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Many large organizations have spent decades unsuccessfully battling bureaucracy. More recently, some pioneering companies have made progress with an approach that has been called post-bureaucratic or Agile management. This approach is characterized by a mind-set that is focused on continuous innovation. The Agile mind-set has three notable common features or “laws.”[3]
Customer-obsessed: Firms implementing Agile management are obsessed with adding more value for customers and end-users.
Small is beautiful: Customer-focused firms emphasize getting big things done in small units, small teams, small everything. Big complex problems are descaled into tiny pieces that can be handled by small units or teams, which are often self-organizing and doing work in an iterative fashion.
Networks: Firms are run as networks or ecosystems, rather than top-down command-and-control models. They tolerate significant “organizational messiness” provided that there is agreement on the overall goal.
Agile management so defined includes firms that are adopting these practices even if they don’t call themselves Agile, while excluding firms that call themselves Agile but don’t implement the defined practices. While the common features of Agile management are important, it can be illuminating to consider what is distinctive in each firm’s Agile journey. The case of Amazon is particularly instructive.
Amazon’s Agile journey
In Think Like Amazon: 50 1/2 Ideas to Become a Digital Leader, John Rossman[4] shows how Amazon exemplifies Agile management, although it doesn’t use that terminology, and has become in the process one of the most valuable firms on the planet. The 2019 book offers a clear and succinct account of the Amazon approach and offers “50 ½ ideas” to enable others to learn how to think – and act – like Amazon.
The organizational culture at Amazon is unusual among large firms. As Rossman explains in his book:
“Think about how most large companies operate. Big-company politics tend to rule the day. Discussions are not forthright. Meetings are layered in so much posturing and subtle deception, they are downright Shakespearean. Seniority and titles matter more than having the right data or insight. People speak out of both sides of their mouths. They smile and nod their heads yes without agreeing. In this world, civility is more important than being right. Results suffer for the sake of harmony.”
Drawing on his experience...