Leading Organisational Excellence with George Donaldson

About the event

• Date: Thursday 5 November 2026, 10:00am – 3:30pm

• Venue: Manufacturers Network Head Office, 1 Adbaston Road, Trafford Park, Stretford, Manchester M32 0TP

• Format: One-day, face-to-face masterclass

• Price: £495 per delegate+ VAT

  
  

About the masterclass

Most organisations do not have a performance problem. They have an alignment problem.

This practical one-day masterclass is for senior leaders who want to strengthen leadership, align organisational systems and create the conditions for sustainable organisational excellence. It is led by Shingo Prize winner George Donaldson.

Many organisations invest heavily in leadership development, continuous improvement and transformation, yet struggle to sustain momentum. Leaders become consumed by operational demands while the systems that shape behaviour, culture and performance get too little attention. Priorities drift, strategy is diluted and improvement activity fragments.

Drawing on more than forty years of experience, George shares the thinking, models and practical approaches used in high-performing organisations, and why improvement efforts succeed in some organisations and fail in others.

What you'll take away

During the day you will complete three practical diagnostics:

• Leadership Health Check™: evaluate your own leadership effectiveness

• Organisational Excellence Health Check™: assess your organisation's capability

• Excellence Gap Analysis™: compare the two to find your biggest opportunities for improvement and alignment

You'll leave with practical leadership actions to take back to your business.

What the masterclass covers

• The role of leadership in shaping organisational culture and performance

• Creating alignment between purpose, behaviours, systems and strategy

• Building management systems that support accountability and continuous improvement

• Developing capability and engagement across the organisation

• The Manufacturers Network Human Performance Model, drawing on Maslow, McGregor and Herzberg

• Lessons from real operational excellence journeys

The 6P Organisational Excellence Framework™

• People: developing capability and engagement, and empowering people to solve problems

• Partners: collaborative relationships with suppliers, customers and stakeholders

• Purpose: clarity of direction and a meaningful "True North" that guides decisions

• Plan: translating priorities into execution through Hoshin Kanri and strategy deployment

• Process: leadership visibility, systems thinking and how work is actually done

• Performance: leading and lagging measures that reinforce the right behaviours

Who should attend

• CEOs, Managing Directors and Executive Directors

• Senior leadership teams

• Operations, Manufacturing, Plant and Site Directors

• General Managers and Heads of Operations, Production and Engineering

• Continuous Improvement and Operational Excellence Leaders

• HR and People Directors supporting transformation

• Business owners preparing for future growth

About George Donaldson

George is an internationally recognised leader in organisational excellence, leadership and business transformation, with more than forty years' experience.

• Led the Newsprinters team that became the first UK organisation to receive the Shingo Prize for Operational Excellence, alongside the Global Operational Excellence Prize and the British Excellence Award for Lean Manufacturing

• Voted by the Lean Management Journal one of Europe's three most inspirational individuals in Lean Manufacturing

• Inducted into the Shingo Academy

• Co-founder of Manufacturers Network and creator of the Manufacturers Network Organisational Excellence System™ and 6P Framework™

After the masterclass

Our 6P Organisational Excellence Assessment and Shingo Benchmarking Assessment apply the same thinking to your own site. For your CI leaders, see the Advanced CI Leadership Programme.

By booking you agree to our booking terms.