【Column】Why ‘Models’ Matter Now 〜Translating ‘Tacit Culture’ into ‘Executive Decision Models’〜

[mineko]

Japanese version:
【Column】なぜ、今「モデル」が必要なのか　〜「暗黙の文化」を「経営のモデル」へと翻訳する〜

This column does not focus on specific products or methodologies. Instead, it focuses on the structural design of decision‑making within a management environment that assumes constant change—specifically, the units at which decisions are made and the assumptions that connect those units. It also reconsiders what kind of management model should be adopted to enable local optimization while preserving overall coherence and execution capability.

Comments such as:
“Let’s limit this to a small area for now so we can move faster,”
or
“If we narrow the scope, decision-making should naturally accelerate,”
are common in organizations under pressure to change.

Limiting the target and starting small is reasonable in itself and should not be denied. The problem arises when such initiatives are isolated without defining decision-making units or the range of future variables. Once fragmented in this way, they are rarely reassembled or structurally connected to other domains.

Local optimizations that lack shared design principles and explicit connection rules inevitably reduce the return on management capital—people, assets, capital, and data.
More critically, they undermine the organization’s ability to execute company-wide strategy as a coherent system.

This is not a question of whether individual initiatives are effective. As long as decision-making units and connection rules remain undefined, management operates without a shared frame of reference. This is a structural failure of the management model itself.

1．What is a "model"?

The "model" here does not mean a rigid blueprint that cannot be changed once drawn, nor does it mean a return to a heavy and long overall design that has been overly detailed. A model is a structure of management decision-making that defines which units are responsible for which decisions within an organization or business, and how the underlying assumptions that connect those units are structured. Rather than fixing the management structure as a single, rigid whole, it should be designed as a set of reconfigurable units, enabling both resilience to change and consistency in execution.

This is analogous to the principles of modular design and microservices in software development. In management terms, it is the idea of designing businesses and organizational units as “interchangeable units,” while maintaining overall coherence. Rather than treating everything as a fixed structure, it is essential to decompose it into interchangeable units and ensure overall coherence through clearly defined connection rules.

Models are not “brakes” that slow us down; rather, they are “engines” essential for withstanding change and continuously reconfiguring.

2．What is a "model" in a company

In this column, the model under discussion refers to an Operating Model (OM), which defines the units at which a company makes strategic decisions and the authority structures through which those decisions are executed and operated.

An operating model is the structure that enables an organization to realize its objectives as a sustained operation, while accommodating strategies that may evolve. This includes elements such as decision-making approaches, the allocation of authority, organizational structures, processes, and the use of technology. The key point lies in designing them not as a collection of individual initiatives, but as an interdependent set of underlying assumptions.

An operating model is not a static blueprint. It functions as a reconfigurable management foundation that enables the organization to continue operating without breakdown, even as strategy and the external environment change.

3. The “Implicit Operating Model” That Has Sustained Japanese Companies

In some cases among Japanese companies, even without formalized management or operational models, high quality and discipline have been achieved while maintaining sustained competitiveness. One factor supporting these cases is that historically, organizational management assuming lifetime employment was the norm, which contributed to the formation of a strong corporate culture within a relatively homogeneous workforce.

Employees’ judgments and actions have not been strictly defined by manuals or models, but rather guided by the “common sense” passed down through generations. Priorities in decision-making, the scope of discretion delegated to frontline teams, and judgment criteria—such as “stop here” or “push forward here”—were shared without necessarily being articulated.

This series of judgment criteria and behavioral patterns, though never formally codified, functioned as an implicit operating model known as “corporate culture.” It exemplifies the so-called "tacit understanding". Such a shared premise—mutual comprehension without words—was the very source of execution capability, stability, and competitiveness that once characterized Japanese companies.

4. Crumbling Assumptions and Emerging Management Risks

The modern business environment is quietly yet decisively dismantling these implicit assumptions. Diversified business portfolios, ecosystems with external partners, and talent from diverse backgrounds. The “common sense” based on a single success story is no longer a shared language. When assumptions differ, the ability to “read between the lines” no longer scales. Only decision-making that is explicitly designed—and therefore shareable—can sustain productivity across diverse actors.

Furthermore, current generic digital implementations, including workflows and AI, continue to face challenges in dealing with implicit assumptions as they are unless those assumptions are explicitly defined as structural elements. As a result, such implementations can only work with intentionally decomposed components or with elements governed by clearly defined connection rules.

In organizations without a defined model, investments in such implementations tend to reinforce existing decision-making biases and amplify structural complexity and maintenance costs. This is not a matter of execution capability, but a matter of management structure.

Conclusion：Not “discarding culture,” but “translating it into a model”

Many Japanese companies possess a strong corporate culture as an intangible asset, cultivated through years of success and accumulated practical wisdom. The key is not to reject this culture, but to move from a phase of intuitively maintaining culture to a phase in which it is deliberately designed as part of management and intentionally evolved.

This means translating values and judgment criteria that have historically functioned as tacit understandings into elements that can be deliberately reproduced and designed as part of management. In other words, it involves converting culture and values into structural components—such as decision-making principles and authority allocation—and elevating them into a “model” that can be intentionally operated. Only then can management consciously choose what to preserve, what to renew, and what to expand. Without such a model, these choices are made implicitly—and often inconsistently.

Structuring culture as a model and redefining it in terms of decision-making principles and authority design is a prerequisite for management to actively govern change.

＊The content of this document is based on the author’s personal experience and views and does not represent the official positions, views, or policies of any specific vendor or product.