Strategic Agility Update 2011 | Reveln & Forbes

Agility is a strategy, a strategic thinking strategy.  Developing cultural agility is a way for organizations adapt in 2011 and beyond to unforeseen conditions connected to business goals, as well as growing through and beyond them.

In January of last year, I researched an emerging term, "strategic agility" for a blog post with plenty of examples and citations, entitled:  Strategic Agility: Adapting to Now & Next.  I cited business examples of how and where strategic planning showed its flaws, even with some "agile" practices in place.  The strategies were not agile enough and were missing several elements including cultural and organizational agility.  Product / service agility is not enough.

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via flickr.com

As a reminder, here's the definition

What is Strategic Agility? According to strategicagility.com it is:

The ability to continuously adjust and adapt strategic direction in core business, as a function of strategic ambitions and changing circumstances, and create not just new product and services, but also new business models and innovative ways to create value for a company.

This year, it seems time has allowed the concept of strategic agility to take further form and shape within organizations and in scholarship.   Papers are being solicited on the topic.  Conferences with the topic track and books with the term continue to emerge.

Here are several strategic agility themes appearing in 2011:

Clarifying further  what makes up strategic agility is a way we are learning to adapt.

  • Product & service agility
  • Cultural agility
  • Organizational agility

Product / service agility was on the scene already as a place to change and adapt.  It's old news from 2010.

Cultural agility, tied to staying current with globalization, even in the smallest companies, is a game changer.

Cultural agility is the ability to understand multiple local contexts and work within them to obtain consistent business results.  For today’s global organisations, cultural agility is the new competitive edge.   -  Financial Times Lexicon

Organizational agility has a variety of perspectives.  Here are several:

Organizational agility is:  the capacity to identify and capture opportunities more quickly than rivals do...

Executives know this: a recent McKinsey survey found that nine out of ten executives ranked organizational agility both as critical to business success and as growing in importance over time.2 The benefits of enhanced agility, according to survey respondents, include higher revenues, more satisfied customers and employees, improved operational efficiency, and a faster time to market.  - The European Business Review

“Being agile” is also a mindset based on core values: communication, feedback, courage, simplicity, respect and the four from the Agile Manifesto.

 

Control cultures and traditional management practices are large challenges to adopting agile approaches and values.  It takes time to "unlearn" and deconstruct traditional structures for agile ones.

via flickr.com

Asking questions to prompt strategic agility through strategic thinking is a way to begin:

From Forbes, excerpted:

Stage your field of vision....strategic thinking requires a daily focus on your vision of winning. How will you keep the right things in front of you to direct your attention, energy, and thoughts on winning? How can you get them in front of others? How will you stay clear on winning when major challenges and obstacles arise?

Explore new channels. Strategic thinking also requires broadening your horizons and expanding your data gathering efforts beyond traditional sources. What’s happening beyond the walls of your business and your industry? Where else can you look to learn? How can you develop new ways of communicating and connecting with key stakeholders?

Teach strategic thinking skills. Teach people at all levels to anticipate opportunities and threats while managing their day-to-day tasks and responsibilities. Give them the training, coaching and mentoring to become more responsive to changing customer needs. Develop their creative problem solving skills, and help them understand how their decisions and actions impact the business in the future as well as today.
via blogs.forbes.com

Social media provides additional avenues for exploring new channels of strategic thinking, as described in the themes below.  What is your sustainable, agile plan of action for 2011?   How will you sustain it and adapt, while staying true to your vision, purpose and core strengths?

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Photo:  Screen capture of a Twitter search for key words "strategic agility" at the time this post was created.  -- Deb

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Posted on Monday, Jun 6, 2011