Why operating models stall after the offsite

An offsite produces a canvas because a canvas is a satisfying object. Boxes, arrows, a photo of the whiteboard. Three weeks later the same queues exist, the same person still expedites orders after 18:00, and the canvas has been filed under “strategy.”

The stall is rarely a lack of intelligence in the room. It is a refusal to change the calendar. If leadership still runs the same standing meetings, the model has no home. We ask cohorts in the Operating Model Canvas Intensive to name the meeting they will cancel. If they cannot, we treat the canvas as unfinished.

A second stall is blended averages. Teams draw “the customer” as one box while invoices show three fulfilment patterns. The picture looks unified. The floor is not. Artefact intake — tickets, changeover logs, partner chargebacks — is the unglamorous fix.

A third stall is initiative overload. The offsite added seven programmes and retired none. An operating model that cannot point to a stop-list is a mood board. Week 5 of our intensive exists to force a single constraint and two cancellations. It is the least photogenic week and the one alumni mention when they write.

If you are about to book another mountainside workshop, bring last month’s delivery calendar instead of a facilitator’s template. The mountain can wait.