The Agile Leader summary

Agility isn’t a single skill; it’s a set of skills. Just consider the agile sports player from the previous blink. She can only beat the opposition if she is mentally astute. That means identifying the learning opportunities in every game – and, hopefully, doing better next time. And, of course, she must also be in great physical shape, with strong muscles which move her effortlessly around the pitch. It’s not muscles or brains, it’s got to be both.

As an agile leader, you’ll also need a particular set of skills. Like our athlete, you must constantly seek learning experiences. And your organization needs muscles in order to put what you learn into practice. In a business context, this means getting feedback, and collaborating with the right people.

As we saw in previous blinks, agile businesses are akin to elite sports players. But sadly, most businesses act more like unfit couch potatoes. Now, if a couch potato wants to get fit, he has to unlearn the bad habits of a lifetime. The same is true of many businesses. If you want to make your company agile, you’ll need to change the way it operates.

This shift won’t be easy. Like our unfit middle-aged person with his beer belly, traditional corporations often have a bloated bureaucracy. It slows decision-making right down.

What’s your number one priority? Our elite athlete knows what his top priority is. It’s winning. To make that happen, he needs to stay in peak physical condition. This simple knowledge makes it easy for him to make choices. A leisurely lie-in or an early morning run? The run every time, of course.

As a leader, you need to know what your top business priorities are. This knowledge is crucial for your organization to stay fit and agile.

What goes into building an effective, agile team? Your instinctive answer might be talented, effective, agile individuals. Well, not quite. If we expand our analogy of a single sports player to a sports team, we can see why teamwork calls for a different approach.

Let’s consider a competitive rowing team. To win races, some team members must be strong and powerful. They sit in the back of the boat. Other rowers, who sit at the front, must have great rhythm and technique. And one team member – the cox, with her light bodyweight – must be a strategic thinker capable of guiding the rest of the team to victory.

How do you make decisions? In his 2011 book, Thinking Fast and Slow, economist and Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman described two different systems that we all use for decision-making. System One is fast and instinctive. And System Two is more about logical reasoning and takes longer.

For example, consider a champion fencer. In order to win the bout, he must analyze his opponent and outsmart him. This requires System Two thinking. However, our fencer must also instinctively move his body with lighting speed to avoid the jabs that his opponent makes at him. This requires quick System One thinking.

Nudging your organization toward agility can be a bit like getting people to dance at a wedding. There’s usually some brave soul who’s first onto the dance floor. But the party only really gets going when a few more people join that courageous pioneer. So how can you persuade your coworkers to leave their hang-ups behind to join you in your quest for agility?

It might not be easy. Most of us find change threatening. But getting buy-in from your people is important. Research suggests that around 75 percent of organizational change initiatives fail because staff do not consider themselves engaged with the change. Instead, they feel excluded, alienated.