COVID-19 has created overnight challenges and requires a high degree of inspection and adaption, with urgency, for continued value delivery to customers and to ensure viability and sustainability of organisational business models.
People competencies are a crucial contributor to organisational competencies. Some of which have become more crucial than before in the current crisis.
I am sure you have seen some team member or colleague who has a go-getter, never-give-up, resilient and winning attitude, who quickly learns from failures and uses them as a stepping stone to success, who tries to seek opportunity in any constraint, who does not hesitate to share knowledge and tips, who comes to work with a focus on making the right difference, and who is a team player and an effective contributor to team success and team spirit.
This attitude, behaviour and way of working is effortless and natural for them. It defines who they are in their personal and professional lives.
What sets them apart from others?
Using the lens of true agility, these people display a high level of internal or intrinsic agility, which is a result of natural inbuilt agility mindset and behaviours. This ensures that they are always focused on delivering the right value to the right recipient at the right time with the right approach, despite any challenges, thereby contributing to the individual and team success. They not only embrace, but survive and thrive in the VUCCA world around them. They may not have been exposed to formal agile practices or have even heard the word ‘agile’, but that does not take their intrinsic agility away from them.
If understood, recognised and nurtured effectively by organisational leaders, intrinsic agility of your people contributes greatly to organisational agility. This enables organisations to embrace, survive and thrive in a VUCCA world and, therefore, has great potential to become a competitive advantage. COVID-19 is one of the biggest VUCCA moments in current times.
A lack of focusing on intrinsic agility of your people results in a lost opportunity, which otherwise could be leveraged for win-win outcomes for the individual, team and organisation. Furthermore, it also poses a risk as, unknowingly, the intrinsic agility of team members may cut into each other, resulting in negative impacts and sub-optimal outcomes.
Successful agile teams demonstrate a high level of agility (mindset and behaviours) amongst their team members – intrinsic or explicitly developed.
Even if a team has not adopted agile practices, it still benefits from the right focus and support for the intrinsic agility of its team members. This is true in the current COVID-19 crisis, as teams may not have time or budget for the adoption of formal agile practices.
Connect with the MAC-agile team to understand how you can tap the intrinsic agility potential of your people to contribute to organisational needs and ensure competitive advantage in the current crisis and beyond.
