Use the Star Model to design change that holds

A change holds when the organisation’s arrangements support the behaviour its strategy requires. Moving reporting lines can help, but the change also affects information, decisions, skills, and the signals people receive about performance. Leaders need to examine those relationships together before concluding that a new structure will solve the problem.

Galbraith’s Star Model provides five connected lenses: strategy, structure, processes, rewards, and people. It is an organisation-design framework, rather than a step-by-step change-management method. I used it in my MGMT 831 coursework to compare a current operating arrangement with a desired future state and identify the changes needed between them. (Galbraith source)

Start with the strategic requirement

Consider an illustrative business moving from an entrepreneurial phase toward repeatable production. Its early success may have depended on rapid informal coordination and people willing to solve unusual problems. Those strengths can remain valuable while the strategy begins to require more stable commitments, clearer ownership, and dependable handoffs.

The design question is what must become more consistent and where flexibility must remain. Describing the current organisation only in terms of failure misses the value it created. A credible future design should preserve useful strengths while addressing the conditions that limit the next stage of performance.

I would state the required operating outcomes before assessing the five areas. For example, dependable production readiness gives the design a concrete purpose. The assessment can then ask which arrangements support that outcome and which encourage behaviour that works against it. This keeps the analysis connected to a business need.

Compare the current and future arrangements

For structure, examine who owns the end-to-end result and where authority is divided. For processes, follow the information and decisions through planning, execution, and exception handling. These two views should connect: assigning an owner has limited effect if the owner lacks a usable process for coordinating the work.

Then examine whether people have the required skills, capacity, and role clarity, and whether performance signals reinforce the intended behaviour. If the organisation wants early problem prevention but gives its strongest recognition only to last-minute recovery, employees receive a conflicting message. The future design should address that relationship explicitly.

The assessment should result in a short set of material gaps, not a catalogue of every imperfection. A gap matters because it obstructs the strategic requirement. For each one, describe the proposed arrangement, the responsible owner, and the evidence that would show whether it is working. That makes the design open to practical review.

Build a transition around the design

The Star Model helps identify what needs to align. Implementation still requires a campaign: sponsorship, participation, resources, sequencing, communication, and feedback. My coursework considered those implementation questions separately. A complete future-state diagram does not provide the time, authority, or learning needed to reach it.

I would begin with a bounded operating area where the important relationships can be tested together. Introduce the relevant roles, routines, measures, and training as a coherent change. Observe several real working cycles, including exceptions, before expanding. Where the design creates a new burden or conflict, use that evidence to refine it.

Leaders then need to sustain the arrangements through their own decisions. Protecting agreed priorities, using the shared information, and recognising the intended behaviour gives employees evidence that the new design is real. The organisation changes when those arrangements become a dependable way of working.