Healthy & Fit - What does it mean for leaders and organizations?

What does it mean to be fit? Does being an active runner make you fit? Some may think fitness to them is the way they look. Some might think fitness is the ability to complete a specific activity or challenge they have for themselves. The term fitness can mean something different to each person. I might look at myself and say, I want to lose weight; that's one thing. I might also want to run faster; that's another thing. I want to be more toned. That's something different again. All these are other goals that I have and are related to my fitness. But there are various methods, tools, and ways of getting you there. For example, CrossFit and Keto are methods that could help you stay healthy and fit. In the same way that Lean and Agile principles and practices could help an organization remain healthy and fit.?

Fitness and health are not the same things.?

Some people look at fitness as being physically, emotionally, and mentally healthy. We often look at professional athletes and assume they are healthy. But the truth is that just because you are fit does not mean that you are healthy, and being healthy does not mean that you are fit. Many athletes are healthy but not fit to compete at their desired level. I may consider myself healthy, but I may still be unable to climb a hill riding a traditional bike because of my fitness. Fitness is our ability to thrive under pressure under various circumstances.?

In an ideal situation, we want to be both fit and healthy.

Health is a prerequisite for fitness.

Sure, you can be fit and unhealthy. But your performance and results would be much better if you were both fit and healthy. I have joked for years that the dictionary is the only place fitness comes before health.

Organizational Health and Fitness?

Companies are no different. Organizational fitness is the ability to integrate various systems of the organization to work together and thrive under pressure. A healthy company could have great culture and assets but lack execution and innovation. As a result, a "healthy" organization loses market share and talent. A healthy company is one where people have a clear mind, are motivated, and are brimming with ideas.

Organizational agility is about having a healthy and fit organization thrive in complexity.?

Today, many organizations still do not prepare for change until situations reach a crisis point. There is a sense of urgency to change at that point, but the organization's fitness to change is low. Fitness entails growth. It entails change. Whether the focus is on individual or organizational improvement, alignment, execution, and adaptability must be aligned to keep the organization at the leading edge. Organizations are complex systems that constantly change and develop.?

Agile and agility are not the same things

Agile should not have a capital A unless it is at the start of a new sentence. Agile is not a noun. It is not a trademark. You can't buy "Agile In A Box" (really, you can't) because agility is optimal in complex contexts, where the "What" and the "How" are inherently unknowable in advance.

In a complex environment acting in the space changes the space. The ripple effect is unpredictable.

As we know it today, Agile hasn't fixed our ongoing problems. In reality, most "Agile transformations" don't change much. Agile adoption failure stories are abundant. Just talk to anybody that's been part of one and hear what they have to say. A vast majority of these so-called "Agile" transformations and adoptions fail to generate the fitness to adapt to changing market conditions. Agile has become a jungle of tooling vendors and consulting companies selling frameworks like SAFe and Scrum.

Agility should be the outcome.?

Agile and agility mean different things to different people as well. Some think of Agile as a set of values, principles, practices, and frameworks. Some will tell you that Agile is a mindset embraced by those values and principles. Agile is not the same as agility, and here's why. Enhancing organizational agility is not the same as Agile transformation or adopting agile frameworks. The same way that transforming my body using CrossFit or Keto or some other framework or method is different from my actual fitness level.?

Similar to how fitness means different things to different people, agility can mean different things to different organizations. It doesn't always mean going faster and responding quickly. It all depends on a problem the organization is trying to solve or an opportunity it is trying to explore.?

Context is everything.?

It's not one size fits all. Many companies and consultants sell frameworks and methods as one-size-fits-all, which should be: one-size-fits-specific contexts. Frameworks have to fit the context, and it's the same with a diet. If you're looking at Keto, a way to reduce carbs essentially, that could be great if you're looking to lose weight quickly, but it's probably not something you want to do if you want to be a long-distance runner. Fitness and agility are context-specific and custom framework dependent.

From my experience, it always comes back to these three core principles: simple scales better, patterns over frameworks, and focus on how things connect, not on what they are.

I see a new paradigm emerging, not arising from people selling frameworks. It's coming from the people and companies that have realized that adapting to the changing market conditions and developing organizational fitness context is everything. They focus on keeping things simple and managing how things connect, not on what they are. They understand that the future is multiple methods and frameworks which are context-aware and context-dependent and don't claim to be context-free. It's a holistic approach to organizational agility, and a new type of leadership is emerging. I call it Wicked Leadership .?

Wicked Leadership

Leaders deal with?wicked problems ?that are messy and situated in context. Tackling complex and wicked problems such as maintaining organizational health and fitness, for example, does not have linear and prescriptive approaches, as doing one thing does not merely lead to another. Wicked leadership is about developing the capacity to see and respond to situations from a broader and deeper perspective. We start to see that there are multiple considerations, influences, and systemic ways of looking at things. We use both linear and non-linear causality measures to understand the problems we're facing. We acknowledge that the future is not knowable. From there, it's all about experimentation, getting fast feedback, and responding to it. We know that there isn't a one size fits all solution. We understand that there is no best practice, only emergent practice. We leverage emergence to our advantage and maintain optionality to the last responsible moment. This type of leadership is a key ingredient to having a healthy and fit organization.?

Wicked leadership is scary for some; for others, it's the way to lead.