The arrow angling up stands for the changes you need to make in the way you run the business. Organizations without this dual perspective often end up with an unbalanced focus. In most, the predominant focus is on running the business. At the opposite extreme is the CEO who sees the business only through the perspective of change. Employees were quite confused and missed key points of the change.
All organizational initiatives take energy.
If they don't have energy, or aren't championed by the right people, there's a high likelihood of failure. Change occurs effectively only when top management drives the change while other managers drive the running of the business, as shown in the illustration. Other managers, sensing a gap, end up trying to drive a change initiative. However, these other managers don't have the horsepower, political stroke, perspective or tools to actually bring about a major change. Such is the case in organizations where upper management decides the company needs to be reengineered, then abdicates the actual reengineering to middle managers.