Agility: The Ultimate Competitive Advantage

When I began drafting this article a few weeks ago, it was just before the world turned upside down.

Now, I feel like this message is more relevant than ever.

Right before coronavirus started dominating every headline and social media post, you might recall having come across various tributes to the recently departed Jack Welch, CEO of General Electric from 1981 to 2001 and Forbes’ “Manager of the 20th Century.”

Reading the news and commentary, I was reminded that people hold very different views about Welch’s brand of leadership — describing him as everything from “one of the best CEOs of all time” to “an abusive and bullying boss.”

But debating Jack Welch’s legacy is not my intent today.

Instead, I want to focus on one of his many quotes that struck me as powerful and timeless.

“An organization’s ability to learn, and translate that learning into action rapidly, is the ultimate competitive advantage.” - Jack Welch

Boiling the concept down into a single idea, the word that keeps coming to mind is “agility.”

Organizations are agile when they learn and quickly take action. Same goes for individuals.

To survive and thrive, especially in this climate, we must be agile. We must be ready to go in new directions.

In future posts, I’ll dive into more detail about how FIS is being agile in the “new normal” of a world transformed by coronavirus. But before I do, let’s lay the groundwork for what characterizes an agile workplace.

“Respond, Adapt and Change”

The definition below is from the entrepreneurial-focused RealBusiness website (my emphasis on the underlined areas):

A business that undergoes an Agile transformation becomes one that can respond, adapt and change reactively without losing its vision toward the end goal. 

Adopting Agile methodologies is key to keeping businesses’ momentum moving to counter growing competitor activity — this may be bringing new products to market quicker than rivals or implementing new business or marketing strategies. …

Agile is a way of placing emphasis on empowering teams to communicate, self-organize and collaborate in order to deliver the best possible solutions, again using continuous planning and learning, to ensure that processes are constantly improved.

Agility and the Disruptive Process

As leaders, we must embrace the reality that an agile mindset is an essential component of the disruptive process.

Constantly defying traditions, seeking the unexpected and improving how we work helps us achieve higher client satisfaction, increase productivity and deliver better products.

At FIS, all of these things are components of our greater calling: Lead change, drive financial industry technology, and deliver innovation and modernization to our clients on a rapid, global scale.

And at the heart of it all lies agility.

Closing Thought

Being agile means being able to pivot. We’ll talk about that next time.