This is the second in the list of agile limitations:

1. A team of stars
2. Fit with organizational culture
3. Small team
4. Collocated team
5. Where's my methodology?
6. Team ownership vs. individual accountability

I have worked with several different organizations. In one of them, directors can be 30 years old with blue hair, job definitions were broad, and processes were defined independently by each team. In another one, respecting the chain of command and job responsibility were keys to survival, and it took me a couple of days to go though the company's policy manual. This illustrates two diametrically opposed cultures. Which one do you think is more suitable to implement an agile team?

Enabling agile behavior requires a great dose of individual and team freedom. It translates into cross-functional, constantly adapting work, and switching roles as needed. It also entails adjusting processes continuously to reflect the current situation. More than anything, it means that processes are secondary to people.

As you can imagine, companies that traditionally emphasize narrow responsibilities, policies, processes, and one-size-fits-all methodologies, are particularly at odds with agility. These characteristics form the organizational culture, which pervasively influences all work and behavior throughout the organization. Unfortunately many companies still apply these industrial-era principles. To make things worse, changing the culture might be the one most difficult thing to do for an organization (after all, the culture is the people who are part of the organization).

Nonetheless, some rigid organizations can still benefit from agile. They succeed by "spinning off" groups of people who are in theory working within the organization but who can work in relative independence. This is also how large, rigid companies enable innovation. Indeed innovation and agility are deeply intertwined. Successful organizations are ambidextrous.

What can you do if agile doesn't suit your organization culture? The easiest solution would be to set up a team that can work independently from the rest, and is not subject to the same rules. People in this team should be fresh hires or should not fit well within the traditional organizational culture. But on the long term, changing the culture implies changing leadership. Assuming that people can change only to some extent, you know what it means...