Operations Excellence has become a clich� in business, yet it must be embraced by businesses, or they will be left behind in the dust of their competitors. Strategic models attempt to drive successful implementation through a traditional command and control approach focused only upon the specific techniques required to yield rapid high impact results. This singular piecemeal approach fails to develop and mature into distinctive competencies required for sustainable competitive advantage. Operations Excellence therefore must be an organization transformation evolution in which change leadership roles are a crucial set of characteristics necessary for overall success. The achievement of distinctive competencies is rooted in the developmental maturity of organizational effectiveness and transformative leadership coupled with evolving distinctive competencies within the human value stream. These distinctive competencies are lacking in many previous business attempts, hence the high level of failure. Initiative failure in traditionally managed organizations stems from the fundamental lack of transformative leadership that creates: - shared purpose, vision, mission, and principles, - communicates for awareness and understanding, - sets new behavior, action, and performance result expectations, - leads by example, - holds all individuals accountable, - coaching follows up, and rewards desired behaviors - thereby establishing the new culture. To achieve sustainable competitive advantage is not simply the deployment of techniques of Operations Excellence, but the creation of distinctive competencies within business resources. Distinctive competencies are built upon and deliver outcomes through the organization's human value stream.