Chapter 8

Reframing the People

"The function had been redesigned on paper. The human architecture inside it had not moved."

By the time the procurement function had been elevated at Huawei — from cost center to strategic intelligence hub — a harder question had emerged. The function was reframed. The people inside it were not yet.

I had watched talented colleagues describe themselves as "PO closers." Not with irony. With resignation. They had absorbed the organization's low opinion of their role and made it their identity. The function had been redesigned on paper, but the human architecture inside it had not moved. This is the gap that most transformation frameworks ignore: you can restructure a department in an afternoon. Reshaping how the people inside it see themselves takes months of deliberate, personal work.

The People Problem

The Function Reframing Framework, as I practice it, is inseparable from the people who live it. You cannot reframe a function without reframing the people within it. And you cannot reframe people through directives. You do it through coaching, through example, and through creating environments where growth is expected rather than exceptional.

Some of the most meaningful moments in this work happened not in boardrooms but in one-on-one conversations. A family friend navigating the transition from Director to VP — a shift that required unlearning tactical habits and embracing a broader, more ambiguous strategic role. He knew procurement. He did not yet know strategy. The gap between those two things was not competence — it was confidence. Younger colleagues who could not see past their job description until someone showed them the strategic map and their position on it.

"You cannot reframe a function without reframing the people within it."

The Coaching Discipline

The change I remember most was in how colleagues described their contribution. Conversations moved beyond closing orders towards interpreting needs, questioning assumptions and explaining decisions. Savings mattered, but so did whether people could see a broader place for themselves in the work.

This transformation did not happen through a training program or a reorganization. It happened through consistent, personal investment — showing people the strategic map, inviting them into conversations they had been excluded from, and holding them to a standard they had not yet set for themselves. The playbook is simple. The execution requires patience, presence, and the willingness to coach someone through discomfort rather than around it.

From the personal archive