Transforming the Federal Bureau of Investigation: Outcome and Process Framing

Ryan  Raffaelli; Tiona  Zuzul; Ranjay  Gulati; Jan   Rivkin

Working Paper | HBS Working Paper Series | 2019

Transforming the Federal Bureau of Investigation: Outcome and Process Framing

by Ryan Raffaelli, Tiona Zuzul, Ranjay Gulati and Jan Rivkin

Abstract

This twelve-year qualitative study examines how Director Robert Mueller and his senior team profoundly transformed the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Drawing on 138 interviews within the FBI and Mueller’s testimonies to Congress, we trace how the FBI shifted from being a law enforcement agency, focused on solving crimes after they occurred, to being an intelligence agency, centered on preventing attacks before they occurred. Our data uncover the critical role that cognitive framing played in the transformation: three times senior leaders reframed the FBI in ways that reflected and guided the agency’s internal changes and that accounted for and shaped the reactions of internal and external stakeholders. By comparing these three reframings, we uncover a novel theoretical distinction between two different types of framing. Outcome framing focuses on explaining “what” an organization does and centers on the organization as optimized towards achieving specific results, while process framing focuses on “how” an organization undertakes its work and centers on the organization as optimized towards deploying particular processes. We explore how outcome framing and process framing serve as different but complementary elements of leading strategic organizational change.

Keywords: Mission and Purpose; Transformation; Government and Politics; Organizational Change and Adaptation;

Language: English

Format: Print

62 pages

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Citation:

Raffaelli, Ryan, Tiona Zuzul, Ranjay Gulati, and Jan Rivkin. "Transforming the Federal Bureau of Investigation: Outcome and Process Framing." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 16-084, January 2016. (Revised September 2019.)

We explore the critical question of how executives make strategic decisions. Utilizing a new survey of 262 CEO alumni of Harvard Business School, we gather evidence on four aspects of each executive’s business strategy: its overall structure, its formalization, its development, and its implementation. We report three key results. First, different CEOs use markedly different processes to make strategic decisions; some follow highly formalized, rigorous, and deliberate processes, while others rely heavily on instinct and intuition. Second, more structured strategy processes are associated with larger firm size and faster employment growth. Third, using a regression discontinuity centered around a change in the curriculum of Harvard Business School’s required strategy course, we trace differences in strategic decision making back to differences in managerial education.

Technical Note | HBS Case Collection | October 2020

Organizational Reinvention

Ryan Raffaelli

This note is designed to introduce students to the fundamental concepts of leading innovation in established organizations. Reinvention is a process whereby organizations respond to changes in the environment that threaten their core business model, technologies, cultural values, and/or operational norms. Reinvention represents a managerial paradox for organizations that have experienced several years of success: leaders must preserve some elements of the business that once made it successful and simultaneously change other elements that, if left unattended, could render the organization obsolete. The Note outlines four elements associated with organizational reinvention: 1) Understanding technology lifecycles and s-curves: What are technology lifecycles and s-curves?; 2) Reinvention by extending existing capabilities: How do leaders extend existing organizational capabilities in response to new technologies?; 3) Reinvention by adopting new capabilities: How do leaders adopt new capabilities in response to new technologies?; 4) Readying your organization for reinvention: How do leaders develop the right mindset and the right team to engage in a reinvention effort? Finally, the Note includes several diagnostic tools that students and executives can use to analyze an organization’s readiness for reinvention.

Keywords: innovation and strategy; Leadership and Change Management; Organizational ambidexterity; exploration and exploitation; Innovation and Management; Innovation Leadership; Leading Change; Technology Adoption; Change Management; Organizational Change and Adaptation;

Citation:

Raffaelli, Ryan. "Organizational Reinvention." Harvard Business School Technical Note 421-041, October 2020. View Details

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Transforming the Federal Bureau of Investigation: Outcome and Process Framing

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