline determines if your operations will actually deliver value.
Operations: Pursuing Excellence, Not Just Efficiency
Redefining Operational Excellence
Operational excellence isn’t just Lean Six Sigma or Kanban boards. At Enterprise Stewardship, operational excellence is driven by three virtues:
Expertise – Become great at what you do.
Innovation – Consistently seek better ways.
Discipline – Stay focused despite distractions.
These virtues align with lean operations frameworks but with added cultural weight. As Mark points out, discipline is hard—and often the biggest leadership gap. “Self-leadership is harder than leading others,” he notes. “The whirlwind of daily tasks is real, but so is the need for intentionality.”
Breaking Down Operational Systems
To implement process optimization, Enterprise Stewardship identifies five critical success factors:
Navigation
Culture
Customers
Product
Cash Management
From there, they help businesses define roles, responsibilities, and expectations across the organization. Surprisingly, even executive teams often lack clarity in these areas, leading to misalignment and inefficiency.
By running a "red, yellow, green" self-assessment every 90 days, teams can track progress and course-correct. These assessments feed into Objectives and Key Results (OKRs), enabling consistent alignment across teams. It's a lean but scalable operations model that prioritizes clarity and accountability.
Execution: Measuring Impact Across Three Capitals
From Quarterly Goals to Eternal Impact
Once your systems are in place, the next challenge is execution. Enterprise Stewardship uses 90-day sprint cycles to track objectives, assess progress, and re-prioritize based on strategic goals. This approach allows for agility while maintaining long-term alignment.
But what makes their execution model unique is the evaluation of three forms of capital:
Economic – Revenue, profit, sustainability
Social – Community building, ethical impact
Spiritual – Alignment with values and purpose
This is in stark contrast to many business operations strategies that focus exclusively on financial KPIs.
Transparency and Accountability
Execution relies on weekly meetings to review progress and eliminate surprises. This regular cadence prevents “shiny object syndrome” and supports focus. It also highlights areas where performance is lagging—helping determine whether it's a skill or will issue.
“When we review objectives,” Mark explains, “if someone didn’t complete them, we ask: was it a focus issue, a capability issue, or was the goal misaligned?” This insight-driven iteration makes execution not only effective but sustainable.
Building Businesses That Truly Flourish
Operational efficiency is vital. But without a deeper purpose, strategy that serves others, and a culture of excellence, even the most optimized processes fall short. Enterprise Stewardship’s framework offers a powerful model for business leaders seeking scalable operations that also deliver long-term, meaningful impact.
It’s a vision of operational excellence that transcends quarterly results—a commitment to building businesses that bless their people, their communities, and the generations to come.
As the marketplace continues to evolve rapidly, only those organizations that align their operational strategies with enduring values will thrive. Whether you're a COO, founder, or director of operations, this is your call to shift from merely functional to fully flourishing.
