| McKinsey Classics | December 2020 |
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| Many executives believe that only small companies can be fast and flexible and that only large ones can be stable. They are terribly wrong—as we’ve seen during the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced many traditional players to embrace agile ways of working almost overnight.
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| Agile companies, irrespective of size, are both dynamic (fast, nimble, and adaptive) and stable (resilient, reliable, and efficient). Such organizations develop structures, governance arrangements, and processes with a relatively unchanging set of core elements, such as who makes decisions, how they are made, and how resources are allocated and oversight is assured. This fixed backbone, which might also include a company’s core operating units, can remain fairly stable for five to ten years. But such companies also have looser, more dynamic elements that adapt quickly to new challenges and opportunities. This flexible ring, fenced off from the rest of the organization, may even encourage its employees to think and behave like self-directed entrepreneurs.
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| To learn how some companies balance the tension between agility and stability with an eye to three core areas, read our 2015 classic “Agility: It rhymes with stability.”
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| — Roger Draper, editor, New York |
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| Did You Miss Our Previous McKinsey Classics? |
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| To learn how companies can address the kinds of behavior that threaten their very existence, read “Managing the people side of risk.”
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