Kate Tarling
The Service Organization was published on 2 February 2023. To order a copy, with free UK postage and packing, click “Buy Book” above.
All organizations are becoming service organizations. But most weren’t built to deliver services successfully end-to-end, and the human, operational and financial impacts are abundantly clear. In the digital era the stakes are even higher, given how rapidly services change. Yet default working practices (governance, planning, funding, leadership, reporting, programme and team structures) inside large organizations haven’t changed. Rather than modernize just one service at a time, it’s the underlying organizational conditions that need to be transformed — anything less is futile.
The Service Organization is the result of years of research and consulting, as well as dozens of interviews with executives. It explores significant challenges that leaders will recognize, and turns them into solvable puzzles by providing practical advice and tools that reimagine what the organization does from the perspective of its customers — and it organizes the activity needed to deliver the best outcomes. This book is for everyone involved, from designers to technologists and from operational staff to policymakers and leaders. It includes surprisingly simple and doable, but non-obvious, steps that don’t depend on seniority or pay band and that are typically overlooked by even the most progressive professions, teams and companies.
Kate Tarling sets a bold, ambitious and practical agenda for all service organizations. Her book is full of behind-the-scenes examples from the global companies, public sector bodies and non-profits that are now delivering and leading successful services. It shows how to reinvent organizations so they rely not just on ‘transforming technology’ but on putting the success of their services at the heart of how they operate.
The author has created a dedicated website for the book here.
“In this definitive, practical book, Kate Tarling finally puts to bed the ‘Is it a product or a service?’ debate by proving that all organizations are service organizations. Through her extensive experience and straight-ahead storytelling, she lays out a clear plan for building, maintaining and evolving a service-focused company like no one else can.”
— Jeff Gothelf, author of Lean UX and Sense & Respond
“Every organization needs to reinvent itself, particularly those with a long and successful heritage. Whereas leaders often fall for the comfort and soundbites offered by piecemeal initiatives, for narrative over facts and for marketable shiny things, those things don’t bring long-term sustainable success. Everyone is striving for flexible and scalable services, delighted customers and happy, productive people. What organizations NEED is exactly what Kate Tarling lays out in this book: a straightforward, implementable guide that is grounded in reality and will actually solve many of an organisation’s problems – even ones that are yet to show themselves! Read this book, do what it says, and make your company more likely to succeed now and well into the future.”
— Jennifer Rigby, Transformation and Operations Leader,
Director at Mozaic Services; and former COO of Lloyd’s
“While many organizations know the value of seeing their service from the customer perspective, few have made the leap to organize around the service experience. This guide shows you how to work outside-in and inside-out in parallel, how to organize and align teams, and how to measure service performance to deliver experiences on behalf of people, operations and organizational goals. This book represents the future of organizational design.”
— Jamin Hegeman, VP, Experience Strategy, Capital One, and vice president of the Service Design Network
“To thrive in the internet era, organizations must reorient themselves around the services they provide. Drawing on an unparalleled well of experience, Kate Tarling has written an essential guide for leaders embarking on such a transformation.”
— Tom Loosemore, Partner, Public Digital
Kate Tarling helps large organizations create successful services by transforming the default working practices that get in the way. She does this through a mix of consulting, training and writing, and regularly advises boards, executives and teams, as managing director of a services consultancy she founded in 2012. She previously held senior leadership roles in government and the private sector.
Kate has spoken on service organizations, design and leadership at Harvard University, Google, the Estonian Government, the British Institute for Government, Ravensbourne University London, and the Royal College of Art.
