My Agility
What does agile mean? There are many specific and meaningful definitions out there. I want to share what it means to me. My intrinsic motivation to rethink ways of working is based on one observation (which is driving me crazy btw. ;)):
EVERYWHERE where I listen into the corporate world, I hear people complaining, I observe people resigning , I met people operating in systems being highly frustrated because of their job, of their manager or the strategic decisions their companing was making. .
Why I am so mad about it?
Because I keep on thinking : Why don’t we just change it, what’s missing for a change ?
The answer I mostly get is something like: “poor little idealistic boy, it doesn’t work like this, it is not that easy – it is a highly “complex” circumstance. You have no experience in those things – go back to your field and facilitate some retrospective meetings – we do the real business here”.
Okay we have a cultural heritage that supports certain behavioural patterns for example where success is defined by revenue, shareholder value & individual goals, cars, accommodations…
NEVERTHELESS: it simply is our conscious decision – nothing more than that.
I know there is a debate about “we must change the system instead of the people” or “a bad system will break every good person” – and still: it is us who created those systems. We are the key elements – even when we are subjects acting in the system – it is us! We created them – we can switch them off – we can change them, it all starts with our decisions. Do we have a choice? Yes we always have a choice!
In my point of view – enabling agility in an organizational systems addresses this concern!
Efficiency, effectiveness, adaptivity, the capacity of learning , flexibility, success, performance improvements, lean processes and delighted customers are only nice side effects of enabling the agility in an organization.
My true believe is – enabling agility means creating awareness for our decisions and opening up our eyes for the options we can then choose from. These options are always there – it is a matter of perspective.
Even if we start small in organizations – it is a starting point to get us out of percepted powerlessness in life.
It is on us to change things! What are we waiting for?