New Year's Resolution

The turn of the year is a traditional time to reflect on past achievements, look to one’s aspirations and make commitments to oneself, and others, on targets for the year ahead - more colloquially known as “New Year’s Resolutions”.

During a great Christmas and New Year rest period, I took the opportunity to reflect in a professional context on what my New Year’s Resolution would be as an MD here at AirPlus and I landed on one that I thought would be both specific enough to remain in the memory during the course of the 12 months ahead, but at the same time, be broad enough to enable experimentation, learning and point to a direction of growth as opposed to a precise date or milestone.

To that end, as we implement Agile across the organisation and I come to appreciate what my role, as one of the three MDs, is in this effort - namely, to communicate the vision, drive the implementation, act as role model and enable the organisation to succeed - I have concluded that I can serve these tasks best by:

Taking as few decisions as possible

This means, as I have come to learn in Agile and Servant Leadership, I should be striving to take (alongside my fellow Managing Director’s) as few decisions as possible.

Conversely, Decision Making should be delegated as far down the organisation as possible such that the decision sits as close the people with the skills and information to make the right decision. This delegation needs to come with further empowerment of the organisation and the dismantling of obstacles to rapid and informed decision making.

I fully expect this aspiration to be met with challenges - whether they come from historical norms, fear of accountability or reproach, or simply force of habit from our company having worked in a traditional hierarchy modus for so many years. In addition, I recognise the need to train colleagues to take on the task of additional decision making, to empower them and to support them.

Challenges aside, the ability to let go and enable others to decide, I see as a critical future skill set for the future leadership of an agile enterprise and I hope to garner the support of my colleagues, at this great company of ours, to make this a reality, such that I can look forward to contentedly reflecting on a resolution fulfilled come Christmas 2019.