Designing a Corporate Function Operating Model

Many organisations have updated their revenue-generating business units’ operating models to a value-stream or product-based model, increasing the flow of customer value and creating better business outcomes. However, updating the operating model of supporting corporate functions can also unlock significant value. Designing a corporate function operating model requires careful consideration and the work often differs significantly from designing the operating model of revenue-generating business units. 

This article shares how we have approached this. We will refer to two different types of business units: 

1. Revenue-generating Business Units – a business unit that creates products or services that generate revenue.
2. Corporate functions – business units that support revenue-generating business units, such as People and Culture, Marketing, Procurement, Corporate Affairs and External Communication, Finance and Commercial, Risk, Assurance, Legal and Compliance, and Sustainability.

Why are organisations focusing on corporate functions?

CEOs are looking to obtain better value from their corporate functions. According to Gartner, more value from corporate functions is one of the top three concerns of CEOs, jumping 63% among survey respondents.

There are three key reasons for this:

1. There has been less investment in corporate functions. Many revenue-generating parts of organisations have invested to move to more end-to-end, value-stream-type operating models. The benefits they are enjoying are faster delivery, increased customer value flow, and better business outcomes.
2. Corporate functions are not keeping up. Now that they are fast and lean, the revenue-generating business units have the same high service expectations for the corporate functions that support them. Yet, these corporate functions are working with operating models that have become outdated. The result is the creation of “shadow functions” within the revenue-generating business units as they seek greater control and faster results that are better aligned with their needs. While this short-term fix might solve their immediate issue, it does so at considerable cost to the organisation, creating inconsistency and waste. Ultimately, this can lead to confusion, politics, and organisational fragmentation.
3. Pressure to improve organisational cost and efficiency. With less stable environments and more intense competition in many markets, there’s a mounting emphasis on performance results. At the time of writing, 75% of our customers have a cost reduction agenda. In addition, corporate profit margins are at their highest since the 1950’s, meaning there is little “headroom” for increasing revenue. One of the only places left to find profit is cost. These pressures are forcing corporate functions to:
   1. Boost operational excellence further, usually while reducing costs
   2. Consolidate and centralise duplicate roles and design engagement approaches that allow for speed and independence.
   3. Improve Governance, Planning & Prioritisation to continually ensure the most valuable work for the business is the focus and being delivered continuously.

In their attempt to achieve this, many corporate functions have flipped back and forth between centralised and decentralised models, often the result of incoming new leadership or on the advice of a consulting firm. Over time, they’ve become bloated, expensive, slow, and confused. In reaction to this, revenue-generating business units are left with little other option than to “opt-out” by creating shadow functions. 

Finally, patchwork fixes are frequently applied to solve specific problems without the proper buy-in and change management or a greater understanding of the organisational context. As a result, over time there is diminished clarity and coherence of how everything works together, low ownership to maintain and champion the change, and often an unintended increase in complexity. 

Through our work with executives and business leaders, we see recognition of the above, with increased focus on ensuring that corporate functions are set up to support organisational growth better. As a result, leaders are investing in increasing delivery speed within corporate functions.

 

Challenges

Corporate functions are often in a constant battle to balance their strategic priorities while also meeting the needs of the revenue-generating business units they serve. Tensions arise when these become imbalanced.

• If it is more weighted towards the enterprise’s strategic priorities, the BUs feel that the corporate functions are adding more work and slowing them down, and in some cases, they prefer to work in isolation.
• If it is more weighted towards the needs of the business units, there is a lack of strategic coordination.

Knowing how to enable the right balance is essential but hard. The struggle to find this balance lies in three key pain points:

1. Authority and decision rights – Is the ownership and decision-making authority with the revenue-generating business unit or the corporate function? 
2. Value definition and prioritisation—In a world where there’s always more work to be done than time or resources, it’s easy to misalign what work is valuable (and what isn’t) and whether/when/how the work is resourced. What is our definition of value?
3. Expectations on services – Without intentional conversations and alignment, there is often a mismatch of what is expected from the revenue-generating business units (demand) and what is provided by the corporate function (supply) in terms of speed of delivery, level of expertise or contextual understanding, quality of work, level of ownership, type of engagement, etc.

