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Rabobank had become one of the agile frontrunners in Europe's banking industry. As the company entered the next phase of its transformation, known as Simplify@Scale, it needed to take stock, not only of its success in implementing agile processes but also of the quality of the leadership that had emerged across the organization. With agile structures largely in place across the bank's global operations, the company began to focus on developing a new organizational culture and an agile brand of leadership. Beyond delivering speed and flexibility in a disrupted and increasingly digital landscape, agile at Rabobank had been a vehicle for strengthening the values of accountability, transparency and craftsmanship in its workforce. Importantly, the agile organizational redesign had flattened the hierarchy and shifted decision making towards the frontline. This resulted in a management landscape in which - rather than dictating - leaders were expected to empower and enable teams to make their own decisions and come up with their own solutions. For most, this required a continuous process of developing awareness of and proficiency in several new modes and styles of leadership. At the same time, leaders had to dispel the notion that agile was about working in a free-flowing, wholly spontaneous fashion. Their task was to enforce a disciplined set of team rituals and coordination mechanisms - the Rabobank "heartbeat." Meanwhile, continuous scaling of agile structures and processes within the bank produced some unforeseen challenges, particularly in the areas of setting priorities and allocating resources. These underscored the competing dynamics of leadership agility: Leaders as subjects as well as objects of power and influence, who both initiate and absorb change while concurrently thinking and doing.

The shareholders, who provide capital, have the most at stake in a company and the biggest incentive to ensure its success - so they should call the shots and reap the biggest returns, right? Wrong, says a professor at IMD. He argues that in today's firms, labor bears the most risk and provides the competitive advantage. Labor, therefore, should make the decisions and get the residuals.

The case describes the interactions among pharmaceutical companies, NGOs, and governments in the context of the AIDS epidemic in South Africa. Oxfam singled out GSK as the target for its new campaign, "Cut the Cost." The goal was to hit where it would hurt the most--GSK's share price. At the same time other NGOs also went after GSK. For GSK the situation in South Africa was extremely delicate. The ultimate issues were patent and price protection globally. The pharmaceutical companies were afraid that cheap generic drugs could flood the West, undermining the entire pricing structure and their ability to fund new research. Defending the patents and prices seemed essential. Yet, fighting the NGOs could bring negative publicity and, ultimately, be self-defeating. Meanwhile, million of people were dying of AIDS in South Africa.

Multinational companies are the driving force behind globalization, but they are also the source of many of its most painful consequences, including currency crises, cross-border pollution, and overfishing. These problems remain unsolved because they are beyond the scope of individual governments; transnational organizations have also proved unequal to the task. Nonprofit, nongovernmental organizations have leaped into the breach. To force policy changes, they have seized on all forms of modern persuasion to influence public sentiment toward global traders, manufacturers, and investors. By partnering with NGOs instead of opposing them, companies can avoid costly conflict and use NGOs' assets to gain competitive advantage. So far, however, most companies have proved ill equipped to deal with NGOs. Large companies know how to compete on the basis of product attributes and price. But NGO attacks focus on production methods and their spillover effects, which are often noneconomic. Similarly, NGOs are able to convert companies' standard competitive strengths--such as size and wide market awareness of their brands--into liabilities. That's because the wealthier and better known a company is, the juicier the target it makes. By partnering with NGOs instead of reflexively opposing them, companies could draw on NGOs' key strengths--legitimacy, awareness of social forces, distinct networks, and specialized technical expertise--which most companies could use more of.