From Alignment to a Common Language (2/3)

The process model that everyone understands

Servinomy | July 2026

Follow-up to: From Expertise to Alignment (1/3)

Alignment Is Lovely. But Aligned to What?

What exactly are you aligning to?

Because aligning without a shared starting point is like doing a jigsaw puzzle together without the picture on the box; everyone is busy. Everyone is trying their best. But the pieces do not fit.

This article is about that missing picture. And about why an organisation-wide process model — a shared description of how the organisation delivers value — is the most underestimated solution to the most common organisational problems.

The Uncomfortable Truth: More Investment, Same Problems

Organisations today spend more than ever on technology, digital transformation, and new systems. And yet the same people complain about the same things. Departments working past each other. Decisions that take forever. Employees who do not know what is expected of them. Customers who have to tell their story three times.

The figures are confronting. Nearly nine out of ten major organisational changes fail to achieve their goals. Not because the technology does not work. But because people do not come along — or do not understand what is being asked of them.

And that is not a question of unwillingness. It is a question of understanding.

Research shows that poor collaboration between departments costs organisations twenty to thirty percent of their revenue. Employees waste an average of more than five hours per week searching for information that already exists somewhere else, or recreating something a colleague has already done. That is almost a full working day per week — evaporated into thin air.

The Problem Has a Name: the Silo

A silo is a department, team, or group of people that has become so focused on itself that it barely sees the rest of the organisation. Not because they want to. But because the organisation is built that way.

Think about it. The finance department is measured on costs. Customer service on satisfaction. Sales on revenue. All logical goals. But if nobody looks at the whole — at how all those goals together deliver value to the customer — then people work alongside each other instead of with each other.

The real problem is this: organisations are built vertically, but value flows horizontally. A customer who places an order draws a line straight through procurement, logistics, finance, and customer service. But those departments rarely talk to each other about that one customer. They talk about their own goals.

Two Experts, Two Languages

Imagine a finance manager and a customer service manager sitting down together. Both are sharp. Both want what is best for the organisation. But if the finance manager thinks of "customer" as a cost item on an invoice, and the customer service manager thinks of "customer" as a person with a problem — they are speaking two different languages.

That sounds exaggerated. But research shows this is daily reality in most organisations. People in different departments use the same words but mean fundamentally different things by them. "Priority" for one department is "maybe next month" for another. "Done" in sales means something entirely different from "done" in operations.

And that leads to mistakes, delays, frustration — and ultimately to customers who walk away.

Scientists call this the problem of mental models: the internal map that every person carries of how the world works. When those maps diverge too much, collaboration grinds to a halt. When they resemble each other, collaboration happens almost naturally.

Research conducted with teams running flight simulations showed that teams with a shared understanding of the task and of each other's roles performed significantly better. Not because they were smarter. But because they had the same map.

When team members share the same 'map' of reality, they work faster, make fewer mistakes, and achieve better results.

The Common Language That Is Missing

This is where the process model comes in. Not as a technical document for specialists. But as a common language for the entire organisation.

A good process model answers four simple questions:

• What do we deliver? — What value do we bring to the customer or citizen?
• For whom? — Who receives that value?
• How? — What steps do we go through, from start to finish?
• Who does what? — Who is responsible for which part?

That sounds simple. And in theory, it is. In practice, most organisations cannot give a clear, shared answer to at least one of these four questions. Not because the answer does not exist. But because the answer lives in ten different heads, in ten different versions.

A process model makes those versions visible. It lays them side by side. And it forces a conversation about what the organisation actually does — and what it should do.

What Happens When You Actually Do It

The municipality of The Hague is a good example. After a major fraud case in 2019 — in which €1.8 million disappeared due to weak internal controls — the city decided to take its processes seriously, not as a paper exercise, but as a foundation for collaboration.

What did they find? Many processes had never been documented at all. And the processes that had been described looked completely different in every department. Nobody had the same picture. Everyone was doing their best, but nobody could see the whole.

The solution was not a new reorganisation or an expensive IT system. The solution was one shared process model, accessible to all 12,000 employees, so everyone could see how work flows, who does what, and where the connections lie.

The lessons the city drew are universal:

• One language works better than ten dialects. When every department has its own way of describing things, confusion follows.
• People need to understand why it matters. A process model imposed from above does not work. One that helps people understand their own work does.
• Technology helps, but does not solve it. The tool is not the solution. The shared language is the solution.

And Then There Is AI

Artificial intelligence makes all of this more urgent. AI is brilliant at answering the question "How?" How do you optimise a route? How do you analyse data? How do you write a text?

But AI cannot answer the question "Why?" on behalf of the organisation. Why does this organisation exist? Why do we deliver value in this way? Why is this process designed as it is?

Those questions require people. People with a shared understanding of the organisation.

And there is another risk. If AI is deployed to automate existing processes — without those processes first being understood and shared — then AI accelerates the inefficiency. You automate the silos. The problem gets faster, not smaller.

A process model is therefore not only useful for today's collaboration. It is the foundation for tomorrow's AI deployment.

Five Things a Good Process Model Does

Based on research and practical experience, five characteristics make a process model effective:

1. It starts with the customer, not the department. Processes describe how value reaches the customer — not how the department organises itself. That is a fundamental difference.

2. It shows the whole picture. A process model that stops at the departmental boundary reproduces the silos it seeks to break down. The power lies in making the complete value stream visible, from start to finish.

3. It uses one language, not ten versions of the same concept. One definition of "customer", "priority", "done", and "responsible". Simple, but powerful.

4. It makes clear who does what. Who owns which process? Who provides input at which moment? Where are the connections between departments? A process model without ownership is a map without a compass.

5. It lives. A process model is not a document that disappears into a drawer. It is a living instrument that grows with the organisation — and that people use every day to understand their work.

What a Process Model Is Not

To be clear: a process model is not a reorganisation plan. It is not an IT architecture diagram for technologists. It is not a bureaucratic document that makes compliance officers happy.

It is an answer to the question every new employee asks on their first day: "How does it actually work here?"

If your organisation has a clear, shared answer to that question — then you have a common language. And then alignment is no longer a challenge, but a matter of course.

In Closing: People Create Value, Not Organisations

Organisations do not create value. People do.

But people can only create value together if they speak the same language. Not only the language of their own discipline. But the language of the organisation as a whole.

An organisation-wide process model is that language. It is the map that orients new employees. The bridge that connects departments. The compass that guides technology and AI. And the foundation upon which genuine collaboration is built.

The question is not whether your organisation needs a process model.

The question is whether your process model is already a common language — or merely a document.

Which theories fall under this?

• Cognitive Load Theory (CLT): This is the perfect match for this article. Servinomy refers to research on flight simulations: teams with the same 'internal map' perform significantly better. CLT substantiates this: a common, simple language (such as Agree, Change, Restore) prevents the brain from wasting precious energy translating each other's jargon ("silo dialects").
• Organisational Simplicity: Servinomy shows that organisations operate horizontally (value streams) but are structured vertically (silos). Introducing one simple, universal language across the organisation breaks down that complexity.