Idea in Brief
The Principle
If a company wants to continually outpace competitors, it needs more than lots of agile teams. It requires the company’s top officers—most, if not all, of the C-suite—to embrace agile principles too.
The Team
An agile leadership team must focus on striking the optimal balance between standardizing operations and pursuing innovations.
The Challenge
Executives on the team have to play multiple roles: build and run the agile enterprise operating system; oversee business units and functions; serve as mentors and decision makers; and handle the crises of the moment.
“Brian Johnson” is the chief executive of a major consumer-goods company that has been remarkably successful over the past decade. Like his predecessors, Johnson runs a tight ship in all aspects of operations, boasting excellence in product and service quality and a finely tuned supply chain. The company capitalizes on economies of scale and enjoys the lowest costs in its industry.
