Resources

Why are so many NHS organisations stuck in a cycle of firefighting? Alastair Mitchell-Baker, John Deverell and Andrew Liles explore how operating models act as the critical bridge between strategy and delivery, helping healthcare leaders rebuild systems, empower clinicians and restore care.

What does your culture reward: simplicity or complexity? Nick Richmond and Tim Haynes explore how everyday behaviours, decisions and incentives shape organisational culture, often reinforcing complexity when simplicity is what’s needed most.

Nick Richmond and Tejal Shah discuss how management roles often compensate for gaps in organisational design, and how greater simplicity can help leaders focus on what matters most.

In this episode of Elegant Simplicity, host Nick Richmond, Director of Design at Tricordant, is joined by Tejal Shah, a specialist in business transformation, talent and global operating models. Together, they explore a powerful truth:
When AI meets your operating model… it tells the truth.

Nick Richmond and Tejal Shah explore how AI can interrogate operating models, revealing opportunities for greater organisational simplicity and effectiveness.

Healthcare organizations feel stretched every day. Demand keeps rising, budgets stay tight, and staff feel the strain. Many teams work hard from morning to night, yet progress still feels slow. Leaders plan for the future, but daily pressure keeps pulling focus back.  As a result, people end up firefighting instead of improving care. This creates […]

As has already been alluded to in the Elegant Simplicity series, a vital dimension of designing and developing organisations for elegant simplicity includes attending to the cultural dimension and the extent to which ‘the ways things get done around here’ either explicitly or implicitly reward simplification or complexity.

Will your organisation’s Operating Model enable you to deliver your current operational and financial targets, whilst also making progress on your strategic ambitions to transform how and where care is provided? 

In times of rapid, complex change, it can feel almost impossible to slow down long enough to think clearly. Traditional rules and processes often fall short—they’re too rigid, too blunt, and too slow to keep pace with the realities we face. That’s why principles matter. Principles cut through noise and offer a steadying guide when certainty is scarce. They don’t give us easy answers, but they help us ask better questions, focus on what truly counts, and make decisions that stay aligned with purpose. In the midst of complexity, well‑crafted principles provide an elegant simplicity—helping leaders see the bigger picture, create clarity, and stay true to what matters most.

Boehringer Ingelheim UK faced a pivotal moment with its emerging product pipeline and the strategic “Pathway to 2035”. The existing supply chain model, needed to evolve into a more agile, customer centrict structure that empowers Supply Chain colleagues, and which supports both human and animal health markets. This transformation required not just structural adjustments but a fundamental shift towards deeper customer intimacy, faster market responsiveness, and being prepared for the integration of advanced technologies such as AI. The challenge was to design a UK Supply Chain organisation that could deliver these ambitions while maintaining operational excellence. 

At Tricordant, we believe simplicity is not a shortcut; it’s a discipline. It takes a lot of hard work to make something simple, which is challenging in a world desiring quick fixes and silver bullets. That hard work means understanding the underlying challenges and designing elegant solutions that enable both your people and the organisation to thrive.

At Tricordant, we believe simplicity is not a shortcut; it’s a discipline. It takes a lot of hard work to make something simple, which is challenging in a world desiring quick fixes and silver bullets. That hard work means understanding the underlying challenges and designing elegant solutions that enable both your people and the organisation to thrive.