What was first? This question, known as the famous chicken-egg-problem, also applies to agility. Here we go: If you aim to achieve higher levels of agility, you can define objectives by using agile attributes, such as decentralized and flat structures, a culture of trust, flexibility, applying agile methods, speed, etc. Yet, in literature the same traits are also used for promoting agile performance. An example demonstrates the dilemma. Assume that you have realized a poor customer satisfaction due to your responsiveness and thus you want to raise the agility of your department by reducing the response time on customer queries. From this perspective, agility described by speed is the desired output. However, it can also be argued that speed is an input variable to foster agility as an outcome, e.g. by measuring the customer satisfaction. To put in a nutshell, attributes driving agility can also be seen as agile providers and are simultaneously traits to describe agile performance. A logical thinking manager might argue that such a circular reference doesn’t make sense, since a phenomenon where clear cause-and-effect relationships are lacking is not manageable. So, how should we cope with the fact that characteristics of agility and the means to achieve it are exchangeable?
This paradox results from the definition problem of agility (see the blog post: What the F…. is Agile?). The difficulty to put the intangible and complex construct of agility into concrete characteristics leads to this ambiguity, i.e. actually we talk about an evaluation problem of agility due to measurements that are not precise enough. However, the matter of fact that agile drivers and agile characteristics or goals are just two sides of the same coin requires to take two perspectives, namely asking how to evaluate or measure agility and second what drives companies or any object to enhance agile capabilities. While the measurement issue is subject of a dedicated blog, the latter aspect shall be discussed more deeply in this article, since this is the starting point where agile becomes very specific and tangible. Accordingly, we want to ask, what drives agility, or to use other words, why are companies compelled to be more responsive?
Going straight forward, the aggregated drivers of agility are dynamics and complexity and have found their expression in the term VUCA world. It’s the acronym for volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity. It is not a coincidence that these two attributes are mentioned in the same breath, since both reinforce each other. In other words, dynamics fosters complexity, and complexity amplifies dynamics. However, when probing deeper, the meaning of agility looks different for each organization, business unit, or any other object, depending on its individual environment.
Further, we can distinguish two types of a drivers – push
and pull drivers.
There is a ‘natural‘ acceleration and ‘agilization’ imposed by digitization.
Remembering the response time in communications 40 years ago when writing
letters (on a real piece of paper), we could expect an answer maybe a week
later. After the fax has been invented, usually a feedback took three
days. Email has accelerated the average response time to 24 hours. And today,
in times of messenger apps we are used to receive an answer within a few
minutes, for not to say immediately. This example demonstrates that modern
technologies, notably named the internet, has made us much faster. These
achievements have pulled us (almost unnoticed) towards a higher agility.
In contrast, markets, competition, or customer expectations, just to name a few
examples, push us to become more agile. This is the origin of specific
drivers that are discussed more detailed in the following. Let’s put it in
simple self-assessment phrases:
Do you need to SPEED up?
Maybe you have realized that you increasingly miss nominations for quoted products, or the satisfaction of your customers is declining, since you are not capable to meet the expected response time. While still deliberating or being in process of decision-making your competitors have already made the deal. Referring to a real case, the CEO of Volkswagen, Herbert Diess, admits: „We lack speed and courage for a radical change„. These examples show that speed can be related to diverse aspects, such as time-to-market, lead time, or any kind of response time.
Are you challenged by increasing your COST EFFICIENCY?
The tribute of globalization is a tough competition that challenges companies
in all sectors. Each day, a known or unknown company threatens your business by
promising the same product or service for a better price. Almost unlimited
transparency in prices due to online marketplaces compels your organization to
reduce prices and to increase productivity.
Are you faced a COMPLEXITY that reveals the limits of your current management approaches?
Many executives complain: “The complexity we operate in is hardly to manage, or if we try to cope with it, we are not efficient anymore.” Indeed, the loss of control can be observed in many areas, such as politics, management, and even the private life. Clear cause-and-effect relationships are fading and thus, traditional management approaches lose their effectiveness.
Are you suffering from a poor INNOVATION performance?
Today’s success is fragile. These days, technological progress is so fast that your solutions, your products, your services, or your manufacturing processes might be outdated tomorrow. However, fancy ideas, or new product features cannot be forced, rather they are a result of an innovative climate influenced by diverse factors.
Or finally, are you surprised by the demands of the GEN Y?
In this context, the younger generation is just a wildcard for all fundamental
changes in our society, such as a new set of values, different patterns of
behavior, etc. However, probably most significant are the changed expectations
of the younger people which are our future executives that are often not
aligned with our traditional organizational systems and practices. You can test
this by evaluating the attractiveness of your company or department for your
current and future employees.
To conclude, asking for the specific agile drivers of an organization or an object provides a much clearer and tangible picture of agility and, moreover, points to respective goals – the second side of the coin – that ought to be aimed in order to enhance adaptability skills and to cope with the specific challenges.
These foundational insights are processed in the upcoming blog posts regarding the measurement of agility and suggesting a modern construct of agility, namely ambidextrous agility.