What does a 21K race that involves climbing walls, carrying 75-pound buckets and crawling under barbed wire have to do with organization design? Success in both comes down to preparation, sticking to strategy and overcoming physical and mental fatigue.
As a longtime Spartan Race competitor, I’ve seen how committing to these critical steps can make or break a racer’s chance of success. Let’s dive into their application in the world of organization design.
Training for the Race: Preparation and Capability Building
If my introduction didn’t give it away, a Spartan Race isn’t just any run. Spartan races vary in length and have at least 20 obstacles—think monkey bars and balance beams—that participants must overcome before finishing. Every race requires strength, endurance and special skills to complete. As you can imagine, the preparation for this kind of racing is intense. Athletes prep for months before a big race. They fine-tune their nutrition, create their own obstacles and follow strict cardio and weight training routines.
The same kind of focused preparation is necessary before an organization activates a new design. A successful redesign starts with a strong foundation comprised of:
- A diverse team of internal experts who can oversee and communicate the change.
- The right tools to align your organization.
- An approach or plan to create buy-in and ensure the changes are fully integrated into ways of working.
When you have a team, tools and a plan for your organization redesign, you can move through the process with confidence.
Race-Day Strategy: Staying on Course with Smart Metrics
I’ve spent years honing my race-day strategy. During a recent race, however, I let a competitor get under my skin. I matched his pace and ran my first few miles much too quickly, only to find myself burning through energy I needed for a successful finish. By mile three, I knew I wasn’t running my race. I adjusted back to my plan and eventually, the fast start caught up with my competitor and he fell behind.
Milestones and metrics are just as critical during an organization design. Organizations need regular check-ins to ensure that the implementation of the new design is proceeding on schedule. Like a successful race, the work should be planned, paced and purposeful.
- Ask if you’re measuring and rewarding the things that differentiate you from the competition. As a racer, I don’t focus on the number of steps I take, I measure how fast I complete them.
- Ensure your team understands how their daily effort helps move the needle and what changes to their ways of working will be needed to help you achieve the desired redesign outcome.
Hitting the Wall: Overcoming Change Fatigue
Every long-distance runner hits a point when energy dips and it feels like your progress slows to a snail’s pace. We call this “hitting the wall,” and it’s usually caused by too fast a start, poor nutrition or dehydration. It’s a dangerous place. If you’re not able to regain mental and physical control, you can find yourself falling irreversibly behind the competitors.
Organizations often hit the wall during a redesign. Change fatigue sets in and resistance grows. Unexpected obstacles may arise: a key leader leaves, systems fail or external conditions shift. Change management tactics are critical at this point in the race to help carry the project successfully to the finish line.
- Ensure the transformation has a defined start and end. Does your team know what success will look like and understand the timeline for achieving it?
- People support what they help create. Involving your team can turn them into champions for the change.
- Clear and frequent communication during the change process keeps morale high. It also helps to maintain the project’s momentum.
Crossing the Line: Sustaining the Change
For dedicated runners, the race doesn’t end when we cross the finish line. I’m stretching and re-hydrating to minimize damage to my muscles and help prepare myself for the next race. I’m thinking through the highs and lows of this race and developing a plan to improve for the future.
The same can be said for organizations after a redesign. Completing the process isn’t the end. There must be a continuous process of alignment to ensure your organization remains able to deliver value as external forces like market conditions and customer needs change.
- Commit to regular alignment check-ins. This gives you the opportunity to review what’s going well and which aspects of your organization need to be re-aligned to strategy.
- Celebration matters: Recognize what you’ve achieved to build change capacity future transformations.
Final Thoughts
In this solo runner’s race, organization design is not just about strategy—it’s about stamina. It’s about how the organization prepares, paces itself, adjusts mid-race and builds muscle memory for the next challenge. Just like a runner becomes a better athlete with every race, organizations that treat transformation like a marathon build long-term agility, resilience, and competitive edge.
