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Describes the “tangible culture” approach in promoting culture change, and smoothing the way to successful integration, which consultants and researchers devised to resolve some of the issues IBM faced over the $3.5 billion acquisition of PricewaterhouseCoopers Consulting in 2002.

Details the three concepts – “business practices”, “right vs. right”, and “outcome narratives” – which lie at the heart of the tangible‐culture approach, and some of their practical applications.

Demonstrates that tangible culture specifically targets the culture issues associated with mergers and acquisitions, alliances (e.g. outsourcing), major restructuring (e.g. shared services) and transformation. It can provide the clarity to help companies to reduce their risks and achieve full operations more quickly, while avoiding the delays, strife, additional costs and lost revenues that can erode a business case.

Shows that organizations can now do something about culture clash and no longer need simply to hope for the best.

Accepts that tangible culture is not a silver bullet, and is still proving itself, but advances the view that it is bringing benefits to IBM and to the author's clients.

The purpose of this paper is to present a structure for identifying complexity that is not needed in an enterprise, and describe a methodology for eliminating it. Whether it is process complexity, product complexity, or organizational complexity, investments in managing higher levels of complexity often offer businesses significant value by enabling them to offer more and better products and services to a broader range of customers. However, along with higher levels of complexity has come an increased requirement to distinguish between that complexity which is needed and that which is needless.

This paper first presents a structure for categorizing different kinds of complexity, with a detailed focus on needless complexity that is categorized into four types. Next, specific factors are developed that can be used to identify needless complexity in an organization. Finally, a methodology is presented that organizations can utilize in order to eliminate needless complexity.

Needless complexity can be created where it never should have existed in the first place, and other times needless complexity exists as an historical relic left over from a time when it actually was needed. Using a structured approach, needless complexity can be identified and eliminated to yield significant business benefits.

This paper provides a framework for differentiating needless complexity from needed complexity, and assessing the landscape of needless complexity in an organization. It also provides an approach for identifying opportunities to reduce needless complexity using the needless complexity diagnostic.