"Can management be agile?" - Management must be(come) agile!

When the fog lifts and the first silhouettes and structures slowly become visible again, that's (for me) a magic moment in which I discover new details which often compose a new, more accurate picture. There are new impressions, that were previously underlooked in the overarching setting of the panorama and thus lost in perception. It is a moment that also contains new insights, points out new perspectives and sometimes changes my goals and directions. 

I feel the same way when big concepts join and similarities slowly emerge from the haze of content. These moments become particularly exciting when ideas are involved that I have been dealing with for a long time, that I know and that, while looking at them with fresh eyes, always offer new impulses. 

I've experienced that kind of moment somewhen during the last weeks, when I combined the findings of our study on agile management design with my differentiated view on the three essential areas of agility: operational, strategic and organizational agility.

In the study (which you can download here) we tried to provide answers to currently highly relevant management questions, such as "What do successful companies focus on in shaping the working environment of their employees", "Is agility an operative or a strategic/organizational topic" or "Who among managers should deal with agility and to what extent?" These are questions that inevitably arise in the context of major transformations, digitization, the development of new business models or the redesign of (collaborative) work processes.

To cut a long story short: If you look at the results of the study, you will see that the patterns are obvious! Successful companies are able to live operational agility BECAUSE their management understands that agility (in thinking and acting, in mindset and behavior) must start here, at the "top management". If they do so, they can build the sustainable and long-term success of the company on the choice of the employees and at the same time provide clear but comprehensive frame-conditions in which the potential can unfold. 

All the parameters that we considered in the study provide lasting evidence of this. 

Something else gets obvious: Agility always - also on the level of management - is context-specific. There are (still) no blueprints and no patterns. Agility, depending on everyone's ability, attitude and desire to implement human cognitive and social skills in themselves and in their work environment, is as diverse as the mix of people, experiences, and environments in and with which companies have to cope.

Three analytical steps

And yet, when I combined the ideas, I was tempted to try to derive a direction from the data, findings, and models which companies can leverage. So I tried to transferred the indicators of Lukas Michel's "Performance Triangle" into the model of the three areas of agility and allocated them accordingly.

That's the result:

The next exciting step was to enter the data from the study for top-tier and bottom-tier companies.

While for the top-tier companies all values (on average) are in the green range, this is reversed at the end of the table. Unsurprisingly all values have great upside potential. 

Only the next analytical step made clear what was hidden in the fog: The differences of the results for top and underperformers together with the statements about the focus points of the top companies showed - as my personal quintessence from the study - that two distinctive ways can be identified that enable companies to implement the basis for lived agility comparatively quickly. This is certainly not a clear path to follow, but it is a very central way of thinking when it comes to moving forward as an organization at this point. 

Two ways

The first way towards more success starts with the purpose and understanding of the common goal. The second step is to give employees the freedom of choice to make their own decisions regarding the fulfillment of their tasks. In the third step, more trust is built up in one's own abilities and those of colleagues. On this basis, the fourth step leads to better relationships, the fifth step to a better culture, the sixth step to more dynamic capabilities and access to the cognitive and social skills mentioned. From here it is a short way to better performance (seventh step), more innovation (eighth step), increased growth (ninth step, whereby this can also refer "only" to competences and abilities) and finally to greater mutual success.

Looking at the core areas of agility this means that organizations have to work on their "business model", "new work environment" and their common basis, the "management model" at the same time. Few people are probably aware that it is not enough to undergo these transformation one by one but to approach all these simultaneously. 

An additional sideway runs primarily in the area of "new work environments" and the always necessary changed frame-conditions and management system. If the pressure is low, developments towards agility can start with a conscious reflection of the personal and overall organizational status quo. "Awareness" of the working environment and the changes are the first steps along this parallel path. Awareness makes it easier to focus on the really relevant topics, which in turn improves collaboration, making it easier for management to deal with the relevant and sometimes overarching issues and the new "agile" role models. As a result, the management systems, i.e. the rules, routines, and tools, also take on a new shape and meaning.

Unfortunately, in times of imminent crisis and time pressure, people often simply start somewhere instead; awareness and, above all, focus are often lost, collaboration suffers and management has to somehow coordinate the different processes. Maybe you are aware of this picture.

Before you now start on this basis let me add an important hint and a picture which was confirmed in the study (again): It's about the (completely natural) (self-)overestimation of managers and executives. Compared to the results from the circle of employees, their values were about 10 - 15% higher compared to all company results. This effect was even greater in the personal work situation and environment. 

But, no wonder, after all, top-managers are often relatively free to choose their area of work and have a high degree of confidence in their own abilities. 

In the first path shown here, this becomes apparent when the values on the subject of culture begin to fall and subsequently (sub)average. It is particularly important for these companies to start by identifying and defining a common goal and, above all, to take a close look at the personal work situations of employees. This is the only way that the swaths of the smoldering fires do not prevent the view into and through the fog. But you're probably familiar with that too - yet it just annoys me over and over again when existing potential remains untapped.  

A complex undertaking

So if you want to leverage the fog and at the same time sharpen your view to better understand the overall picture, then work your way through your company. Create and sharpen awareness of the concrete but deeper problems and obstacles in the organization in order to tackle them directly, instead of staying too long with symptoms. 

Work together on topics such as emotional intelligence and empathy, on communication and (once again, still and probably more and more) soft skills. 

Admittedly, a complex undertaking when you have to rely on subjective perceptions alone. With the performance triangle and the design checks based on it, however, you have also got a possibility to approach this on the basis of an objective evaluation. 

So, what's stopping you from looking at the vanishing fog to identify the first silhouettes of emerging artifacts? It is worth keeping an eye on this, because agility, especially organizational agility, is the core issue that keeps and makes companies fit for the future.

You can download the study "Agile Management Design" and an infograph with a short summary here. 

I very much recommend the book "The Performance Triangle" by Lukas Michel (ISBN 978-1907794414)

This article has initially been published in German.

July 20, 2018 - ZUKUNFTheute - erfolgreicher.zusammen.wirken

Guido Bosbach is the founder and CEO of ZUKUNFTheute, consultant & mentor for top management. He's a leading expert in designing and implementing successful collaboration patterns and contemporary management design.

He has recently been listed amongst the 3 TOP HR-Influencer in Germany by "personalmagazin" and was named one of the 25 LinkedIn Top Voices 2017 D-A-CH in Dec 2017.

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