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s 2017 drew to a close, Smoley and Subramanian faced the question of whether the Center of Excellence should continue, or be disbanded. Smoley believed they were at a “pivot point.”

“There are three possibilities: One is to go big, and say, ‘This has been great, and we’re at the point where we want to go and invest in more people, more of a central focus, more trainings.’ Another option would be to say, ‘Thanks, Pushkala and the team, this has been really helpful. You’ve gotten us to a new level. Now we’re going to dissolve this because the feeling is the tools are there, and the people are using the tools; now it’s up to the individual functions and department to embrace this and carry it forward as appropriate in their area.’ In between those two poles, is to continue doing sort of what we’re doing now, which is kind of this Center of Excellence.”

David Smoley, CIO

Subramanian detected some burnout; both in herself and her team, after two years leading a massive change initiative.

“To keep your energy indefinitely on this, it’s difficult. You need to regularly bring people into the team, excited, wanting to do a lot of change stuff. Some of the people on my team who have done this for two years, they just want a little bit of stability. They want to go back to some regular operations jobs. It’s natural. People cannot indefinitely be in change roles.”

She knew in some ways, her mission had always been to “work herself out of a job.” But she worried: If the Simplification Center of Excellence went away, would that be the death of events like World Simplification Day? Would the company lose momentum? Had she successfully embedded a simplification instinct or mindset throughout the company?

“If you don’t have a Center of Excellence, who is going to do those kind of events? … But early on, the CEO said that if the Center of Excellence is the only [unit] that simplifies, then as a company we have not embraced simplification.”