A reconfigured corporate function operating model is a holistic and systemic way to solve these challenges. 

What is an Operating Model?

Simply put, an operating model helps teams and individuals turn strategy into results.

It is a framework that operationalises strategic plans by translating and managing the big-picture thinking into coordinated day-to-day actions needed to achieve tangible outcomes. An organisation’s operating model defines how their capabilities are managed to achieve their strategic goals, and the success of an organisation depends on the interconnectedness of five core elements.

1. Governance:  the framework used to plan and prioritise the work. It’s a critical process to align day-to-day work priorities with the organisational strategy so people can deliver results. It’s composed of a regular cadence of activities and events that breaks down the organisational strategy into long term objectives, then shorter term goals with tangible outcomes, then incremental plans on how to deliver. 
2. Ways of Working: the practices, processes, methodologies, and behaviours that guide how work is planned, executed, and managed. It provides clarity and consistency to how people collaborate, communicate, and execute their tasks to achieve organisational goals. 
3. Future Capabilities: these are the skills, processes, technologies, and structures that an organisation needs to develop or enhance in order to achieve its strategic goals and remain competitive in a changing environment. In an operating model, future capabilities act as enablers that allow an organisation to meet future challenges, seize new opportunities, and adapt to evolving market demands. 
4. Leadership & Culture: the behaviours, values, and practices set and demonstrated by leaders and embraced by the organisation. Together, they define the tone, environment, and mindset that drive how work gets done and how employees experience the organisation.
5. Structure: in the context of an operating model, organisational structure refers to the framework that defines how tasks are divided, coordinated, and supervised within an organisation. It outlines how people and responsibilities are organised to achieve the organisation’s strategic objectives and deliver its value proposition. 

Structure brings all the elements together, and because it is also the most visible and tangible part of the operating model, it’s often easier to start with that, then integrate the other elements. However, Ways of Working are highly interconnected with Structure, so these must be front of mind during the design process. 

Start with Strategy & Principles

An operating model starts with the strategy so this needs to be right before moving into design, and Radically often helps clients relook at their strategy as a first step. With a corporate function, because its core purpose is to enable the Business Units to achieve the organisational strategy, a highly differentiated or clearly expressed strategy doesn’t need to be a prerequisite. Instead, it can be helpful to articulate clear shifts they want to target. Below is an example.

 

The Radically Teaming Model

Conventional hierarchical structures make it challenging to visualise how teams and their roles align with how they engage with their internal consumers. Often, our roles are made more complex and slow due to a lack of clarity on decision rights.
The Radically Teaming Model ensures consistency in how we discuss team structures and whether they enable or hinder our ability to get work done. By introducing distinct team and interaction types, we create clarity and focus on the organisational structures.

 

 

What is a Teaming Model?

Teaming models refer to organisations’ frameworks or structures to form, manage, and optimise teams to achieve specific goals. ​These models provide guidelines on:​

• How teams should be composed
• How they should operate​
• How they should be supported to maximise their effectiveness.

Different teaming models are suited to different types of work and organisational needs. Teaming models help organisations maximise efficiency through:

• Improved resource utilisation​
  • Optimisation of skills allocation by aligning the right skills and expertise with the right tasks​
  • Flexibility to respond quickly to changes in workload or priorities
• Removing duplication​
  • Elimination of duplicate roles and tasks​
  • Standardised processes with clear ownership of implementation and maintenance ​
• Faster decision-making​
  • Clear roles and responsibilities, both within the function and between the function and its consumers​
  • Decision-making authority where the work happens​
• Increased ownership and accountability​
  • Clear ownership of tasks based on how functions engage with and support their customers​
  • Ability to build feedback loops and monitor performance

 

Why use the Radically Teaming Model?

There are three key reasons why you should use a teaming model:

1. It provides a common language and toolkit across the organisation, which builds clarity at scale and allows leads to refine and improve the model over time.
2. It streamlines the design process from something that would take 3-6 months to 2-4 weeks. This means significantly reducing the cost and distraction of a longer design process and the ability to benefit from the new operating model sooner.
3. Returns 20-30% efficiency gains by improving clarity on the teams, roles, and how the service is consumed.

