4 Digital Improvement Leadership Lessons from Daniel Esendal, Lufthansa Aviation Training Group

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Daniel Esendal, Senior Director Collaboration and Process Evolution at Lufthansa Aviation Training Group, outlined how his company is using process mining to navigate volatility including pandemics, economic shocks, weather and supply chain disruptions.

When you listen to Esendal's take on continual process improvement it's evident that there are takeaways to consider well beyond the airline industry. After all, we're all facing volatile business conditions and need to adapt as quickly as airlines do daily.

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Simply put, we're all airlines now. With that backdrop in mind, it's worth examining a few core process leadership lessons from Esendal.

1. Learn from other industries. Esendal in a series of interviews with Celonis Media, argued that companies across multiple industries need to talk about data management, continual improvement, process mining and predictive analytics. Some of this cross-industry collaboration revolves around sharing best practices, but a lot of it is working together to enable better data-driven decision making. To get there, requires a bit of evangelism.

Esendal said:

"After talking with a lot of companies about process mining, we need to transfer the idea that it's not only about dashboarding and descriptive information, but better decisions and execution. We need to talk about a new style of making decisions of working together and of helping each other with fact-based information."

2. Make Process Mining a daily routine. Process mining needs to become an organic part of daily operations at enterprises. Process mining usage needs to become as routine as opening an email, said Esendal, who added that process mining should just be "a part of your daily routines."

He said:

"It's part of how you work. It is just normal to have predictive information. It's just normal to have small automation bots helping you. And then you can put your energy as a human being on the big system and the big picture instead of being stuck too much in details."

3. Learn from volatility. Airlines often have to retool and reinvent processes, said Esendal. Today, airlines are restarting operations after the COVID-19 pandemic amid inflation, weather disruptions and spikes in demand. "What I observe is that other industries have been quite stable in the past, but are also becoming more volatile," said Esendal. Companies new to volatile conditions must learn from other industries and become more digital and agile to follow the data, he added.