Transformations are planned on the formal organization: structures, reporting lines, roles. They succeed or fail in the informal one.
Most transformation plans start with a new structure. Boxes move, reporting lines change, roles are redefined. That work is necessary. But the organization that has to carry the change is only partly the one on the chart.
Two organizations at once
Every company runs on two organizations. The official one has structure, processes and decision rights. The unofficial one has networks, trust, habits and influence: who people actually go to, whose opinion settles a question, which rules are followed and which are quietly worked around. Change management frameworks give the two equal weight. Transformation programs rarely do.
When a plan addresses only the formal organization, the informal one keeps working the old way. The new structure is in place, behavior hasn't changed, and leadership wonders why.
What an organization says, and what it does
A related gap lies between espoused culture, what an organization says it values, and enacted culture, how people actually behave according to values nobody states. The distinction goes back to Edgar Schein, and it is one of the most practical tools a leadership team can use.
A design organization I worked with during a reorganization had often stated its commitment to transparency. Survey results told a more mixed story: teams behaved differently from one another, following unspoken norms. Mapping those "pockets" of culture across teams, and naming the gap openly, gave the leadership team a shared vocabulary for the change. Weeks later, we were still using it to describe which behaviors to encourage and which realities to accept.
We planned everything and did nothing
Earlier in my career, I led design in a change to how we worked across an entire range of construction machines. The scope was so broad that it overwhelmed the team. The plan was ambitious and thorough, and shallow where it mattered. Looking back, we planned everything and did nothing.
What was missing was an early, tangible win. John Kotter's well-known model of change makes the point directly: short-term wins build momentum and credibility, and failing an early goal does real damage. In our case, design was well placed to deliver one. During the brief period when the platform work was still open to new ideas, we could have produced a concept that the functional managers could see and own. Whether or not it ever reached production, it would have given the change something to stand on.
A caution on flattening
Many reorganizations now aim to remove management layers. Done well, that puts decisions closer to the work. Done badly, with "team leaders" who have no authority and heads with too many direct reports to lead fairly, it can increase central control instead of reducing it. A flat chart says little about how power works in practice.
What to do differently
Map both organizations. Alongside the new structure, map the networks, the influential people and the informal routes the work actually takes.
Name the gap between stated and actual culture. Use evidence such as surveys and observed behavior, not slogans.
Describe the end state with the people who will live in it, along with the steps to get there, including hands-on trials before full roll-out.
Deliver something tangible early. One visible result does more for belief in the change than a complete plan.
Test any flattening against how decisions will really be made, not only against the chart.
Structure is the part of a transformation that is easiest to draw and easiest to announce. It is rarely the part that decides the outcome.
Atlantiska Byrån works with leadership teams on transformation, organizational design and leading change in industrial and mobility companies. If you're planning or rescuing a transformation, I'm glad to talk it through.