balance manufacturing loads and This scenario is not at all unusual output among plants, generating among large companies that try supply chain eciencies. Second, to master lean-agile approaches to to reduce redundancies in regional implementing new, digitally-enabled support systems. business processes. The work of the best agile teams can slow to a crawl The project ran into problems. when senior executives aren’t able to Making one key decision (how long change the way they lead. customers would have to cancel an order) stalled the project for months. It’s one thing to train employees The team was afraid to make a wrong on agile and lean processes and and consequential decision across tools; it’s another to change: the dozens of countries in which the € The way leaders make decisions company operated. So, it kicked the and empower team leaders question upstairs to the executive € How leaders communicate suite. After top management mulled organizational goals, and how a decision for weeks, it pushed it back they react to success and failure down, and told the team to ‘figure it € The hierarchy leaders establish out.’ But the team was reluctant to to control resources and manage do so. Work stopped, and a big and results important initiative, presumptively € The power leaders invest (or don’t using agile approaches to get its work invest) in agile teams done, ground to a halt. Unless leaders adopt agile mindsets to manage agile teams, they can create obstacles instead of facilitating the agile approaches to developing new products, services, and processes that all businesses need today.