"Shift faster!" - Futurist Jim Carroll
One thing is for sure at this moment in time - the future is going to be WILD!
And at this moment in time, you need to move away from asking yourself why you are so slow - to asking the hard truth as to whether you are moving fast enough!
If there is one lesson that organizations have learned through the past few years, it's that their future survival is now heavily dependent upon the flexibility they've put in place - flexibility that demands a new level of agility within their leadership team to respond to new levels of volatility! At this moment in time, it's probably a good time to double down on that flexibility through agility - given an unprecedented future, you will need to be able to shift faster. You'll need to be able to bounce back from an unprecedented level of "VUCA - what has become known as volatility, complexity, uncertainty, and ambiguity.
How important is it? Today and in the not-too-distant future, it's critical, because levels of VUCA have accelerated through the roof and will continue to do so. ! I've gone so far as to suggest that organizations should now consider putting in place a "Chief Resilience Officer" - someone responsible for steering the organization through an unprecedented level of VUCA.
The future demands leadership agility. What is it? It's the ability to shift mindsets and actions rapidly according to fast-moving circumstances. I've recently concluded a research project to take a look at the elements of agility and resilience and found this quote which outlines it perfectly.
Leadership agility—or the agility to shift and pivot mindsets—is the master competency needed for sustained success in our fast-paced and complex business environment. In practice, leadership agility is what gives leaders the ability to lead effectively when rapid change and uncertainty are the norm and when success requires consideration of multiple views and priorities.
Building Leadership Agility in Today's Complex World, 13 December 2021
Fulton County Daily Report
Organizations that have an agile leadership team culture in place share several attributes :
- they accept the speed of change - everything is changing quickly, from technology to consumer behavior, business models to time-to-market, methodologies to corporate structure
- they understand the nature of the shift - the economy going forward probably won't have the certainty we've had for a time
- get the nuance involved in new forms of resilience - for example, we've gone from a lot of just-in-time to just-in-case business models
- streamline their operations and eliminate roadblocks so that an organization can act at the speed required
- accelerate decision-making so that they are not bogged down by organizational sclerosis
- have an effective trends radar that advises them as to what comes next - so they can better understand what to do about it!
Are organizations successful at agility? Probably not - in essence, most organizations are structured for slow in a world that has become crushingly fast. What do you need to achieve agility? Successful, agile organizations move faster - decisions, product development, time to market, and an attitude that future business survival now depends on that resilience.
- strategic nimbleness to respond faster to fast-moving events
- flexible policies that shift in real-time
- real-time feedback loops that drive your (re)actions
- the ability to readjust goals to meet new realities
- the ability to spot new opportunities amidst the volatility
- a structure that can reorganize quickly - the formation of fast teams is critical
- a culture that embraces speed of action as a key success factor
- a mindset that cuts through organizational sclerosis
- accelerated decision making
- the ability to act in the presence of imperfect data
- a focus that challenges process - quick runs, small orders
- thinking long term as to how you structure for faster future change
- a team that stops taking things for granted
- a mindset that is relentless on redundancy - examining every point of weakness
- enabling insight at every level
- leaders that stop discounting the outliers
- groups that challenge complacency
- moving from actions based on 'weeks and months to 'days and hours'
- accelerating scenario analysis - alternative futures are your future
- accepting VUCA as a constant - and stop chasing 'normal, because there isn't any
- do more horizon scanning with an effective trends radar
- challenging your peers more
- presuming a complex trajectory for what comes next.
- stopping with the insufficient investment
- presuming that you move slower than everyone else - and fixing it
- regular identifying vulnerabilities and weak spots
What do you need to do to shift faster?
Avoid the distraction of clarity - because going forward, there probably isn't any!
Futurist Jim Carroll has been speaking to leadership teams worldwide on the topic of ‘leadership agility’ for over two decades. It’s one of the most critical corporate attributes in today’s volatile world.