Agility: Management Principles for A Volatile World Michael Edmondson, Ph.D.

In my book agility refers to the manager’s ability to increase their self-awareness, think differently, and create the organizational change required to achieve and sustain growth. This definition emphasizes self-awareness as the foundational requirement for any manager to achieve if they want their organization to become more agile. While the thousands of other books, articles, and resources on management provide wonderful learning opportunities, this book will go beyond the traditional approaches and challenge the manager in a volatile world to accomplish the following three tasks in order to increase their self-awareness.

· Increase reflection time: Instead of responding to emails, putting out the proverbial fires, and attending endless meetings, the agile manager needs more time alone to reflect upon the bigger questions, issues, and concerns facing the organization. The amount of reflection time is in direct proportion to the amount of responsibility. Therefore, the greater the level of responsibility, the more reflection time is needed.

· Ask relevant questions: During the increased reflection time, the agile manager operating in a volatile world needs to ask relevant questions. The questions need to focus on their internal awareness as well as their external presence within the organization. To assist the reader this publication provides over 100 questions to answer.

· Challenge assumptions: As the manager asks relevant questions, it is imperative they challenge previously held assumptions. There can be little progress towards agility at the organizational level if the manager is unable to demonstrate an agile mind. Employees, clients, and others will value the flexibility of thought, the elasticity of attitude, and the audacity of vision that accompany challenging one’s assumptions.

Since professional development is linked directly to personal growth, engaging in each of these three activities on a regular basis will help increase one’s self-awareness. Armed with a deeper sense of self, the manager can help the organization achieve the level of agility required to achieve and sustain growth in a volatile world.

Questions to consider:

· How much time do you set aside each day to reflect upon your organization’s agility?

· How often do you ask the relevant questions required to help your organization achieve a new level of agility?

· How often do you challenge the assumptions that you make, or that others make when assessing a situation?

In Agility: How to Navigate the Unknown and Seize Opportunity in A World of Disruption (2019), Leo M. Tilman and General Charles Jacoby (Ret.) focused on the organization and defined agility as “The organizational capacity to effectively detect, assess and respond to environmental changes in ways that are purposeful, decisive and grounded in the will to win.” In Emotional Agility: Get Unstuck, Embrace Change, and Thrive in Work and Life (2016), Susan David broadened the definition of agility to include emotions and wrote "Emotional agility-being flexible with your thoughts and feelings so that you can respond optimally to everyday situations-is a key to well-being and success.” In The Agility Shift: Creating AGILE and Effective leaders, Teams, and Organizations (2015), Pamela Meyer focused on what she labeled the agility shift and described it as “the intentional development of the competence, capacity, and confidence to learn, adapt, and innovation in changing contexts for sustainable success.” In Leadership Agility: Five Levels of Mastery for Anticipating and Initiating Change (2006), Bill Joiner & Stephen Josephs define agility as “the ability to take wise and effective action amid complex, rapidly changing conditions.” They use the words leader and manager interchangeably and believe there are five levels to the agile leader: expert, achiever, catalyst, co-creator, and synergist and three functional areas of pivotal conversations, team leadership, and organizational leadership. Each examination into agility provides important points to consider in the ongoing dialogue. As organizations look to achieve and sustain growth in today’s ever-changing landscape, the value of agility will only increase.

Questions to consider:

How often does your organization detect, assess, and respond to environmental changes?

How often does your organization demonstrate the ability to learn and adapt?

How often does your organization take wise and effective action amid complex conditions?

According to Gallup’s research published in 2019 “Organizations that aren't agile and that don't have the capacity to adapt quickly will be overcome by their competitors - or put out of business.” In its 2019 Global CEO Outlook entitled Agile or Irrelevant: Redefining Resilience the consulting firm KPMG concluded "A successful CEO is an agile CEO. Over two-thirds of chief executive officers believe that agility is the new currency of business. If they fail to adapt to a constantly changing world, their business will become irrelevant.” Moreover, McKinsey's research details how "the agile organization is dawning as the new dominant organizational paradigm. Rather than organization as machine, the agile organization is a living organism.” Agility is here to stay as long as the global marketplace keeps disrupting the way people live, work, and do just about everything around the world. Moreover, the emergence of the COVID-19 global pandemic stressed organizations around the world and exposed significant issues, concerns, and problems. To address the pressure points made visible by the unexpected crisis, organizations looking to create a sustainable future had as their new priority “the making of meaningful investments in human capital to build an agile, flexible workforce.”

Questions to consider:

How often have you thought about the need for your organization to become more agile?

How often have you discussed the limitations within your organization’s ability to adapt?

What have you done in your own career to demonstrate some level of agility?