“How big can we get before we get bad?” asked advertising executive Jay Chiat of his eponymous agency. Managers at any growing business will empathise. Success fuels growth. Yet growth breeds complexity – more employees, departments, product lines and business units. Managing complexity diverts attention from the real work of business: attending to customers.

It is not only small, entrepreneurial outfits that face this dilemma. Big corporations are now free to manufacture and sell their products in almost any country you care to name. In order to take advantage of the opportunities, however, they must work out how to manage the complexity that global growth entails. At first glance, big companies appear to be succeeding. The world’s 150 largest companies by market value delivered combined profits of $600bn in 2003, according to McKinsey, the management consultant. This accounted for about half of the profits of the top 2,000 companies worldwide, up from 38 per cent in 1994.