April 2026:

Does this sound familiar? “People, we are one organization. We need to think and act like one to improve performance.” These words, or something very similar, have been spoken by many CEOs in frustration over their organizations’ inability to get things done. From the CEO’s perspective, they have hired the best leaders, laid out the best strategy, provided all the requested resources, and granted the C-suite full control and autonomy to manage their respective areas without oversight. And yet they are not satisfied with the end results. So why are there still problems?

Decoding the Process Problem: A vast majority, 70-90%, of all strategic change initiatives either fail or are never implemented (Pregmark and Beer 2025).

Improving routine or strategic performance across the entire organization can be difficult if you are not using the right system (see Newsletter #2). The process problem (i.e., poor performance) stems from the barriers, complexity, and friction introduced by three common organizational elements.

1 – Organizational structure: The main problem with the greatest impact on performance is organizational structure (Amaral et al. 2025). Beyond the challenges detailed in newsletter #3, organizational structure introduces at least two additional complications that negatively affect performance.

• Organizational Catch-22. Requirements that are interdependent while also being contradictory create conflict (Amaral et al. 2025). One example is the requirement to separate employees into departments but then having to reunite them via cross-functional teams. A second example is the requirement to create new teams to work on organization-wide outcomes (social responsibility, customer satisfaction, etc.) while not granting them the proper authority to influence those outcomes.

These situations create confusion and frustration that can be prevented only through fundamentally different organizational designs.

• Complex Controls. Any tools or methods to help manage a complex system (such as a catch-22) must be at least as complex as what it is attempting to control (Morgan 2006). Examples include cross-functional teams, matrix structures, servant leadership, team building, process improvement (Kokkelenberg and Miller 2022), constant meetings, frequent negotiations and renegotiations, and detailed roles and responsibilities charts.

Explained more concisely, we end up trying to resolve complexity by adding more complexity. Our current thinking and use of organizational structure represents our tendency to over-define and over-control instead of focusing on creating environments that allow adjustments (Morgan 2006).

2 – Absence of a strong process culture: A process culture exists when employees treat business processes as the primary organizational concern above all else. Creating process cultures is done by using process-based roles, responsibilities, coordination, ownership, communications, measures, and organizational structures (Szelągowski and Berniak-Woźny 2024). Unfortunately, process cultures have yet to fully catch on, likely due to the challenge of overthrowing the existing cultural model of specialization and hierarchy.

Specialization and hierarchy have been “the only accepted models for over 200 years and have not yet been seriously challenged”; nothing has “fundamentally changed the way organizations are designed. What if organizations were designed differently? Maybe it is time to consider a more people-centric organizational structure” (Kokkelenberg and Miller 2022). Process cultures will not take hold until after leaders stop assuming that specialization and hierarchy are their best and only options (see Newsletter #5).

3 – Excessively rigid technologies: There is no question that information and communications technologies are essential to success. However, there is a big difference between technologies that support and advance performance versus those that lock organizations into an overly complex and rigid one-size-fits-all model of operation. Core technologies need to be highly flexible and customizable, requiring that they are built with uncomplicated designs and straightforward data models.

If we want employees to be on the lookout for opportunities to streamline processes, accelerate throughput, and improve the customer experience, we need technologies that allow quick and efficient changes. Unfortunately, most organizations use large, commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) technologies that do not provide their promised benefits and lock users into excessively complex, costly, and drawn-out cycles to support minor changes.

Recommendations: Getting your organization to “think and act like one” for improved performance will require holistic approaches that consider the whole people-process-technology system and all its interdependencies. The following recommendations—presented in the stop-start-continue format (see Newsletter #5)—support this vision and will help you on your journey.

Stop. The most important first step in any change or improvement initiative is to remove, or greatly reduce, any negative influences that will undermine or limit what you are starting.

• Specialization and hierarchy. Structure can’t be predetermined. Patterns must be allowed to emerge; they cannot be imposed (Morgan 2006). Stopping specialization and hierarchy will address the issues introduced in Newsletter #3 and in this article, including:

  • Siloed thinking and action.

  • Process complacency and ownership issues.

  • Difficult and slow decision-making.

  • Miscommunications and organizational silence.

  • Suboptimization and friction with value creation.

  • Complexity (in the system itself and in its controls).

  • Organizational catch-22s.

  • Departmental: KPIs, job descriptions, SOPs, incentives, performance management.

• Absence of strong process cultures. The primary thing to stop is:

  • Denying the importance and value of a process culture and its related innovations.

• Excessively rigid technologies. The primary things to stop are:

  • Assuming the best answer to the build vs. buy question is always to buy.

  • Falling victim to the sunk-cost fallacy regarding previous technology investments.

  • Relying on large COTS technologies as the only or best way to automate.

Stopping these negative influences is a prerequisite to starting the healthier methods below.

Start. The most important thing to remember in the start step is that you are starting an entirely new system of management and organization (see Newsletters #1-5). As such, the following recommendations all support a new way of seeing, thinking, and acting:

• Process orientation (PO). The recommended approach to organizational design is to use process orientation. PO offers a much more simplified, employee-centric structure that aligns with process execution, creates closer and stronger process relationships, and attracts employee attention back to value creation and customers. Done well, PO will improve performance by unifying structure and process execution into a holistic, systems-based model that drives improved operational and customer-facing outcomes. This is an advanced topic and will be explained further in Newsletter #7.

• Strong process cultures. The recommended framework to achieve a strong process culture is to introduce and embrace business process management (BPM). BPM is an entire management philosophy that promotes systems thinking, process cultures, and process orientation. BPM has shown to provide “powerful benefits across all organizational processes, decision-making, competitive advantage, and overall performance” (Szelągowski et al. 2024). It supports the transition toward a more flexible and proactive human-centric model that stresses simplicity, resilience, and adaptability (Szelągowski and Berniak-Woźny 2024).

• Nimble, lightweight technologies. The recommended mindset regarding technology is less is better. Fewer nimble, lightweight systems will go a lot further than most large COTS in achieving the level of simplicity, resilience, and adaptability that is needed today. Flexibility is the key as technology should adapt to the organization, not the other way around. This is an advanced topic and will be explained further in future writings.

Continue. Rounding out the stop-start-continue framework is the final step, carrying forward operational elements that were working well prior to the change initiative. The guidance here is to:

• Reevaluate whether these elements are still contextually relevant and optimized to support the new environment.

• Allow emergent ideas and outcomes from the stop-start processes to inform the continue process.

It is more important to preserve the essence or outcomes of the continue items, as opposed to their literal applications.

The process problem is a multifaceted issue that extends beyond people and technology and into the whole of the organization. Resolving it requires seeing and understanding the interdependencies and influences that support or detract from performance. This is the best way to ensure your organization can think and act like one.

Stay tuned for MORe insights and recommendations.