Trace actual decisions
Reconstruct proposal, review, approval and execution for investment, procurement, maintenance and trading cases. Identify duplicate approvals, informal vetoes and gaps in accountability.
PRACTICE / MANAGEMENT
Organisation, control and decision mechanisms.
Allocate authority along the value chain, balancing central control with local responsiveness.
Methodology: The ZHICE Value-led Operating MethodTHE REAL CHALLENGE
Define the problem first.
Organisational change is often reduced to adding or removing departments and layers. What affects operations more directly is how decisions are formed, professional disagreements resolved and responsibility for outcomes assigned. Excessive centralisation can weaken local responsiveness; delegation without capability and oversight can increase risk. ZHICE designs control models around critical decisions, accommodating both existing operations and new-business exploration. Mature activities emphasise standards and stability; new businesses use staged objectives and validation. Resource allocation and operating reviews keep the two coordinated.
BEYOND THE SYMPTOMSLook beyond symptoms.
Look beyond symptoms.
Understand the business logic.
Organisation and control diagnosis starts with actual decisions. ZHICE selects cases crossing levels and disciplines that affect operations, reconstructing how information formed, professional advice was handled, decisions were actually made and results fed back. Formal rules and actual authority are recorded separately to expose informal vetoes, duplicate approvals and accountability gaps. Business maturity, risk and staff capability then inform which matters to centralise, which to delegate under standards and which need explicit escalation and conflict resolution.
The target operating model connects roles, measures and management rhythms. Each responsibility must have corresponding decision content, information, resources and outcome accountability, preventing expanding responsibility tables from leaving actual decisions unowned. Mature and exploratory businesses can use different goals and resource arrangements while remaining coordinated under common governance. Trial critical decisions first, observing whether delegation is used, specialist checks work and exceptions are resolved; revise policies and staff capabilities from that evidence.
A TOOL FOR THE WORKING SESSION
Turn diagnosis into verifiable questions.
Diagnosing organisation and control through real decisions
Swipe to explore the complete table
| Review focus | Business evidence required | Diagnostic emphasis | Design response |
|---|---|---|---|
| Decision formation | Complete records of proposals, specialist assessments, approvals, execution and outcome feedback. | Who actually decides, whether information is sufficient, and whether informal vetoes or duplicate judgements exist. | Identify the decision owner and specialist inputs, retaining valuable checks while reducing duplication. |
| Delegation conditions | Actual role capabilities, data access, risk responsibility and oversight arrangements. | Whether responsibility matches authority and delegated roles can obtain information and exercise judgement. | Coordinate authority changes with capability, data and oversight, including exception escalation. |
| Cross-functional coordination | Real examples of shared tasks, interface deliveries, disputes and coordination meetings. | Who owns the overall result, how disagreements are resolved and whether conflicting goals or information drive coordination costs. | Define responsibility interfaces and shared objectives, handover requirements, escalation paths and response times. |
| Business differences | Tasks, budgets, metrics and interim outputs for mature businesses and exploratory work. | Whether uniform control constrains necessary experimentation or exploration lacks boundaries and stop conditions. | Match authority and evaluation to the task, coordinating both through resource reviews. |
Diagnosis is grounded in enterprise facts. Differentiated management does not weaken essential governance, oversight or safety responsibilities.
Four checks before the engagement begins
01Are decision rights, specialist advisory roles and oversight clearly distinguished and consistently applied?
02Do delegated roles have the necessary information, capability and resources, or only additional responsibilities?
03Are the final accountable owner and escalation timeframe clear when departments disagree?
04Do evaluation and resource rules suit the current tasks of businesses at different maturity stages?
HOW WE WORK
From diagnosis to implementation.
Three connected levels form the working approach. Select a stage to explore the detail.
Distinguish management needs
Group activities by maturity, risk, professional capability and geography. Determine where common standards are needed and where regional or site-level authority is appropriate.
Examine governance burden
Check whether meetings, reports and approvals provide necessary information. Analyse why routine coordination consumes management time while retaining steps that provide meaningful checks.
Allocate decision rights
Separate initiation, specialist assessment, approval, execution and oversight. Define escalation for major disagreements so responsibility aligns with information, capability and risk.
Differentiate control
Use clear standards and management by exception for mature businesses. Give exploratory activities bounded autonomy, staged resources and independent validation, avoiding uniform measures that crowd out experimentation.
Connect organisation and mechanisms
Design roles, delegated authority, performance and review meetings together. Define shared cross-functional goals and conflict resolution so the organisation chart reflects actual work.
Trial a limited set of critical decisions while retaining essential controls. Record responsiveness, risk and coordination costs after delegation before expanding scope and supporting capabilities.
Train staff using real business cases. Check whether they recognise responsibility boundaries, escalation conditions and evidence requirements; set explicit end dates for transitional dual responsibilities.
Review decision quality through operating reviews, examining information completeness, execution variance and accountability. Do not assess reform by approval speed alone.
TANGIBLE OUTPUTS
Deliverables designed for
real work.
Agree depth, data conditions and acceptance criteria at initiation. The engagement scope follows the tasks confirmed by both parties.
Target operating model
Headquarters and business-unit accountability map
Critical decision rights and escalation rules
Integrated role, performance and review arrangements
ILLUSTRATIVE SCENARIO
Redesigning headquarters and regional authority
Illustrative scenarioA multi-region energy group wants faster business responses while retaining necessary risk controls. This is an organisational-design illustration, not a client implementation case.
- 01
Review investment and procurement cases to identify duplicate approvals and essential specialist checks.
- 02
Differentiate authority and escalation by risk, financial scale and business maturity.
- 03
Trial the model in selected regions, verifying role capability, information and oversight.
- 04
Revise policies from observed issues before gradually integrating them into group management.
BOARDROOM QUESTIONS
Focus the discussion on these choices.
01Are decision rights assigned to roles with the necessary information and capability?
02Who owns cross-functional operating outcomes, and who provides specialist advice only?
03Do assessment methods for exploratory and mature businesses reflect their different tasks?
RESEARCH FOUNDATIONS
Research brought into
consulting practice.
We translate management research and technological advances into working methods for energy businesses. The frameworks below are ZHICE's synthesis of the research and industry questions.
Charles A. O’Reilly III、Michael L. Tushman / Academy of Management PerspectivesOrganizational Ambidexterity: Past, Present and Future · 2013
Application in the ZHICE approachDraws on organisational design for exploiting mature activities while exploring new businesses, distinguishing management approaches and arranging necessary coordination.
Scope and limitationsThe research discusses multiple approaches and their conditions of use; it does not imply that every firm should create a separate innovation organisation.
Read the original researchOUR PRACTICE
Explore the critical questions.
Each practice examines diagnosis, solution design, implementation and delivery requirements in detail.
01 / MANAGEMENT
Organisation, control and decision mechanisms
Allocate authority along the value chain, balancing central control with local responsiveness.
Diagnosis · Design · ImplementationExplore this practice02 / MANAGEMENT
Processes, performance and human-AI collaboration
Anchor improvement in business events, so performance measures explain results and guide action.
Diagnosis · Design · ImplementationExplore this practice03 / MANAGEMENT
Asset lifecycle and value management
Connect investment, operation, maintenance and retirement through evidence-based choices on cost, risk and performance.
Diagnosis · Design · ImplementationExplore this practiceSTART WITH A DECISION
Start with a decision.
Define the work around it.
Discuss the choices, constraints and evidence needed, then agree the engagement scope and work programme together.