The Great Internal Rebuild: Why Operating Models Are Breaking Faster Than Strategies Can Adapt

There’s a quiet conversation happening inside strategy circles right now. Not the loud, headline-grabbing kind. More like the “closed-door, off-the-record, we-need-to-talk-about-this” kind.

It goes something like this:

“Our strategy isn’t the problem.Our operating model just can’t keep up.”

Over the past few months, we’ve spoken to dozens of strategy leaders across industries; banks, telcos, energy, airlines, tech, government. And the same theme keeps surfacing:

Strategic intent is holding. Operating models are breaking.

Not because people are doing anything wrong. But because the foundation strategy rests on governance, decision rights, workflows, accountability, data, talent, and it's being stressed faster than organisations can adapt.

This is the great internal rebuild. It’s not glamorous. But it’s becoming the defining strategy challenge of the next 3–5 years.

1. The world is shifting faster than operating models were built for

“We’re covering more surface area than ever, with the same organisational wiring we had ten years ago.”

A few examples:

• AI is compressing cycles of change into months, not years

• Customer expectations are updating faster than annual planning can track

• Regulation is shifting in real-time (privacy, AI use, sustainability)

• Talent models are fragmenting; contractors, automation, hybrid teams

• Data is abundant, but decision rights haven’t caught up
  

Strategies are evolving. But the machinery underneath, how decisions flow, how work moves, how accountability is owned, isn’t evolving at the same pace. It’s like upgrading the software without touching the hardware. Eventually, something burns out.

2. Most organisations are still operating on a “2014 model”

Here’s the pattern we keep hearing:

• Annual plans built for stability

• Quarterly business reviews that arrive too late

• Initiative-based execution with fuzzy ownership

• Legacy governance that slows down emerging bets

• Siloed accountability where every problem is “someone else’s lane”

But the reality is:

You can’t run 2025 strategy on 2014 operating rhythms. The mismatch creates what one CSO called:

“The execution fog.” Everyone is working hard… but no one can quite articulate what’s actually moving.

3. The real issue isn’t strategy, it’s internal capacity for adaptation

This is important. Very few companies have a strategy problem. What they have is a capacity problem, not enough bandwidth, clarity, or structural support to absorb constant change.

A few symptoms you may recognise:

• Decisions piling up at the same choke points

• Leaders overloaded as “human routers”

• Teams waiting on clarity that arrives weeks too late

• Multiple versions of the truth, none of them trusted

• Priorities multiplying faster than capacity to deliver them
  

Every strategy leader knows this feeling: The strategy is right. But the organisation isn’t ready to live it.

4. The rebuild starts internally, not with more planning

The best example we’ve seen came from a strategy head in financial services:

They didn’t start with a new strategy. They started with rebuilding their operating cadence:

• Monthly portfolio reviews

• Weekly 30-minute signal checks

• Clear decision rights for AI initiatives

• De-layered governance for anything under $2m

• Talent reallocation reviewed every 60 days

• Working groups built around workflows, not functions

The result?

Cycle time on execution dropped by 40%.Leadership alignment spiked. Budget started moving faster toward what was working. And their new strategy, which had been stalled for months, finally took flight. They didn’t rewrite the plan, but rebuilt the wiring.

5. Three questions every strategy leader should sit with

If you want a simple way to diagnose whether your operating model is falling behind your strategy, ask:

• Where does work slow down — and why?

It’s rarely capability.It’s usually decision rights, sequencing, or misaligned incentives.

• Does strategy show up in the weekly rhythm — or only at QBRs?

If strategy goes quiet for 89 days then reappears in a slide deck…that’s not strategy.That’s reporting.

• What would break first if your organisation had to move 2× faster?

Every exec knows the answer instantly.That’s your rebuild starting point.

• What the next generation CSO looks like

A growing number of CSOs are shifting from:

“Strategy = the plan” to “Strategy = upgrading how the organisation adapts.”

The role is stretching into:

• Operating model design

• Portfolio governance

• Resource allocation

• AI integration

• Leadership cohesion

• Organisational tempo
  

It’s less “chief strategist.” More “chief architect of adaptability.”

And it’s becoming the most consequential role in the C-suite.

Final thought

When we ask strategy leaders what keeps them up at night, they rarely say:

“We don’t know what the strategy should be.”

They say:

“We know the direction.We need the organisation to move with it.”

This is the real work now. Not crafting better decks. But building organisations capable of adapting at the speed the world demands.

The great internal rebuild isn’t a project.It’s the new job.

And the leaders who lean into it early…will be the ones still standing when the next wave of disruption hits.