The Curse of Growth...

I am looking for books/articles/sources of information that narrate real and genuine stories of large companies that manage to be agile, efficient and effective. I am aware of "Who says Elephants can't dance?"...but are there any other worthwhile books to be read? And, btw, is "Who says Elephants......" a good book in this context? Thanks in advance for sharing your views. I am keen to learn how large organizations manage to grow and decentralize their operations and yet manage to retain a single inspiring vision, a wonderful connectedness, overall efficiency (cutting across processes and departments), and knowledge - undiluted and reliable - that flows through every node in the organization.

It's another thing that I've always believed that an organization that is high and genuine on vision and not a run-of-the-mill, crude profit-making machine should actually try and retain an optimal size rather than focus on growing to an enormous size and satisfying the stock market's whims and fancies. On a related note, I'd, for example, partially expressed my thoughts on MindTree's business strategy many years ago.

There's another very relevant and current example that I need to mention in this context. Though I've been a bit slow in terms of catching up with the latest business stories, a friend recently brought up the topic of Starbucks' current plight in one of our conversations. The very next day, I also, coincidentally, bumped into an article in HBR on Starbucks. The article opines that Starbucks' problems started when they went public and subsequently diluted their brand while trying to expand in conventional ways. Sad, eh?

PS: Kung Fu Panda is likely to shake his cute head in disagreement if he reads this post...."There is no such thing as the curse of growth!" he might say.... ;-)