Radically Teaming Model Components?

There are two components to the Radically Teaming Model:

1. Team Types: A category of teams for individuals who are homed together based on what work they do, where they sit and who directs their work.
2. Interaction Types: A category of interactions based on level of control by the corporate function.

 

Team Types

For Corporate Functions, the Radically Teaming Model has four different team types.

Interaction Types

The Radically Teaming Model has four interaction types, which define how the four teams above interact.

Designing the Operating Model

We take a co-creation approach to design, leveraging the Radically Teaming Model. We believe you know your business better than anyone, and by collaborating with our highly experienced team of experts, we can co-create a model that works for your specific situation. 

Clarity on the strategy is always the starting point as an operating model brings strategy to life. Given the enabling nature of corporate functions, this can be as simple as defining how it will support the organisational strategy to achieve its goals.

While structure is often the most visible part of the operating model, its harmonisation with governance, ways of working, future capabilities, and leadership and culture determines how well the organisation’s strategy is translated into results. 

Embedding the new operating model requires focus, tenacity, and patience. With guidance, teams will mature as they build a rhythm in the new processes, gain confidence in decision-making, and feel ownership of their work. This will ultimately increase the speed of delivery and build an adaptive culture.

If you are considering an operating model change, discuss partnering with us on your journey.

Contact [email protected]

Why Agile Fails at Scale – And How Strategic Governance Can Fix It

Competency Follows Culture: The Leadership Blind Spot in Transformation

We see this pattern all the time: a large organisation embarks on a major transformation, and the first instinct is to redesign the structure. Boxes and lines shift, new competencies are defined, and frameworks are rolled out. On paper, it looks solid. But on the ground, frustration builds, trust erodes, and the transformation loses steam.

The truth is simple but often overlooked: competency follows culture. Without the right leadership behaviours and cultural environment, competencies don’t take root. Leaders who underestimate this reality risk building models that look right on paper but never take hold in practice.

The Misplaced Focus on Structure

When a CEO or executive team hits “go” on a transformation, structure feels like the most tangible lever. It’s visible, easy to communicate, and quick to draw. The assumption is: if we design the right operating model, the rest will fall into place. But structure alone doesn’t change how people show up to work. It rarely addresses whether people feel safe to challenge decisions, whether they take ownership, or whether unhelpful norms get flushed out.

We’ve seen this play out. At Origin Energy, a new operating model unlocked speed and alignment, but it was leadership’s decision to lean into cultural shifts that made it real. Executives deliberately modelled cross-team collaboration and ownership. That behaviour set the tone, ensuring the redesign translated into faster delivery, stronger engagement, and renewed trust.

Origin’s story reflects a wider pattern we see across clients: structure is necessary, but never sufficient. Radically’s operating model framework highlights five interconnected elements: governance, ways of working, future capabilities, leadership and culture, and structure itself. Focusing on structure without addressing leadership and culture is like rehearsing the script but never coaching the cast.

Leaders as Cultural Architects

Here’s the crux: transformation lives or dies by how leaders behave. They are the cultural architects. Every meeting, every decision, every reaction to failure either reinforces or undermines the desired culture.

Competency is downstream of culture. When leaders role model openness, curiosity, and accountability, those behaviours cascade into teams. When they default to control, defensiveness, or ambiguity, no amount of training will embed the competencies written in the playbook.

During the Mercury–Trustpower integration, success hinged less on the mechanics of merging two businesses and more on leaders embodying the new culture. A large-scale leadership uplift program gave executives the skills and presence to be visible role models. Their consistency reduced ambiguity and built trust at a time when uncertainty could easily have fractured the organisation.

In our experience, the leaders who make the biggest difference are not just decision-makers, but also translators. They help their teams make sense of what’s happening, reduce ambiguity, and connect the change to something meaningful. That clarity and consistency are what build the foundation for growth capability.

As one client put it: “You can’t automate clarity. You have to earn it: in how you lead, how you engage, and how you listen.”

