🧠 The Mountaintop Fallacy – Part 3

A post by our guest editor, John Worthington.

Perspectives from the Trenches

Why the Executive, the Architect, and the Practitioner All Miss the Same Thing

In every organization, we all occupy layers—whether formal or not. Strategy folks. Designers. Builders. Operators. Everyone plays a part.

But when it comes to how services are actually managed, each persona tends to miss the system—in their own special way.

👔 The Executive: Strategy Without Execution

Executives often live in the world of intent. They define purpose, approve budgets, set policy, and trust the organization to 'carry it out'.

And that’s the problem.

Most execs assume the execution layer is already wired up.

They’ve been told:

• “We’re using ITIL.”
• “We have Agile teams.”
• “Our DevOps pipeline is running.”

Sounds great. Until they realize the organization is a patchwork of practices, vendors, and tools—none of it connected by a common management system.

Without that system:

• Governance becomes wishful thinking
• KPIs drift into irrelevance
• 'Alignment' becomes a word you say before a reorg

🧠 What they miss: The existence of a real system that translates vision into executable, auditable behaviors.

USM as a Vertical Spine Shows how the management system connects governance all the way down to execution, like a nervous system for the enterprise.

🧩 The Architect: Architecture Without Glue

Architects live in the world of structure and abstraction. They define capabilities, map flows, model operating frameworks, and align solutions to principles and constraints. It’s brilliant work—when it connects to something real.

But too often, it doesn’t.

Architecture defines how to design—not what the design is. And design ≠ execution.

A great architecture may guide design, but if it never gets translated into operational behavior, it becomes just another unopened file in the EA repository.

🧠 Common trap:

Architects often confuse operating model with management system. They’re not the same.

• The Operating Model lays out how value should be delivered—via capabilities, decision flows, and accountability structures.
• The Management System actually operates those models. It provides roles, processes, and rules to make the model repeatable and enforceable.

Architecture is invisible in the end result. Design is what you see. And the management system is what gets it built and keeps it running.

❌ Without this distinction:

• Overlays like SIAM and DVMS get layered onto sand
• Capability models don’t map to real processes
• Governance becomes abstract, and architecture becomes a gallery of disconnected diagrams

🧠 What architects miss: The need for a simple, universal management system to realize their design and maintain its integrity over time.

USM as a Horizontal Bridge Shows how USM spans across governance, overlays, and execution—binding the stack with common logic, like an architectural framework that actually runs in production.

👷 The Practitioner: Action Without Architecture

Practitioners get things done. They resolve incidents, build services, deploy code, close requests. Real work.

But they’re buried in tooling and buried in fragmentation.

Practitioners rarely get visibility into structure. They just feel the pain.

They know:

• One team uses Jira, another uses ServiceNow, another tracks work in spreadsheets.
• Change control is a guessing game.
• 'Best practice' depends on who trained you last.

And so they develop coping mechanisms—workarounds, tribal knowledge, shadow systems.

🧠 What they miss: The system that would give them consistent roles, clean workflows, and fewer "that’s just how we do it here" moments.

USM as a Concentric Core Illustrates USM at the heart of the service ecosystem—the core engine beneath every persona and every function.

🎯 The Universal Blind Spot: “Someone Else Is Handling It”

Executives think architecture handles execution. Architects think practices fill in the system. Practitioners assume governance knows what it's doing.

But unless someone explicitly defines, deploys, and maintains the management system, no one is handling it.

And that’s why things feel broken—even when everyone’s “doing their job.”

🧱 Why USM Hits the Sweet Spot

Unified Service Management (USM) gives everyone the system they didn’t know they needed:

• Execs get governance translated into behavior
• Architects get structure that can actually be implemented
• Practitioners get clarity, consistency, and repeatability

No magic. Just a universal, role-based, process-controlled method that actually holds the pieces together.

“USM doesn’t add complexity. It removes assumptions.”

📍 Coming Up in Part 4:

We’ll break down what a real management system looks like—and why most organizations don’t actually have one (even if they think they do).

We’ll also explore why tools, frameworks, and certifications can’t replace structure—and why structure is what scales.

💬 Question for You:

Which layer do you spend most of your time in? Governance? Architecture? Execution?

And have you ever found yourself assuming “someone else” was responsible for the system?

Let’s talk about it.

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If you enjoyed John's post and it made you think about improving your own organization, please check out his USM Professional profile and his personal website, or better: contact John for a free consultation.
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