The agility myth: why big businesses are failing

When Amazon CEO Andy Jassy emailed employees in September 2024 to ask each team to “increase the ratio of individual contributors to managers by at least 15% by the end of Q1 2025” it was framed as a move to greater agility. 

Jassy said that having fewer managers would remove layers and flatten organisations, increasing teams’ ability to “move fast, clarify and invigorate their sense of ownership” as well as drive decision-making closer to the front lines where it most impacts customers and the business. 

But alongside layoffs, a shift back to full-time office work and growing employee dissatisfaction, this looks less like agility and more like corporate efficiency masquerading as transformation. A later note from investment bank Morgan Stanley suggested Jassy’s strategy amounted to a decision to cut 14,000 middle-management roles, with corporate efficiencies accounting for $2 billion-$4 billion in savings. 

Agility is the corporate buzzword of the moment. Executives name-drop it in shareholder meetings. HR departments run workshops on it. Business leaders insist their organisations are “pivoting” and “adapting” to market changes at breakneck speed. 

A survey by executive search firm Heidrick and Struggles found 93% of leaders agreeing that agility was critical to business success and 94% saying that it was critical to new ways of working. According to research with almost 150 people and culture leaders released by Business Culture Connected this week 96% either strongly agreed or agreed that organisational agility will be vital to their organisation achieving its future aims.

Yet most of this is just talk. Research from human capital management software firm Avature found that only 6% of organisations believe that their technology fully supports agility, while 22% admit that their current infrastructure actively hinders it.

So what’s going wrong? And how can organisations move beyond paying lip service to agility and actually embed it into their culture?

The myth of agility in big business

Many large companies believe that agility is simply about speed: cutting bureaucracy, slashing management layers and making faster decisions. But real agility isn’t about moving quickly for the sake of it; it’s about adaptive resilience – the ability to shift, experiment and innovate in response to change.

That’s where most organisations fail. They restructure but they don’t rethink. They cut middle management but keep decision-making centralised. They enforce rigid policies while claiming to be flexible. Agility isn’t about doing things faster but about operating differently. And on that front big businesses are still stuck in the past.

Pim de Morree is the co-founder of Corporate Rebels and an expert on self-managing organisations. He has travelled the world examining the successes, failures and lessons from businesses trying to reinvent themselves. He agrees that big businesses love the idea of agility but, when it threatens hierarchy, control and sacred privileges, they suddenly lose interest. “If your 'agile transformation' still needs thick management layers to approve decisions, congratulations – you’ve just rebranded bureaucracy,” he says.

Douglas Grant, managing director of Manx Financial Group, points out that small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are strategically adapting to global economic shifts like ‘Trumponomics’. However, larger firms often remain tied to outdated hierarchies and bureaucratic decision-making. “Digital transformation and agile business models will be crucial for thriving in an evolving global economy,” he notes.

If your 'agile transformation' still needs thick management layers to approve decisions, congratulations – you’ve just rebranded bureaucracy - Pim De Morree

So what’s going wrong?

1. Leadership inertia: The biggest barrier to change

Executives talk a good game about agility but few are willing to challenge the power structures that keep them in control. 

They are stuck because genuine agility requires leaders to relinquish control. It means empowering teams, flattening hierarchies and allowing decision-making to happen at lower levels. Yet too many leaders see agility as an operational tweak rather than a cultural shift.

“Leaders talk about transformation but most don’t actually want it,” says de Morree. “Real change would mean giving up control – and that’s a price most are not willing to pay.

“Killing hierarchy isn’t the goal, replacing it with something better is. Without a new structure you’re just swapping one kind of dysfunction for another. If you tear down top-down structures without building peer-to-peer ones, you don’t get freedom – you get chaos.”

2. Silos and outdated career paths

Organisational agility is impossible when employees are trapped in rigid career ladders and departmental silos. Workforce futurist Andy Spence notes that many companies – like Amazon, PwC and Unilever – are cutting middle-management roles in an attempt to streamline operations. But without giving employees the autonomy to make decisions these moves simply create more bottlenecks, not fewer.

