Rebuilding with Purpose: Kintsugi as a Blueprint for Organizational Transformation
In the Japanese art of Kintsugi, broken pottery is repaired with lacquer mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum. The cracks are not hidden—they’re illuminated. The philosophy behind Kintsugi is that damage and repair are part of an object’s history, and that its imperfections can become its most beautiful features. This ancient practice offers a profound metaphor for modern organizational transformation: don’t discard what’s broken—rebuild it with intention, and let the seams shine.
Transformation is not about wiping the slate clean. It’s about reimagining what exists, aligning it with strategic aspirations, and crafting a Targeted Operating Model that reflects both resilience and elegance. Like Kintsugi, this approach honors the past while enabling a more coherent, adaptive future.
The Elegance of a Targeted Operating Model
A Targeted Operating Model (TOM) is not just a schematic of roles and workflows. It’s a living blueprint that weaves together strategy, culture, systems, and capabilities. A well-crafted TOM:
Aligns people, systems, and workflows with strategic objectives
Engages stakeholders at every level to embed purpose into daily operations
Ensures consistent value delivery through governance and feedback loops
Drives cultural cohesion, so each team understands its role in the broader mission
This mirrors the interdependent beauty of Kintsugi: each crack, each repair, each golden seam contributes to a unified whole. In transformation, the “cracks” might be legacy systems, outdated processes, or cultural misalignments. Rather than hiding them, a TOM rebuilds around them—making the organization stronger and more beautiful because of its history, not in spite of it.
From Fracture to Flow: The Kintsugi Mindset in Action
Transformation often begins with disruption. A merger, a market shift, a technological leap—these events expose fractures in the operating model. The instinct may be to start fresh. But Kintsugi teaches us to pause, reflect, and rebuild with care.
Tengu’s approach to TOM design involves four deliberate steps:
Clarify Aspiration: Define your vision, critical outcomes, and what “success” truly means.
Assess Current State: Map existing processes, systems, and cultural norms to uncover strengths and gaps.
Design the Future State: Build a TOM that channels resources to strategic priorities, supports scalable capabilities, and fosters cultural alignment.
Activate and Evolve: Implement with story-driven communication, feedback loops, and continuous improvement.
This process is inherently Kintsugi-like. It doesn’t erase the past—it integrates it into a more intentional future. The golden seams are the new governance structures, the clarified roles, the reimagined workflows that trace the path from fracture to flow.
Storytelling as Gold Lacquer: Aligning People to True North
One of the most powerful tools in transformation is storytelling. Story maps are essential for aligning people to a new TOM. Stories make abstract change tangible. They explain trade-offs, reduce resistance, and invite ownership.
Define True North in narrative terms so teams can rally behind it.
Describe the new TOM as the route to reach that destination.
Show cause and effect through example stories that illustrate how changes improve outcomes.
Surface constraints honestly, so stakeholders trust the narrative and participate in shaping it.
In Kintsugi, the gold lacquer is not just functional—it’s expressive. It tells the story of what broke, and how it was healed. In transformation, storytelling becomes that gold lacquer. It connects strategy to human experience, turning compliance into shared purpose.
Rebuilding What You Have to Make It Beautiful
Organizations often underestimate the value of their existing assets. Legacy systems, long-standing teams, ingrained habits—these are not liabilities. They are raw material for transformation. The Kintsugi mindset invites leaders to:
See value in the broken: What’s not working may reveal what matters most.
Repair with intention: Don’t patch—rebuild with gold. Use transformation as a chance to elevate, not just fix.
Celebrate the seams: Make the changes visible. Let the new governance, roles, and rituals shine as symbols of growth.
This is especially powerful in organizations with deep history or strong cultural identity. Rather than imposing a generic TOM, Tengu’s approach builds on what’s already meaningful, crafting a model that feels authentic and aspirational.
Conclusion: The Beauty of Deliberate Design
Kintsugi is not fast. It’s deliberate. It requires patience, precision, and respect for the object’s history. Organizational transformation should be no different. A Targeted Operating Model is not a quick fix—it’s a strategic act of stewardship.
By embracing the Kintsugi philosophy, organizations can:
Transform with dignity, honoring their past while enabling their future
Design with elegance, creating systems that are resilient, adaptive, and beautiful
Lead with purpose, aligning every seam of the operating model to a shared True North
In a world obsessed with disruption, Kintsugi reminds us that repair is revolutionary. And in the hands of visionary leaders, a well-crafted TOM becomes more than a framework—it becomes a work of art.
Kintsugi teaches us that brokenness is not failure—it’s the foundation for beauty. In organizational transformation, this philosophy becomes a powerful lens for rebuilding Targeted Operating Models (TOMs) that honor legacy while enabling future excellence.
