Have you thought about switching your organization to agile? Organizations that are agile and have been able to adapt have survived, and in many cases thrived, over the past volatile year by identifying and quickly acting on new opportunities. If you are considering the switch to agile, you are not alone. In McKinsey’s “Doing vs being: Practical lessons on building an agile culture,” they note that 70% of survey respondents are transforming to agile.
Why agile culture matters in an agile transition
The shift to agile is challenging. Putting in processes, systems, and technology is the most straightforward part. With plenty of supporting information and well-designed collaboration and development software available, the agile building blocks can be put in place in a manageable time frame. Creating and sustaining an agile culture is the more difficult task.
As with all things cultural, an agile culture means daily decisions and actions must support agility. Culture is all encompassing, so everything that goes on in your organization impacts culture, and misalignments stick out like sore thumbs, often with overweighted significance that impedes progress.
Start with alignment: Mission, Vision, Values, and leadership mindset
There are two initial considerations to support a transition to agile. First, the organization’s Mission, Vision, and Values must support an agile organization and the dynamics required for agility. Any misalignment here will be exposed quickly given the rapid pace of communication and change required for agile execution.
Second, the transition needs to start in the hearts and minds of the organization’s leaders. Our mantra at Sage & Summit, Inward-Outward-Forward, applies here. The mindset of the leader or leaders needs to fully embrace the journey toward agile before the leaders can lead their teams, and before the organization can take on strategies that support agility. This is a linear progression, and the mindset element needs to lead.
Outward elements that enable an agile culture: diversity and relational leadership
Two considerations relating to the Outward portion of the journey that support agile are diversity and relational leadership. Given the dynamic nature of agile and its continuous requirement for innovation, organizations that embrace diversity will have a higher success rate of agile implementation than those that are more homogeneous. Diversity of perspectives and ideas, when fully embraced with the right structure, processes, and culture, can lead organizations to a new level of ingenuity and ultimately agile execution.
A command-and-control organization cannot reasonably support diversity. They sit at opposite ends of the spectrum, with diversity supporting innovation and quick action, and command-and-control designed for a singular focus. Organizations that practice a relational leadership style that supports empowerment, transparency, and trust can better support a diverse culture, and ultimately provide a key element for success as an agile organization.
Operationalize agility with a dynamic strategic framework
The Outward support element that needs to be in place for agile organizations is a dynamic strategic framework that supports real-time adjustment of the corporation’s strategy when external or internal factors demand a shift. A dynamic strategic framework like Sage & Summit’s Infinite StrategyTM is not independent of agile, it is a core framework to make agile work. The strategy framework is a tool rather than a cultural element, but it cannot succeed without a culture that supports real-time analysis and quick, distributed decision making as noted above.
Four practices to strengthen your agile culture
In Greg Besner’s “The Culture Quotient,” he offers four areas to focus on to improve the success of your agile transition. Ryan Gottfredson, in “Viewpoint: How to Develop an Agile Workforce,” also proposes mindsets that align with the Inward-Outward-Forward journey.
- Normalize ambiguity: Accept change and unpredictability, and ensure that your team feels comfortable and grounded with change.
- Embrace agile mindsets:
- Growth mindset supports the belief that one can improve and develop personal abilities.
- Open mindset ensures an ability to listen and consider other perspectives.
- Promotional or proactive mindset ensures a focus on improving and advancing versus not losing.
- Prepare employees for the future through learning and development: Invest in continuous training to ensure your team members are well trained for their roles today and as they change with the organization, and with their own career paths.
- Continuously monitor and respond: Collect employee feedback on your culture, and create a standard of a retrospective after each project. Create an HR dashboard to support continuous culture adjustment to sustain the agility required by the organization.
Communicate to sustain clarity and momentum
When developing your agile transition plan, communication is critical. Developing and implementing a communication plan is a requirement for success. For internal communications, what seems like over-communication for the leadership team may still be under-communicating for other team members. The leadership team has contemplated and discussed the ideas to a much greater extent, and over a longer time, than other team members who have just received the initial messaging.
Consider all potential stakeholders in your communication plan. This includes customers and suppliers. Keeping these groups engaged will likely solicit important input that could affect how you structure both your transition and your ongoing operations. Communicating with outside groups, at the appropriate time, is also an opportunity to let them know that your organization is dynamic, a firm they can look to for leadership. Excitement around your agile program does not need to be kept an internal secret.
Map the employee journey to sustain an agile culture
The agile transition is significant and will lead to some team members dealing with major work process changes, and inevitably experiencing important emotional reactions to the change. Creating an employee journey map can be a useful process to ensure that employees’ needs, thoughts, and emotions are positively supported throughout the implementation. The journey map can also be expanded to understand how to maintain a culture that sustainably supports an agile organization. Think of this work like keeping a customer, read employee, for life.
Bringing it together
Culture really is the all-encompassing aspect of an organization. Major initiatives like switching to an agile organization will need more time and resources put toward cultural development than toward tools and processes. Follow the Inward-Outward-Forward journey with a people-first approach, and your move to agile will deliver what you expect. If you want a partner to coach your leaders and teams through this shift, Sage & Summit can support you.
