As an advisor to Fortune 500 companies, here’s a pattern I’ve observed repeatedly across large businesses: They make massive investments in AI tools, and then the same outcome follows within months—employees revert back to their spreadsheets and email chains. The AI licenses sit unused. Executive teams tend to blame “change fatigue” and “technical complexity.”
They’re wrong on both counts.
The real culprit? An operating model built for 2015, trying to run 2025 technology. And they’re not alone. Despite aggressive AI investments, 95 percent of enterprise AI initiatives fail—not because the technology doesn’t work, but because the organizational infrastructure beneath it was never designed for how AI actually changes work.
Let’s talk about operating models
Before we diagnose what’s broken, let’s establish what we’re actually discussing. Your operating model is the blueprint for how work gets done. It encompasses six critical dimensions:
Structure and governance: Who makes decisions, how teams are organized, what approval mechanisms exist, and where authority lives.
Processes and workflows: How work flows across functions, where handoffs occur, what cycle times look like, and how tasks sequence.
People and talent: What skills exist, how roles are defined, where capacity is allocated, and what capabilities matter.
The final deadline for the 2026 Inc. Regionals Awards is Friday, December 12, at 11:59 p.m. PT. Apply now.
Geetha Rajan
Source link