From Engineering to Operational Excellence: Hazel Lord on Closing the Say–Do Gap

In an exclusive interview with Black Business Magazine, Hazel Lord, Founder and CEO of Pearl Operational Design, shares how she helps organizations move beyond reactive solutions and build intentional systems that support long-term growth. With more than 30 years of experience in operational design, process improvement, and organizational transformation, Hazel discusses the importance of aligning strategy, people, and processes to create lasting business impact.

Interview By SK Uddin

Hazel Lord is an executive management professional with a passion for everything system, process, design, data, and improvement. Her speciality is analyzing, designing, and planning for change that transforms cross-functional processes and operation ecosystems to align with the organizational culture, and strategic goals.

In 2014, she started her own consulting practice in which she brings more than 30 years of success in helping organizations achieve operational excellence. With design principles rooted in respect, discipline, commitment and a continuous search for perfection, she brings an expansive breadth of experience in many industries.

As a perpetual learner, Hazel seeks out opportunities to learn and apply different approaches to problem solving at the intersection of customer experience and operational excellence. She is always excited to bring people on this “education” journey. One of her major objectives is to improve the skills and knowledge of her clients so they can be efficient and effective in achieving their business goals.

A strong believer in community partnership, Hazel was a volunteer maths and english tutor at Tropicana Community Services for 7 years, was a board member of the Ontario Alliance of Black School Educators and a STEAM instructor for the Jean Augustine Centre for young women’s empowerment.

Rounding out Hazel’s expertise and credentials: She holds an honours degree in chemical engineering from Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, a master’s in business administration from the Rotman School of Management at University on Toronto and is a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt from the University of Michigan. For four years she lectured on quality management to second year MBA students at the Rotman School of Management at University of Toronto.

You’ve spent more than 30 years designing systems and processes across sectors, and in 2014 you founded Pearl Operational Design as a boutique consultancy. What first convinced you that you needed your own firm to help organizations “design their operations on purpose” rather than just fix problems as they appear?

I made that decision when I was completing my MBA at Rotman and working full-time. My workplace was going through frequent leadership changes, and each one brought a change in organizational structure.

Why were they restructuring so often? Why were they not giving any structure time to reach the execution level before changing it again?

I went back to my training as a chemical engineer, designing and scaling systems. Something in the system was blocking strategy, what an organization says it wants to do, from translating into desired outcomes.

So, I started studying it to satisfy my own curiosity. What I found was that organizations evolve constantly, with little intentionality behind how their design keeps pace. It was not a problem with structure, skills gap, or technology. Structure shifts reactively, driven by whoever is leading, rather than being designed deliberately in service of strategic execution.

That was the moment I knew where my firm needed to play. We were going to help organizations design their operations on purpose, instead of drifting and reshaping by accident.

Pearl Operational Design focuses on co‑creating processes, systems, and culture transformations—especially in community healthcare—to increase revenue and reduce waste. In simple terms, what does it look like when an organization truly “short‑circuits the say–do gap” between what leaders promise and what customers experience?

Organizations often come to us with what they believe is the problem, such as needing project management or a new process, but that is rarely the real issue. Our first job is to identify the underlying system preventing the organization from consistently delivering on its promised value. Stephen Megitt at EY described this as helping organizations “short-circuit the say-do gap,” and I think that is exactly what we do.

The biggest impact is felt by both leaders and frontline staff. In many organizations, leaders are deeply embedded in day-to-day operations, creating bottlenecks that slow decisions and contribute to their burnout. By redesigning systems and clarifying accountability, we build the organization’s capacity and lift the leader out of the day-to-day operations.

Frontline staff also benefit because they spend less time navigating inefficient processes and more time serving clients. They can clearly see how their work contributes to the organization’s strategy, which strengthens engagement and ownership.

When people trust the systems around them, work moves faster, service improves, and clients experience the difference. Over time, organizations build credibility because they consistently do what they say they will do. One client was given more funding because they demonstrated they could reliably deliver on their commitments, creating greater confidence among their funders.

