Agility vs Mary Poppins
Kent Valentine
Director & London Office Leader at Oliver Wyman. Expert facilitator solving hard problems through design, collaboration and (serious) play. Chaotic good.
Agility is fantastic. The ability to respond to new circumstances, adapt and overcome the challenge is a super-power.
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But you know what's also a super-power? Preparation.
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With better preparation, we don't need as much agility.
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With better preparation, our option set is always wider and more robust.
With better preparation, we avoid a lot of the messy circumstances that require agility in the first place.
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For sure - we can't prepare for everything, and for that reason, it's great to have both. Agility and preparation are a well matched pair.
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But I tend to over index on agility. And this means my agility has to work overtime to compensate for my weaker preparation game.
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And as I watched my colleague pull a personal presentation clicker, Mary-Poppins-style, out of her workshop "go bag" because the one in the room had gone walkabout - I realised that just how much more seriously I could up my preparation.
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Either that - or I just have to make sure I invite Adrienne Lock to every future workshop.
Strategy, Operations, Non-executive director
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