Article at a glance:

The adaptable corporation

• Most companies are far better at executing their current activities than at adapting to long-term changes in the business environment. Very few can do both well.
• Three barriers to adaptability are deeply rooted in the nature of organizations: inflexibility in the mental models of their managers; organizational complexity, driven by the demands of execution; and mismatches between current resources and future opportunities.
• Overcoming these barriers requires a rethinking of what GE’s former CEO Jack Welch has called an organization's "social architecture"—the bringing together of individual behavior, structure, and culture—which determines a company's long-term performance.