Until the beginning of the 1990s, airplanes were usually built as a stable construction, with a fixed fillet wing fuselage. The assumption was that a high measure of stability would grant maximum safety. By now we know that airplanes built of flexible material are not only more robust, but also safer. Even if their wings bend by several meters, the basic stability of the plane is still guaranteed.

For organizations as well, it’s all about flexibility and adaptability. Companies which have grown over decades and are based on long-term considerations often find themselves challenged by new demands from the market and their environment. But why is that? After all, these companies had built their success by standardizing procedures: by establishing structures, defining processes and interfaces, optimizing courses of action and steering the content by agreeing on long-term objectives. It is difficult to change a winning team.

But in the last few years, the demands on management and staff have increased more and could be planned less. The learnt methods of the past more than once proved to be too inflexible, too hierarchic, and thus too slow. In other words, they weren’t future-proof.

What becomes more and more important, though, is the ability to remain flexible, active and adaptable – agile, in one word – in times of change and insecurity. Agility is now a vital factor when it comes to keeping pace with the competition.

By now, a lot of companies have realized these new challenges and lately have been concentrating on changing their ways, on developing their skills – to be agile. What they sometimes lose sight of, though, is the fact that the desired steadiness of former times also had its silver linings: It gave the company its “core”, and offered orientation for management and staff. Especially executives in agile companies have to constantly re-define their roles and responsibilities and can no longer rely on learnt behavioral patterns. For them, this is not only exhausting, but it can also divert from the original task.

According to a survey, 70 percent of all employees (managers as well as staff) feel greatly disturbed in their work by change processes, leading to frustration, demotivation and a decreasing identification with the employer. The ensuing threat is that they mentally give notice. But how can companies act differently – more successfully – when dealing with the ever-present demand for willingness and ability to change?

The example from the construction of airplanes can easily be applied to organizations, meaning that companies can only be successfully agile if they are also steady to a certain extent. Agility, yes – but not without stability.

On the one hand, a strong and clearly defined core offers orientation and reliability. It enables the staff as well as the executives to identify with the company and its products or services. On the other hand, new ways of working together – such as Design Thinking or Groupmind – can be an effective means of achieving the necessary flexibility and ability to change. What was successful in the past can become a connecting factor for new ways of working. Previous experiences, processes and structures are not dismissed, but reappraised for their future use. The result? Successful new patterns, based on past experiences.