Transformation as an Invitation, Not a Destination

Another common trap is treating transformation as if it has a finish line. “Once the new structure is live, we’re done.” But transformation isn’t a program to deliver. It’s an invitation to lead differently, to embed new habits and mindsets that endure. And just like fitness or any other personal change, this takes sustained effort. That’s where Radically Sustain comes in: a service designed to help leaders and teams build the discipline, rhythm, and reinforcement needed to keep new behaviours alive long after the program ends.

That shift in perspective is critical. Real change sticks when it feels like growth, not an exam. People adopt new ways of working when leaders consistently embody them, not when they’re broadcast from a stage.

We often say: resonance beats rollout. You can roll out processes at speed, but unless people see, feel, and believe the change, adoption won’t last. Leaders create resonance through stories, presence, and consistency; not just metrics.

What Leaders Should Take Away

1. Stop over-engineering competencies. Skills won’t stick if the cultural soil is barren.
2. Invest in leadership behaviours. Presence, role modelling, and psychological safety matter more than polished frameworks.
3. Treat transformation as ongoing. It’s not a project to finish but a muscle to keep strengthening.
4. Anchor culture in your operating model. Don’t treat it as the soft stuff to get to later. It’s the hardest, most valuable lever you have.

Final Word

If you’re pouring energy into structure and competency frameworks while underplaying culture and leadership, you’re building on sand.

The transformations that last are those where leaders consistently demonstrate clarity, conviction, and connection.

Because in the end, transformation isn’t about structure. It’s about people seeing leaders walk the talk – and choosing to follow.

If your transformation feels heavy on structure but light on culture, it may be time to rebalance. Let’s talk about how to anchor leadership and culture at the centre of your operating model.

Please feel free to connect with me via my email [email protected] or connect with me via LinkedIn.

Beyond Transformation: What Lasting Change Takes

Quick take:

• Lasting transformation isn’t about delivering a change program – it is about shifting how people think, feel, and work.
• The actual missing piece isn’t just about technology or governance. It is the human mindset and its profound impact on sustained change.
• To create change that sticks, leaders must show up with clarity, consistency, and connection.

Transformation Isn’t the Destination

When people talk about transformation, there’s often a hidden assumption: that it ends. That there’s a finish line. But in our recent webinar Beyond Transformation: The Missing Piece for Sustainable Change That Lasts, hosted alongside with our guest speaker, Elise Keen, Program Manager at Origin Energy, the central idea was this:

“Transformation isn’t the destination. It’s the invitation.”

It is an invitation to lead differently. To engage differently. To think differently about what change really means in your organisation. This is why it’s crucial to understand the nuances of why so many change efforts lose momentum – even when they tick all the boxes on paper.

Spoiler: it’s not the tools or frameworks that are missing. It’s resonance. The webinar dives deeper into these common pitfalls, offering actionable strategies to overcome them.

Change That Sticks Starts with People

If I had to sum up real transformation in one line, it would be:

“Real transformation is something you embody, not something you roll out.”

When people are included early – not just informed late – you create ownership. When they get to participate in the design of the change and have a voice, they feel heard. When you connect change to something meaningful, you create momentum. And when you invest in capability up front, you reduce the fear and friction that so often derail change.

Elise nailed it when she said:

“You can’t automate clarity. You have to earn it – in how you lead, how you engage, and how you listen.”

What Gets in the Way (and What to Do About It)

Even with the best intentions, transformation can stall. Three clear patterns came up in our discussion:

1. Leadership and frontline disconnect – When the intent from above doesn’t match the experience on the ground, trust erodes.
2. Engagement without safety – You can’t expect contribution if people don’t feel safe to speak up. For example, if team members are afraid to voice concerns, critical issues remain unaddressed.
3. Under-investment in capability – If people don’t have the skills, support, or space to adapt, they disengage.

The fix? Shift the focus from speed to meaning. From broadcast to co-creation, from surface-level updates to deep capability-building. These shifts are challenging but essential for lasting change, and the webinar explores how to navigate them effectively.

