Many years ago, Jack Welch was asked why he highly admired small organizations. GE’s then chairman and CEO offered this response:

“There are several reasons. For one, they communicate better. Without the din and prattle of bureaucracy, people listen as well as talk; and since there are fewer of them they generally know and understand each other. Second, small companies move faster. They know the penalties for hesitation in the marketplace. Third, in small companies, with fewer layers and less camouflage, the leaders show up very clearly on the screen. Their performance and its impact are clear to everyone. And, finally, smaller companies waste less. They spend less time in endless reviews and approvals and politics and paper drills. They have fewer people; therefore they can only do the important things. Their people are free to direct their energy and attention toward the marketplace rather than fighting bureaucracy.”

Welch was describing an agile organization. That is, one that has these defining characteristics:

o Customer-centricity
o A network of productive (efficient and effective, resullts-driven) teams
o A shared purpose
o Open communication
o Fast learning and decision cycles
o Seamless integration of essential technologies
o Extensive collaboration between AI and humans

Here’s a prediction that Alvin Toffler includes in Future Shock, published in 1970: “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn.”

Some people prefer the term “lean” and that may well be more appropriate. Following Albert Einstein’s advice, leaders of a lean organization make everything as simple as possible…but no simpler.

Keep in mind that a giant oil tanker must travel 35-40 miles in order to reverse direction. The same can be said of how difficult a transformation of what it does and how it does it is for most Fortune 100 companies, the U.S. Congress, and most of the U.s. military services. James O’Toole asserts that the greatest resistance to change initiatives is cultural in nature, the result of what he so aptly characterizes as “the ideology of comfort and the tyranny of custom.”

Agile organizations are lean…lean organizations are agile…and the organizations that dominate the global marketplace in years to come will be both lean and agile.

Organizations are only as agile as their leaders are.