> 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〜](https://www.servicenow.com/community/japan-blog/column-%E3%82%AA%E3%83%9A%E3%83%AC%E3%83%BC%E3%83%86%E3%82%A3%E3%83%B3%E3%82%B0%E3%83%A2%E3%83%87%E3%83%AB%E5%86%8D%E8%80%83-%E6%88%A6%E7%95%A5%E3%81%A8%E7%B5%84%E7%B9%94%E9%81%8B%E5%96%B6%E3%82%92%E5%88%86%E6%96%AD%E3%81%97%E3%81%AA%E3%81%84-%E7%B5%8C%E5%96%B6%E6%A7%8B%E9%80%A0-%E3%81%A8%E3%81%97%E3%81%A6%E3%81%AE%E5%86%8D%E5%AE%9A%E7%BE%A9/ba-p/3477567)

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## **Introduction：Strategy Changes, but Management Must Never Stop**

In an environment defined by rapid technological shifts, AI adoption, and persistent uncertainty, corporate strategies are revised with increasing frequency. Yet management itself cannot be paused. While strategy may evolve, decision-making, execution, and accountability must continue without interruption.

This reality raises a fundamental leadership question:
**What must be deliberately fixed as an enduring management structure, and what should remain intentionally adaptable?**

This article does not propose a new framework, methodology, or architectural blueprint. Instead, it reconsiders the Operating Model (OM) as the structural condition that allows management itself to keep running—regardless of how often strategy changes.

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## **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.

That interpretation is insufficient.

In this article, the Operating Model is defined as follows:

> **A management structure that ensures decision-making, execution, and learning continue as a unified cycle—designed to remain intact even as strategies, organizations, and technologies change.**

**Figure: The Operating Model as a Continuous Management System**

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.

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## Why Reconsideration Is Necessary

Enterprise management always operates under two simultaneous, non-negotiable realities:

* Strategies will change in response to environment, competition, and leadership decisions.
* Management operations cannot stop, reset, or be rebuilt each time strategy changes.

When these realities are treated separately, organizations become trapped in perpetual transformation. 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.

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## 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 a practical necessity.

Strategy, organizational design, and technology each evolve on different time horizons and under different constraints. Elevating any one of them as the primary anchor inevitably creates misalignment with the others.

What must sit at the top is the structure that absorbs these changes while preserving continuity in how the enterprise decides, acts, and learns.

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.

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## Closing: From Design to Recognition

Corporate transformation is often discussed in terms of initiatives, platforms, or architectures. These are necessary, but they are not sufficient.

The more fundamental question for leadership is not _what to implement next_, but _what must remain structurally true so that management continues to function under constant change_.

Reconsidering the Operating Model as an enduring management structure is the starting point for advancing strategy—without ever stopping the business.