Three Takeaways to Carry Forward

There were three key takeaways from the webinar:

1. Capability must come first. Don’t treat learning as a follow-up. Build it into the fabric of transformation. Change should feel like growth, not an exam. Discover how we unpack this capability-first approach in the full webinar.
2. Stories move people more than stats. Yes, metrics matter – but they won’t win hearts. It’s the human stories, the relevance, and the “why now” that drive action. The webinar shares powerful examples of how storytelling drives buy-in.
3. Resonance beats rollout. Fast is tempting, especially under pressure. But people don’t adopt what they don’t understand. Inclusion creates buy-in, and that takes time and trust. Learn how to foster resonance over rapid deployment in the webinar replay.

A Closer Look: Change in the Utilities Sector

Utilities are a great case study in complex, long-haul transformation. You’ve got legacy infrastructure, high public scrutiny, and essential services that can’t skip a beat.

So, how are leaders in this space making it work?

• They’re designing with the frontline teams. Adoption is faster and more credible when it starts with the people doing the work.
• They’re treating transformation as an ongoing service, not one-off projects. This mindset shift enables deeper investment in support structures.
• They’re focusing on trust as both a condition and an outcome through transparency, storytelling, and consistency.

Another great quote from Elise summed this up well:

“We’re not just modernising systems. We’re stewarding trust in how we operate.”

Final Reflection: Leadership That Lasts

During the webinar, I said:

“People don’t resist change. They resist ambiguity.”

Transformation doesn’t need more noise. It needs leaders who consistently demonstrate clarity, conviction, and consistency. The webinar provides practical insights on how leaders can become effective translators, reducing ambiguity and fostering genuine engagement.

When leaders become translators, not just decision-makers, they help teams make sense of what’s happening and why it matters. And when people see their role in the story, they stay connected emotionally, operationally, and culturally.

What’s Next?

Whether you’re starting a transformation or reigniting one, here’s the thing to remember:

Change that lasts isn’t about delivering a project. It’s about building a culture.

And that takes leadership with presence, purpose, and patience. Because when we lead with intention and keep it human, long-lasting real transformation is possible.

Ready to unlock the missing piece for lasting change in your organisation? Watch the full webinar replay now to gain actionable strategies.

If you’re navigating similar challenges, I’d love to connect and explore how our insights can help. Please feel free to connect with me via my email ([email protected]) or  connect with me via LinkedIn.

Leaders often wonder why their employees seem disengaged and cynical about new initiatives. We hear the same phrases again and again: “We’re tired of change.” “I don’t see how this change is any different to the others.” “Another restructure? I’ll just wait this one out.”

But here’s the truth: it’s not that employees don’t care. It’s that organisations often make it hard for them to care. At Radically, we believe the intersection of high performance and humanity is where real transformation happens. If you want people to lean in, contribute, and bring their best, you need to create the conditions that make caring possible.

Here are three of the biggest reasons employees switch off, and what you can do differently.

1. Stop exhausting your people with shallow change

Change fatigue isn’t caused by change itself; it’s caused by poor change. Too often, organisations roll out initiative after initiative without giving people the chance to truly understand why it matters. Even worse, they move on before the change has had time to show value.

Employees end up feeling like passengers, not participants. The result? Exhaustion, mistrust, and a slow drift into disengagement.

The fix: slow down to speed up. Involve your people early in the journey. Explain the “why” behind the change. And most importantly, stick with it long enough for the change to embed.

Too often, we see organisations pull focus and funding the moment a change is “delivered,” racing off to the next shiny thing. But designing a new operating model or introducing new ways of working is only the beginning. Change only becomes transformation when it’s embedded; that’s when culture and performance endure.

2. Show them the bigger picture

Most employees want to do meaningful work, but many struggle to see how their daily tasks connect to the bigger picture. When strategy feels abstract or disconnected, people understandably disengage.

When employees understand how their work ladders up to strategy, motivation unlocks. Suddenly, they’re not just ticking boxes; they’re part of something larger and more purposeful.

The fix: Make strategy visible and tangible. Use storytelling to connect people to purpose. Start with a simple, human story, then layer in the data. Reinforce it with practices like Quarterly Planning and OKRs, which create transparency, clarity, and shared purpose.

And while events like QPD (Quarterly Planning Day) can feel like a big investment, the return is real. They create a surge of energy; a pulse of productivity that reconnects people to the work, to each other, and to the strategy itself.

