Attaining Agility
(About a 5-minute read)“Success today requires the agility and drive to constantly rethink, reinvigorate, react and reinvent.”
[Bill Gates]
Developing a change mindset and learning agility are considered two of the most essential attributes of a successful leader.
Roger Spitz, the Chair of the Disruptive Futures Institute, and author of The Definitive Guide to Thriving on Disruption book series, calls our time an “era of predictable unpredictability”. I guess you’ll agree with me that we’re living in times where change has become a constant.
While learning from the past is still important, struggling to break from the past can become a real obstacle to success for any leader, and hinder them from providing their teams with confident guidance in times of crisis or change.
However, navigating constant change with agility and embracing uncertainty is anything but easy. It can feel energy draining, uncomfortable and sometimes even threatening. But there’s good news: agility is a skill than can be learned and strengthened.
Read on to learn more about some of the challenges to attaining agility and how to overcome them.
Welcome back to Spiegelbild!
If you think about that Bill Gates quote — that success today requires the agility and drive to constantly rethink, reinvigorate, react and reinvent — being an agile leader in today’s work environment is highly demanding. It seems like one can never rest, or be assured that a product, service, process, or solution is going to be good enough for a while.
The next change or need to pivot (fast) is already lurking around the corner.
There are a few challenges that come with this predictable unpredictability. I want to focus on three and share some strategies that may be helpful in overcoming these challenges:
Handling the multitude of influences
Staying the course
Using knowing what you don’t know to your advantage
Like a game of dodgeball
We live in a fast-paced world and our everyday lives are shaped by a million influences. Social media has created a platform for everyone to share everything — whether fact or fiction. What is relevant?
Changing societal norms and our related code of conduct demand that we adjust our behaviour and language; that we critically reflect upon and foster equal chances and opportunities; that we invite diverse perspectives and opinions; and that we right the wrong that was done in the past. Are we doing enough?
It can feel like you’re in a game of dodgeball. A multitude of influences (balls) is coming at you, threatening to throw you off balance, or hitting you when you don’t expect it. As a leader, your team will be looking at you for direction; for a game plan about what to do next. Agility is about staying light on your feet.
What if you tried playing the field instead of resenting having to deal with everything that’s being thrown at you? If it becomes too overwhelming, sometimes it helps to call for a time out. Pausing for a moment allows you to shift your perspective from “I have to” to “I get to”. This little shift can make a big difference.
Instead of freezing, or avoiding, think about what you WANT to do — what you CAN do —with all those balls.
Create a yearning
Creating a truly shared vision, purpose and set of goals with your team can be a game-changer in staying the course and navigating today’s requirement to constantly rethink, reinvigorate, react and reinvent.
I love this quote by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry because it captures the desire a shared vision and purpose can create so vividly:
“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.”
Agility is not only about changing strategies more often; it can also mean executing multiple strategies concurrently.
If you have aligned your team around a shared vision and goals — if each and every one of your team members can explain in their own words their “yearning for the vast and endless sea” — you can rely on their engagement, commitment, dedication and experience to get you where you want to go.
It can also make it easier to adjust your strategies in light of changing circumstances or increasing complexity, because there will be less risk of disorientation, confusion or anxiety amongst your team members.
Be vulnerable — know what you don’t know
As a coach I believe that teams are naturally intelligent, generative and creative. So, why not use the collective intelligence of your team to solve your day-to-day challenges? Leadership is not about having all the answers.
Thinking that you, the leader, can and should have all the answers is both wrong and limits your own and your team’s capacity and creativity. And creativity is crucial in times of predictable unpredictability when you must have the ability to adjust swiftly to changes and rebalance fast.
Being a leader can feel lonely. Lean on your team, their collective potential and intelligence. Distributing your vision and objectives to many shoulders not only creates the space to capitalize on the different talents and perspectives within your team. It also results in a safety net. If one set of shoulder fatigues, there are many more to carry the load and prevent your vision from tipping.
So, be brave and tell your team that you don’t have all the answers. But that you see them and believe in their potential, that you hear them, and that you are going to keep asking questions and listening to their input. This will create the space for individuals on your team to come up with ideas, express their perspectives and become part of the strategy or solution.
Use the collective intelligence of your team, because we is always more than me.
Agility …
… is an attainable skill, but it takes practice.
You may think that agility is about being nimble and fast. However, it is equally important to develop the ability to pause and think, for this will allow you to act by responding thoughtfully and intentionally, instead of reacting instinctively. Take the time to think about what you want and need in each situation.
Agility also requires taking risks and overriding defaults. If what happened the last time you applied a strategy that was “what you’ve always done”, and the outcome was not what you desired, take the leap and try something new.
Our fast-changing environment creates both opportunities and gaps.
Do you remember Michael Jordan and his style of playing basketball? He was agile, nimble, fast, but he also paused to assess the game, he seemed to defy gravity as he hovered in air to find the gap, and he’d pass the ball backwards to move the game forward. He knew how to involve his teammate’s strengths and how to unite them to win six NBA championships with the Chicago Bulls.
You may say: “Well, I’m not Michael Jordan.” But you can seize opportunities, you can identify gaps that allow you to charter new ground, you can let a skilled teammate take a point, and you can use your creativity to think differently, take a different angle, and move forward. See, maybe you can be a bit like Jordan after all.
I involve horses as “co-caches” in my programs because they provide honest, in the moment feedback. Working with a horse offers the unique opportunity to test and strengthen your agility skills through lived, not lectured learning.
Ready to flex your agility muscles? Book a free discovery call by using this link to explore how I can support you on your leadership journey.
I hope you enjoyed this blog. If you did, please sign up with your email here to never miss a blog and to access more interesting insights and perspectives.