Japanese version:
【Column】オペレーティングモデル再考 〜戦略と組織運営を分断しない“経営構造”としての再定義〜
Introduction：Strategy Changes, but Management Must Never Stop
In an environment defined by rapid technological shifts, AI adoption, and persistent uncertainty, corporate strategies are being revised at an unprecedented pace. Yet executive management itself cannot be paused. Decision-making authority, execution accountability, and governance mechanisms must continue without interruption—even as strategic direction changes.
In a previous article, "Why ‘Models’ Matter Now", we argued that many organizations continue to rely on implicit culture, experience, and informal norms to sustain management operations. While effective in the past, these implicit assumptions increasingly limit decision speed, execution reliability, and organizational scalability.
This raises the next and more fundamental question: what, exactly, should be modeled? This article addresses that question by reframing the Operating Model not as a mechanism for executing a specific strategy, but as the explicit translation of how management itself makes decisions, executes actions, and learns under conditions of continuous change.
What the Operating Model Truly Represents
The Operating Model is widely referenced in consulting and enterprise architecture, yet its meaning is often diluted. It is frequently treated as a description of how a specific strategy is executed.
Such an interpretation remains incomplete.
In this article, the Operating Model is defined as follows:
An operating model is a management structure that enables an organization to achieve what it intends to accomplish, by continuously cycling decision-making, execution, and learning—on the assumption that strategy can and will change.
Figure: The Operating Model as a Continuous Management System
The term “structure” here does not refer to organizational charts, process maps, or system diagrams. It refers to the translation of management assumptions that were previously implicit—embedded in culture, experience, and informal practices—into an explicit, repeatable form.
Decision-making authority, execution mechanisms, governance, and technology are not independent components. They must operate as an integrated system that allows management itself to continue running. In this sense, the Operating Model is not a mechanism for executing strategy; it is the explicit articulation of how management works when strategy is expected to change.
The term “structure” does not refer to organizational charts, process maps, or system diagrams. It refers to the underlying conditions that prevent the management cycle from breaking.
Authority, execution mechanisms, governance, and technology are not independent components. They must function together as a continuous management system. When this structure weakens, strategy does not fail because of poor intent—it fails because management itself loses continuity.
Why Reconsideration Is Necessary
Enterprise management always operates under two simultaneous realities:
- Strategic direction may change in response to environment, competition, and executive decisions.
- Decision authority, execution accountability, and governance cannot be paused or rebuilt every time strategy changes.
The problem arises when these two realities are disconnected. In many organizations, changes in strategy have historically been absorbed through implicit assumptions, informal coordination, and cultural norms. While this approach functioned under slower rates of change, it now manifests as delayed decision-making, weakened execution, and organizational fatigue. The need to reconsider the Operating Model does not stem from the frequency of strategic change itself, but from the limits of management systems that continue to rely on implicit cultural translation.
Strategy is repeatedly revised, but execution weakens and organizational fatigue accumulates.
The Operating Model must therefore internalize strategic change as a normal condition of management—not as an exception. Its purpose is not optimization for a single strategy, but continuity across many.
This is best understood as dynamic equilibrium: a state in which decision-making, execution, and learning remain connected even as direction shifts.
At a minimum, this requires continuous enterprise-level decision-making, closed feedback loops from execution to leadership, and organizational learning that enables adjustment without disruption.
Why the Operating Model Must Sit at the Top
Positioning the Operating Model at the apex of the enterprise is not a theoretical preference—it is an operational necessity.If strategy is placed at the top, every strategic shift destabilizes decision rights and governance assumptions. If organizational structure is placed at the top, structural stability becomes the objective and strategic change is diluted. If technology is placed at the top, management decisions become constrained by tools rather than intent.What must sit at the top, therefore, is not what the enterprise pursues or how it is built, but how management itself continues to function under change. That structure is the Operating Model.
That structure is the Operating Model.
It is not a layer beneath strategy. It is the condition that allows strategy to change without breaking the enterprise.
Closing: From Design to Recognition
Choosing not to define an Operating Model is not a neutral decision. It is a decision to continue relying on culture and implicit understanding to sustain management operations. In periods of gradual change, this reliance may be sufficient. Under conditions of continuous change, however, it transfers decision speed and execution reliability to organizational maturity rather than managerial intent.
Defining the Operating Model as a management structure is not an additional transformation effort. It is the prerequisite for translating implicit assumptions into explicit, repeatable conditions that allow management to continue functioning. The question facing leadership is not which initiative to launch next, but whether management will remain embedded in culture—or be deliberately assumed as structure.
