Hapag-Lloyd × LEADBeyond · A working hypothesis for Department 6101

Responsibility has outgrown authority.

The engagement result appears to be more than a morale issue. Our hypothesis: a department with system-wide visibility across FIS3 lacks the mandate, decision rights, and management cadence to act on what it sees.

It is a hypothesis — not a verdict. The first step is to test it with you, quantify what it costs, and design the proof: a bounded 90-day reset that produces evidence, not another report.

Read the argument · 3 min Jump to the 90 days

Two organizations become one IT. How FIS3 performance is steered will be settled well before the integration window closes — by design, or by default.

01Evidence

Your team's own words point to the system — not the people.

Nineteen of twenty-three responded. The comments are consistent, specific, and constructive — and they describe an operating problem.

64→56

What the number measures is real. What causes it sits underneath — in four recurring themes.

Follow-through
We reward and celebrate promises on slides instead of actual deliverables.
One IT · dependencies
Senior leaders operate as independent domain leads… rather than as ‘One IT.’
Recognition · growth
If experts were valued equally to leaders on all levels, I'd strongly agree it's a great place to work.
Mandate
Our team effectively has no ability to set priorities — they're changed by senior leadership every quarter.
“This very survey is perceived by many as useless — because whatever we write is not acted upon.”

They are statistically right to be skeptical: only ~8% of employees believe their organization acts on survey feedback (Gallup). Which is exactly why acting on this one — visibly, within 90 days — is the cheapest credibility the department can buy. The reset is designed to be that exception.

02The pattern

Seven in ten transformations stall — almost always for internal, fixable reasons.

This situation is one of the most studied patterns in enterprise change. Hapag-Lloyd is not an outlier; it is on the base rate.

7 in 10digital transformations stall at some point
16%improve performance and sustain the gains
~40% vs 6%of stalls trace to culture & ways of working — only 6% to external forces

Source: McKinsey Global Surveys on digital transformations. Frederic ran these interventions inside McKinsey; the pattern is consistent across industries.

03Root cause

Where insight cannot become a decision, performance and engagement fall together.

Same people, same signals. The difference is whether insight is allowed to become a decision.

Today — the failure loop
What the survey is measuring, one step downstream.
1InsightDashboards and red signals exist
2No owned decisionNo forum is required to respond
3Repeated failureDependencies and slips recur
4Lost credibilityEscalation without consequence
5Disengagement64 → 56
The loop compounds every quarter it runs.
Target — the performance loop
The same loop, running in reverse.
1MandateClear accountability and decision rights
2Timely, explicit decisionA forum that must respond
3Visible resultEvidenced against defined targets
4Restored credibilitySpeaking up changes the system
5EngagementThe score follows the system
Engagement is the output of this loop — not the lever.

The intervention target is step 2 — the point where insight either becomes a decision, or becomes cynicism.

04Value at stake

The cost is measurable — and today, unmeasured.

Seven questions a CIO would want answered. Today they have no numbers. After the first week of the Frame phase, they do — and they become the baseline of the 90-day scorecard.

—

How many cross-team dependencies are overdue right now?

Baseline · Frame, week 1
—

How many person-days are lost to blocked work each month?

Baseline · Frame, week 1
—

How often are priorities changed mid-quarter?

Baseline · Frame, week 1
—

How many releases and milestones have slipped this year?

Baseline · Frame, week 1
—

How much senior-leadership time is consumed by escalations that don't close?

Baseline · Frame, week 1
—

Which integration-window deliverables are exposed if this continues?

Baseline · Frame, week 1

And one question for the department itself: how much of 6101's capacity is spent producing reporting that never triggers a decision? Baselining these numbers is the first deliverable — and the value case the reset is judged against.

05The fix

One closed-loop management mechanism — five conditions to test.

High-performing transformations typically run a single, closed-loop management mechanism — McKinsey calls it a transformation office with a war room. Five conditions make it work; the reset tests all five here.

1

Value & mandate

What 6101 is uniquely accountable for; advisory vs. mandatory vs. out of scope.

2

Authority & governance

Which decisions it can make; which forums must respond.

3

Closed loop

Which signals trigger what action, decided by whom, how fast.

4

Leadership behavior

What leadership models and reinforces — through systems, not appeals.

5

Proof before scale

Two or three use cases that produce evidence in 90 days.

What it looks like in practice

Six elements of the war room, adapted to Department 6101 — select any for detail.

Who owns what: Department 6101 owns the management system; the domains own the outcomes it makes visible. It complements the delivery partners already in the system — it does not compete with them.
06The 90 days

Frame, a working session, evidence — then a decision.

A bounded reset. We test the mechanism and produce evidence within 90 days — then leadership decides, on evidence, whether and how to scale.

Frame

Baseline, not a study

Sponsor session, ~5 focused conversations, the value-at-stake baseline, candidate use cases. Uses the evidence that already exists.

≈ 1–2 weeks
Working session

Decisions & commitments

One day, whole department, hybrid across Hamburg · Gdansk · Chennai — designed to produce decisions and commitments.

1 day
Evidence

Said · Decided · Delivered · Blocked

Biweekly use-case reviews, a monthly performance review, 30/60/90 checkpoints — tracked in the open.

90 days
Decision

CIO-ready read-out

Value demonstrated, barriers, decisions required, proposed mandate — and an honest recommendation on whether to scale.

Day ~90
The working session — agenda

One day that produces decisions — not a poster.

Whole department, hybrid across Hamburg · Gdansk · Chennai. Leadership opens the day and closes it — the room does the work in between.