3. Give them ownership of the journey

Employees won’t care if they feel like spectators on the sidelines. Autonomy is a powerful driver of engagement, yet it’s often undermined by heavy approval processes and top-down control.

When people have a genuine voice in shaping the work, their sense of ownership skyrockets. They care because it’s their journey too.

The fix: Build teams with real end-to-end ownership. Strip back unnecessary approvals and trust people with meaningful decisions. Autonomy flows from ownership, but only when people have the right context. Give teams the guardrails they need to make smart calls. The result is more flow, speed, and genuine engagement.

The bottom line

Your employees do care deeply. But if they seem disengaged, it’s a signal that something in the environment is getting in the way.

Stop exhausting them with shallow change. Help them see the bigger picture. Give them real ownership of the journey.

Do these three things, and you’ll unlock the kind of care that powers lasting transformation.

Further reading

• Help people see the bigger picture: Service: Enterprise Planning
• OKRs

Next step: see what people-powered change looks like in action

If this blog resonated – if you’re ready to stop exhausting your people with shallow change and start building a culture where ownership, purpose, and performance thrive – then don’t miss this.

On 17th November in Auckland, join Holly Ransom, CEO of Emergent Global, at the AdaptiveNZ Conference for her keynote:

“The Mattering Effect: People-Powered Change That Sticks.”

Holly will share a modern blueprint for transformation rooted in behavioural science and real-world impact. Her Three Pillars of High-Precision Change will help you:

• Energise through ownership
• Accelerate through trust
• Empower through recognition

This is more than a talk – it’s a wake-up call for leaders who want to activate the one resource most organisations overlook: people who believe they matter.

Secure your spot at AdaptiveNZ and be part of the movement to lead with purpose, build adaptive organisations, and shape what’s next.

Register now here.

If you’re navigating similar challenges, I’d love to connect and explore how our insights can help. Please feel free to connect with me via my email or connect with me via LinkedIn.

 

Image source: Johnny Cohen – Unsplash

How to improve psychological safety

I’ve recently been asked by a few of our clients on how to improve psychological safety. One of the most insightful things on this topic is to realise that psychological safety is often not a binary question. There are many factors influencing psychological safety, however the first step is to understand the different levels of psychological safety, so that as leaders we can create experiments to provide intervention to foster more safety for our people and teams.

Understanding the Levels of Psychological Safety

Psychological safety isn’t a one-size-fits-all concept. It actually comes in different levels, and understanding them is key to creating a truly supportive workplace. Let’s explore these levels:

 

Level 1: Basic Safety

This is the starting point. At this level, team members feel safe enough to do their job without fearing punishment or humiliation. They know they won’t be reprimanded for making honest mistakes. It’s like a safety net that catches you when you slip.

Practical Tip: Encourage open dialogue about challenges and share your own mistakes to set the tone.

 

Level 2: Sharing Ideas

Moving up the ladder, this level is about people feeling comfortable sharing their ideas without feeling judged or dismissed. They’re willing to put their thoughts out there, even if they’re unconventional or untested. It’s like opening the door to innovation.

Practical Tip: Praise and acknowledge creative thinking, even if an idea doesn’t pan out.

 

Level 3: Taking Risks

At this level, your team members feel confident enough to take calculated risks without worrying about blame. They’re not afraid to venture into uncharted territory, knowing they have your support. It’s like the fuel for growth.

Practical Tip: Encourage calculated risk-taking and celebrate lessons learned, not just successes.

 

Level 4: Honest Feedback

At the highest level, your team feels free to give and receive honest feedback. They trust that their input will be used constructively, not as a weapon. This is where you see constant improvement and genuine collaboration.

Practical Tip: Foster a culture of feedback, and lead by example by actively seeking and welcoming input.

 

The Big Takeaway

In a nutshell, psychological safety isn’t just a yes-or-no thing; it’s a spectrum. The higher you can climb on this ladder, the more your workplace will thrive. So, take these simple steps, start adding more psychological safety in your workplace. Want to improve psychological safety for your workplace? Join us on our 1 day workshop on Psychological safety here.