Agility Consulting and Training has identified five characteristics needed for organizations to be capable of anticipating and responding to changing demands and adapting to new requirements . . . in real time.
The Agile Model® provides a roadmap to help organizations and leaders navigate through the turbulent waters of today’s business environment. The Agile Model® is built from best practices in organizational performance and is endorsed by the American Management Association (AMA). It has also been recognized as the “best leadership model for our changing world” in the 2008 book Human Resource Transformation.
Five Drivers of The Agile Model®
Agility in individual leaders, teams or organizations is driven by five critical capabilities: Anticipating Change, Generating Confidence, Initiating Action, Liberating Thinking, and Evaluating Results. Each of these drivers must exist within three enterprise domains (people, processes, and technology) in order to create and sustain an agile enterprise.
Anticipate Change: Interpret the potential impact of business turbulence and trends along with the implications to the enterprise.
- Anticipating change requires you to pay attention to multiple dynamics in your overall environment including macro-economic, political and cultural developments; external market, customer and consumer demands; as well as internal strategic, financial and workforce related factors.
- Requires effective processes for: Visioning, Sensing and Monitoring
Generate Confidence: Create a culture of confidence and engagement with all stakeholders especially associates in effective and collaborative teams.
- Generating confidence requires you to address issues related to individual and collective capacities – trust, commitment and high octane involvement.
- Requires effective processes for: Connecting, Aligning and Engaging
Initiate Action: Provide the fuel and the systems to enable things to happen proactively and responsively, at all levels of the organization.
- Initiating action requires you to ensure there is a shared mindset that fosters a sense of urgency for getting stuff done well and positive accountability for doing so.
- Requires effective processes for: Bias for Action, Decision-Making Capability, Collaborating
Liberate Thinking: Create the climate and conditions for fresh innovative solutions by empowering, encouraging, teaching and expecting others to be innovative.
- Liberating thinking requires you to ensure openness towards new ideas from all stakeholders and the means for accepting innovation.
- Requires effective processes for: Bias for Innovation, Focusing on Customers and Idea Diversity
Evaluate Results: Maintaining a strong focus and feedback system to continuously learn and improve from actions and changing dynamics.
- Evaluating results requires you to identify critical metrics for success and to learn relevant knowledge and facts to improve the actions you take.
- Requires processes for: Creating Expectations, Real Time Feedback, Fact Based Measures
A Comprehensive Approach to Agility
The Agile Model® is a comprehensive approach, meaning each driver is a vital force only when combined with the others. Applying one or two drivers in the absence of the others is an incomplete solution and will not result in Agility. For example, anticipating change is not enough without a sense of urgency to initiate action; generating confidence organization-wide will fail without a culture of liberated thinking that fosters innovation and rewards new ideas. A comprehensive approach, The Agile Model® applied effectively results in organizations that are moving forward, thriving and staying ahead of the curve – focused, fast and flexible.