30 minCase for changeLeadership opens: why now, what has been committed, and what will be different this time.
45 minPurpose & valueWhat the department is uniquely for; where it creates measurable value; what to stop doing.
45 minServices & interfacesWhat each function provides, its internal customers, and where handoffs break.
60 minCritical decisionsThe 5–7 recurring decisions — owner, input, forum, criteria, escalation.
45 minProof use casesSelect 2–3; agree the baseline and the 90-day target for each.
45 minBehaviors & commitmentsTeam-, leadership- and CIO-owned — each with an owner, sponsor, deadline, and measure.
30 minLaunch the 30-60-90What is decided, delivered, measured, and escalated — agreed before the room leaves.

The team contributes

  • Where the department creates value — and what to stop doing
  • Recurring obstacles and where handoffs break
  • Candidate proof use cases, with baselines
  • The behaviors the team will hold itself to

Leadership decides

  • The formal mandate and its boundaries
  • Authority, governance forums, escalation rights
  • What is mandatory vs. advisory
  • Sponsorship — and what the CIO must grant

The team informs the mandate — it is not asked to invent authority that leadership has not granted.

Why this design

The interventions most associated with regaining momentum after a stall: a rigorous change-management program (+28pt), a rigorous internal-communication plan (+21pt), and a sharper model of timing & economic impact (+21pt). The reset installs all three. — McKinsey, “How to restart your stalled digital transformation”

What happens if it stays red

A measure red for two consecutive reviews escalates with a named owner and deadline. And if the mechanism itself fails the 90-day test, the read-out says so — that is the point of proof before scale.

07Outputs

You leave with decisions made, measures agreed, and proof underway.

  • 01Department 6101 mandate-on-a-page
  • 02Value proposition & service catalogue
  • 03Value-at-stake baseline (the seven questions, answered)
  • 04Critical decision & escalation map
  • 052–3 ninety-day performance use cases
  • 06Leadership & team commitments — each with owner, sponsor, deadline, measure
  • 0730-60-90 scorecard
  • 08CIO-ready executive decision paper

Operational measures

Milestone reliability · aged dependencies · decision lead time · blocked-work duration · priority stability

Management-system measures

% red signals with a named intervention · % leadership commitments delivered on time · escalation-to-decision cycle time
Examples — confirmed against what already exists during Frame.

Every measure ladders upward: IT priorities → FIS3 outcomes → 6101 contribution → 30-60-90 milestones.

08Track record

Two operators who have installed these mechanisms before.

One of us builds the management system. One of us makes it work in a scaled product-and-delivery environment. Both work directly — no junior leverage.

Frederic Rupprecht
Frederic Rupprecht
Performance & operating model · ex-McKinsey

Performance management, IT-organization restructuring, turnarounds, management cadences.

Jonathan Günak
Jonathan Günak
Scaled delivery & behavior · ex-Roland Berger

Scaled-agile transformation in large programs, product & delivery organizations, leadership & behavior change.

Selected engagements. The adidas case — an IT team moving from delivery reflex to business partnership — is the closest analogue to Department 6101.

IT · business partnering
adidas
A Source-to-Pay IT team: technically strong, yet the business's last call — an order-taker, not a partner.
Diagnosed the IT–business gap from both sides, then ran the reset that turned it into named commitments.
→ From delivery reflex to business-first partner.
Sport · Governance
DOSB
Germany's Olympic umbrella body needed one strategy the whole organization could steer by.
Developed the official DOSB 2035 strategy and aligned the organization behind it.
→ One strategy, one organization, to 2035.
Government
MoHESR · UAE
35 fragmented citizen and business services stood between a national digital-transformation portfolio and vendor delivery.
Redesigned 35 G2B/G2C services into 18 coherent, user-centric journeys; ran the full IT vendor PMO and BRD development.
→ A national portfolio, RFP-ready.
Selected clients
Enomyc 1Komma5° FTI DOSB Husqvarna Reneo Quartierkraft BKHS adidas Zehnder MoHESR · UAE

If the requirement is facilitation, an existing coach is a sensible option. Clarifying mandate, designing decision mechanisms, and preparing a CIO decision is a different intervention — senior-only, working directly with the leaders who must carry it.

09Next step

Agree the Frame phase — validate the hypothesis, design the proof.

The proposed next step is deliberately small: a sponsor session with Nico and Dirk, about five focused conversations, and the value-at-stake baseline. Two weeks later, we review the evidence together and finalize the reset design — including the working-session date.

Fixed-fee · senior-only · bounded. If the hypothesis doesn't survive the Frame phase, that is a cheap and useful discovery.

Agree the Frame phase
Critical decisions we help clarify (examples)
Dependency interventionWho decides when a cross-team dependency requires intervention — and can require corrective action?
Delivery standardsWhich standards are mandatory vs. advisory — and who decides?
Portfolio priorityWho decides priority changes and reallocates capacity across domains?
Release readinessWho accepts release-readiness risk?
Escalation closureWho closes a management escalation — and within what timeframe?
For each: owner · input providers · forum · criteria · deadline · escalation route.
From proof to scale — three decision gates
Gate 1 · ProveThe Department 6101 Mandate & Performance Reset (this proposal).
Gate 2 · InstitutionalizeDepartment operating-model design: mission, services, roles, decision rights, governance, interfaces, location model.
Gate 3 · ScaleThe wider IT performance & transformation system under CIO sponsorship.
Each gate is opened by evidence from the last — not a pre-committed programme.
Working assumptions to validate
The mandate diagnosis, the transformation-office target, and the H1-2027 integration window are working hypotheses to confirm with leadership during Frame. Confirmed facts: the engagement index (64→56), response rate (19/23), 176 comments, and the department's composition and footprint.