I believe that one of the biggest fallacies in the corporate world today is that Agile is the way to go for all problems. The mantra goes something like this:

• There are examples of great startups that got to be huge because they were agile
• • They started down one path, and kept pivoting until they made it big
• As a giant mega company, we need to get bigger
• • So we should constantly pivot, to address market changes
• If we do that, we can be successful like those startups we’ve read about

The believe that companies need to react to changing marketing conditions, is not the problem. The problem is that we believe that because some small subset of startups were able to be successful because they were agile. And as along as big corporations are agile they too can be super successful too.

Let’s break this down:

First, the number of agile startups that fail every year, is orders of magnitude larger than the few that succeed. So we must assume that there are other issues that are causing their failure (or causing the successful ones not to fail).

Second, markets change, and with those changes some companies (both large and small) will fail. Others will struggle to deal with the innovator’s dilemma, transitioning to new markets, business models, or technologies, while keeping their existing customer base engaged and satisfied to help fuel that transition.

Third, companies that have a strong and clear strategy (other than just making money), are better able to address those market changes. If we go back to the innovators dilemma, the difference between a Transportation company and a buggy whip manufacture becomes very important when dealing with market changes. Think of how Uber, Amazon, and Apple have all dealt with market changes, and what they believe their strategy is. Each of them has done a great job navigating transitions over time.