You often describe entrepreneurship as a journey of self‑understanding rather than something that can be fully taught. How has knowing your own strengths and gaps shaped the way you’ve built PoD’s team, chosen clients, and navigated growth as a Black woman founder in Canada—now recognized as Black Entrepreneur of the Year and part of EY’s Entrepreneurs Access Network?

Entrepreneurship has taught me that self-awareness is one of the most important leadership skills. Building a business has required me to understand not only my strengths, but also my blind spots. That self-awareness has shaped every major decision I have made at PoD.

It starts with culture. Our culture reflects our collective beliefs, so we intentionally hire people whose values align with ours. Collaboration is one of our core values, which means a “sink or swim” mentality simply does not belong at PoD. We want people who are willing to learn, support one another, and hold themselves accountable for living our values every day.

Knowing my own strengths and gaps has also influenced how I have built the team. As a founder, you are expected to wear every hat, but sustainable growth comes from recognizing where others are stronger. Building trust and surrounding myself with people whose expertise complements my own has allowed PoD to grow without compromising who we are.

The same principle guides the clients and partners we choose. Especially as a Black woman founder, I have learned that growth should never come at the expense of your values. Success is not only about winning work, it is about building an organization where the lived experience of our team consistently reflects our values.

With an engineering degree, an MBA, and a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, you’ve blended technical rigor with customer‑centric thinking, even lecturing on quality management at Rotman. How do system and critical thinking help founders and leaders move beyond “Band‑Aid fixes” to build operations that can actually scale?

One of the biggest misconceptions I see is that growth solves problems. We have found that it does not. It amplifies them. If operations are inefficient today, adding more customers, people, or funding simply makes those inefficiencies more expensive.

That is where systems and critical thinking become so important. Systems thinking helps leaders move beyond treating symptoms to understanding how people, processes, technology, governance, and culture interact, and how well feedback informs decision making. Critical thinking challenges us to ask better questions before jumping to solutions. Too often, we see organizations implement Band-Aid (mostly technology) fixes because they are responding to what is urgent (or heard at the latest conference) rather than understanding the root of the problem.

At Pearl Operational Design, we start with the “why” before the “how.” We help leaders identify the constraints in their system, the few things that, if addressed, will have the greatest impact across the organization. Sometimes the issue is not a lack of resources; it is unclear decision-making, competing priorities, or processes that have not evolved with the organization.

Scalable organizations are not built by adding more workarounds. They are built by designing systems that can consistently deliver results as the organization grows. When leaders understand how their organization functions as an interconnected system, they make better decisions, their teams spend less time fighting fires, and they create the capacity to innovate instead of simply keeping up.

For mission‑driven organizations—especially in healthcare and community sectors—that feel stuck in inefficient processes and misaligned cultures, what is one practical first step you’d recommend they take to begin redesigning their operations without overwhelming their teams?

There is not a single first step that works for every organization because every system is different. But there is one question I encourage every leader to ask before launching another initiative: What is your system telling you?

In healthcare and community organizations, the immediate assumption is often that there is not enough funding. While funding pressures are very real, I have found that organizations are often surprised by what they discover when they examine how their existing resources are being used. Looking at spending patterns, particularly toward the end of the fiscal year, can reveal opportunities to invest in stronger systems instead of repeatedly funding workarounds.

The goal is not to spend more; it is to spend more intentionally. Before redesigning processes, understand where time, money, and effort are being lost. Those inefficiencies create hidden costs that contribute to staff frustration, burnout, and inconsistent client experiences.

Once leaders understand where the greatest constraints exist, they can prioritize one meaningful improvement instead of launching multiple competing initiatives. That approach builds momentum without overwhelming teams.

Operational excellence is not about asking people to work harder. It is about creating systems that allow people to do their best work with the resources they already have while positioning the organization to grow sustainably.

Or they can call Pearl Operational Design to help!

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this interview are those of the guest and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Black Business Magazine or its affiliates. The magazine is committed to supporting Black entrepreneurs and fostering conversations that promote inclusion and economic empowerment.