I was at a committee meeting recently, where one of the guiding principles adopted by the team was “agile decision-making – the 80:20 rule”. When I inquired as to what “agile decision-making” might mean, I was informed that it meant accelerating planning by making fast decisions, that did not need to be “perfect”. So does this mean that I had to discard my 20 years plus of developing agreed and effective team decision-making processes with top teams?
How could I make effective team decision-making processes, without taking time (even just 5 minutes) to reflect on and inquire, verbally with the team, or even internally, on the three “R’s” of agile decision making?
- Relevance – Why is this an important issue/or not? What exactly do we hope to achieve?
- Responsive – What are the options, what is the likely impact of each one?
- Resilience – What could be some of the possible disruptions? What if……? How might…?
- Resourceful – What is the best use of resources? Where might we experiment and improvise?
- Finally – What will I/we choose to do about it?
This added even more confusion to my recent conundrums, how the word “agility” has slipped into the vernacular!
Yet, there is a lack of a common understanding as to what it really means, and how to leverage it as a key concept for 21st-century business enterprise success and how it fits into effective team decision-making processes.
So, like possibly, some of you, I began searching for a practical and pragmatic definition for the “agility” some time ago to explore – why is it that, despite many leaders’ approaches, agility is not simply about focussing on accelerated planning?
What does it really mean to be agile?
Some of the questions I asked famous innovation webinar presenters, blog writers and innovation management consultants without getting clear answers;
- What does it really mean to “be” agile?
- Why is this one of the most important capabilities to cultivate today?
- How can it apply to individual, teams and business enterprise success?
- What key elements need to be in place to develop agility competence, capacity, and confidence?
What is the definition of agility?
Using the data I had collected as my starting point, I found on Wikipedia a well-accepted definition; this just confused me even more;
It goes on to describe, that in a business context, agility is the ability of an organization to rapidly adapt to market and environmental changes in productive and cost-effective ways. An agile enterprise uses the key principles of complex adaptive systems and complexity science to achieve success.
Finally, it declared, business agility is the outcome of organizational intelligence. This caused me to inquire and question even more;
- How then, do we find the time to discover and explore simple ways of working with the notions of complex adaptive systems and complexity?
- How can we make these abstract concepts coherent to apply them to individual, team and business enterprise success?
- What then, are the foundations of organizational intelligence?
- How does it relate to effective team decision-making processes?
At ImagineNation™ our focus is on building peoples “know-how” in applying innovation as a strategic and systemic lever. Focussing on the “how-to’s” of innovative culture, management, leadership, coaching & start-up entrepreneurship, we help organizations leverage their talent to succeed in the fourth industrial revolution.
Taking into account our client’s need for Speed and Simplicity, and Low Cost, High-Value Agile Learning Solutions, we just don’t have the time to go deeply into the theory behind complex adaptive systems, complexity science, and the multiple intelligences debates.
We just need to know how to contextualize and our clients to apply them.
The Agility Shift
It wasn’t until I came across a fabulous book, The Agility Shift, by Pamela Myers, that it all started to make sense to me. If I was going to teach it, then I needed to congruently embody and enact it myself, and then build the concepts, principles, and techniques into our innovative curriculum.
She describes “Agility as the ability to make an intentional shift in order to be effective in changing contexts” and that “every person in every organization will experience the need to respond to the unexpected and unplanned in big and small ways, and will have a choice whether or not to make their own agility shift.”
It was music to my ears because, at ImagineNation™ we agree with Pamela Myer, in that be-ing innovative depends less on new skills and knowledge and much more on the context or safe space people co-create together in a “Playspace” involving;
- The play of new ideas
- People playing new roles
- More play in the system
- Improvised play.
What are the Three “C’s” of Organizational Intelligence?
- Agility competence involves cultivating the mindsets, behaviours and generative skills necessary to respond to the unexpected and unplanned. As well as being safely disruptive in the discovery and design phases of innovation to generate new developments and innovative breakthroughs from emerging trends.
- Agility capacity is about cultivating the emotional, visceral & cognitive abilities to flow and flourish with uncertainty and volatility.
- Agility confidence is about cultivating the self-efficacy to trust their own, and others’ judgments, competence and capacity to be effective in changing contexts.
Who is an innovative and agile leader or coach?
Someone who knows how to be present to, see and respond to (complex adaptive systems) the unexpected and the unplanned (complexity). To then develop innovation agility, that shifts their way of being, thinking and doing (applying multiple intelligences) to emerge possibilities, opportunities and solve problems generatively.
What are the benefits of agile decision-making to individuals, teams and business enterprises?
- It generates creative energy to innovate.
- Accelerates the innovation process.
- Reduces the resistance factors and risks inherent in change and innovation.
- Engages empowers and enables the entire organization & broader ecosystem in the innovation effort.
Creating the “Playspace” for Agility
Supporting Pamela Myers’ discovery – “one of the most important aspects of agility – the ability to make intentional shift in order to be effective in changing contexts” rings very true to us at ImagineNation™.
I wonder if we all invested more time, resources and creative energy into creating the Playspaces, she describes, we will, in fact, expand our individual and collective capacity for innovation and learning agility as well as generate effective team decision-making processes.
If doing this, it will, in turn, maximize the diversity, differences, and connectivity in our people and teams, and build the foundations for effective team decision making processes.
Making innovation part of everyone’s jobs every day, and finally, enable the business enterprise to build, grow and compete more fluidly, and perhaps even make the world a better place?
At ImagineNation™ we provide innovation coaching, education and culture consulting to help businesses achieve their innovation goals. Because we have done most of the learning and actioning of new hybrid mindsets, behaviours, and skill-sets already, we can help your businesses also do this by opening people up to their innovation potential.
Contact us now at janet@imaginenation.com.au to find out how we can partner with you to learn, adapt and grow your business in the digital age.
