The Pathway to the Top: How to Achieve Business Agility

Today’s competitive business environment is in constant acceleration - changes in customer expectations, behaviors and technology are coming at us rapidly, drastically, and most likely they will not slow down. All these changes and the pace of business development in the last few years have created an ideal place for innovation and business transformation. 

So for companies change is no longer an option, it’s definitely a must. They need to be ready to anticipate and adapt to change. These are the businesses that stay ahead of the game, being the most successful and profitable due to agility.

Business agility may seem like just another buzzword, but it’s actually a key ability to staying relevant and succeeding in the current volatile and disruptive markets. It can be quite a challenge, but with the right practices and new, effective approaches, agile development can be achieved. Of course, it will not happen overnight, you need to put a good amount of time and effort into your business.

Basically, business agility is a way of leading businesses based on innovation, adaptation, as well as the ability to consistently deliver great products and services faster than other companies. It’s about involving everyone in the whole process.

This is how you can unlock and improve business agility in your organization. Let’s get started ??!

Cheer and empower your employees

Machines, computers, and sophisticated algorithms can manage many tasks, but people are the ones capable of leading and communicating authentically, judging the outcomes, and making big decisions.

You can start with hiring professionals with experience in different project management approaches and developing bright leaders. They can bring new agile methods and help you with your agility initiatives. 

It’s also important to provide employees with training to help develop their agile skills. A mentor can be the right choice for you. In the end, your goal is to have the best employees within the company having technical, leadership and soft skills. This is how you drive agility.

Another aspect you should focus on is welcoming your employees’ opinions and ideas. In order to grow, you must assure them that they can feel free to share their ideas anytime they want. Trust is another key factor in the pathway to achieving business agility. You need to trust that your employees will do their job well. And don’t forget to encourage failure. Let them know that it’s okay to fail sometimes.

Enable active planning

To become agile, companies need to transform their planning model. Voices from every area of a business need to be included, so active planning is about two-way communication and action within an organization (top-down and bottom-up). Everything works smoothly when the whole company is encouraged to speak openly and work autonomously.

Active planning means delivering more visibility over the needs and challenges of the company, more transparency, and accountability regarding the business performance and KPIs, as well as more autonomy and an improved decision-making process by people who are directly responsible for the possible outcomes.

Focus on transitioning from a control approach to a shared vision. Adopt an open-minded approach and shift mindsets, it will be really worth it. Take a deep look at the company you work in and just be honest. Do you think that a strict hierarchy, a traditional management style is still working in today’s business world?

A shared vision and a sense of ownership are crucial to motivating and retaining intelligent employees. Try to find more ways to work together and engage with each team, because sometimes employees are the ones who come up with innovative ideas, so they should be encouraged.

Advocate continuous learning 

Technology is developing faster than ever, so companies must push for continuous learning and update their knowledge of agile innovation approaches in order to grow and evolve. It is wise to invest in agility training, courses, project management workshops, various books and publications to pursue business agility. An agile coach can also help with the transition from traditional management and workflows.

In this continuous learning process, you need to consider market data and customer feedback as well. This is the only way you can stay on top of current market trends, drive innovation and improve products plus operations.

Concentrate on customer outcomes

Retaining customers and ensuring satisfaction is only possible when their expectations are exceeded. An agile business knows that there is a real need to test and validate hypotheses to make the best decisions that will lead to customer satisfaction. Also, try to put yourself in the shoes of users and think like them. 

Very often, as leaders, we tend to see our products from another perspective because we know them very well, we are aware of every detail, but this is not the case with our customers. 

So in order to deliver an appealing product and the best consumer experience, we must acknowledge their needs when we build our products. Questions like these can be pretty helpful: Who are my customers? What are their biggest pain points? What about their wishes and needs?

The future is unpredictable and change is inevitable, so get ready to sync all of your gears and pillars to empower business agility. But keep in mind that this is not just a one-time project. To achieve agility you need consistency and you have to start looking at all this process as a lifestyle.

If anything, think of business agility as a way to properly manage change. It’s a journey that you need to start today if you want to stay ahead of your competitors. You can use these ideas to create a flexible and thriving business. If you want to develop every area of the company you work in, it can be a good idea to talk to a coach that can help you with some tailored solutions. 

Do you know any other tips about how to achieve business agility? I’d love to hear them.