Contrast this with companies like Dutch mortgage company Viisi and Spain’s NER Group, where employees don’t chase promotions but shape their own roles based on skills and interests. At NER Group career progression isn’t about climbing ranks; it’s about ownership. Employees start as contributors and gain influence by taking responsibility for the company’s success.

3. Middle management cuts ≠ agility

There’s a dangerous assumption that removing middle management is a fast track to agility. But if those managers were the ones keeping teams aligned, developing talent and providing strategic direction, cutting them without a new operating model just leads to chaos.

What’s needed is not the eradication of middle management but the reinvention of it. Companies like Haier, the world’s largest appliance manufacturer, have done this successfully, replacing traditional managers with micro-enterprises led by entrepreneurial employees. Rather than climbing a career ladder employees propose and lead their own initiatives. If their project succeeds they move forward. If it fails, they pivot or step aside. This is what agility really looks like.

4. A culture that punishes failure

Agility depends on experimentation, yet most corporate cultures remain intolerant of failure. Employees quickly learn that mistakes are punished rather than seen as learning opportunities, which stifles innovation and risk-taking.

Buurtzorg, a Dutch home healthcare organisation, offers a compelling alternative. Nurses manage themselves, prioritising patient care without bureaucratic oversight. Instead of career tracks dictated by HR employees direct their own development – mentoring others, mastering new skills and growing laterally rather than upward. This decentralised model allows for true agility: teams can adapt and respond in real time without waiting for top-down approval.

What real agility looks like

The most successful agile organisations don’t just talk about agility but embed it into every aspect of how they work.

• Haier: Employees pitch and lead their own business units, creating a dynamic system where agility is built into the structure.
• NER Group: Career growth is based on ownership and contribution, not promotions.
• Viisi: Employees shift between roles fluidly, aligning work with their strengths rather than waiting for hierarchical progression.
• Buurtzorg: Self-managed teams operate without middle managers, proving that agility can work at scale in even the most traditional industries.

These companies have fundamentally rethought work rather than making superficial changes.

Four ways to walk the walk on agile

So what needs to change? Here’s where HR and people leaders must take the lead.

1. Conduct an honest agility audit

HR teams must critically assess whether their organisation’s structures support or stifle agility. Are decision-making processes fast and decentralised or do they still require multiple layers of approval? Are employees empowered to take ownership or do they wait for permission? Without an honest audit agility will remain an illusion.

2. Empower employees, not just cut jobs

Agility isn’t about reducing headcount but about redistributing decision-making power. Removing managers without giving employees the authority to act just creates uncertainty. HR must focus on empowering teams, ensuring that they have the autonomy and resources to drive change. “You can’t unleash potential while keeping people on a leash. If you don’t challenge power structures you’re just rearranging the hierarchy, not transforming it,” says de Morree.

3. Rethink career growth and progression

Traditional career tracks, where success means climbing a rigid ladder, don’t align with agile organisations. Instead, companies should embrace skill-based progression, lateral growth and ownership models. Employees should have the freedom to take on new responsibilities, experiment with different roles and shape their own careers.

4. Build psychological safety

Agility thrives in environments where employees feel safe to experiment and fail. HR leaders must champion a culture where mistakes are seen as part of the learning process, not career-ending failures. This means training leaders to support risk-taking, normalising experimentation and celebrating learning rather than punishing missteps.

Agility beyond the buzzword

For too long agility has been a corporate talking point rather than a lived reality. But the businesses that fail to embed it will find themselves outpaced by those that do.

Real agility isn’t about slogans or superficial restructuring. It’s about challenging old assumptions, decentralising decision-making and creating an environment where employees don’t just adapt to change but drive it. So ask yourself: Are we actually agile, or are we just pretending to be?