Why businesses are focused on building Agile Mindset and Culture

We’ve just published the results of our workplace culture research entitled:

A guide to building an agile culture and you can download it free here.

What is an agile mindset and how do you build an agile culture?

The culture of an organisation can be determined by the behaviour demonstrated by key stakeholders and of its people.

A culture evolves over time and is a bi-product of your people and their behaviours.

It is a mindset, a way of thinking and being that can be viewed and followed by others.

Organisational culture is the way things are done in your company and an agile culture is increasingly recognised as a critical component for the survival and growth of a business.

Whatever type of culture you develop, it must sit at the heart of strategy for today’s businesses.

Rapid changes in competition, demand, consumer and employee expectations, technology and regulations make it imperative for organisations to be able to adapt to changing environments and conditions quickly.

What is an Agile Culture?

An agile culture has to be built on an agile mindset. This allows things to move more quickly, less hierarchy in decision making and responsibility handed to small agile groups and teams to make things happen.

Communication channels are then efficient and open, as in there is more transparency.

More companies are looking at implementing agile or changing their culture to be more of an agile culture and what it could mean for their organisation in terms of becoming more responsive to changing customer behaviour and expectations and internally being more transparent and autonomous.

By developing a flexible and adaptive organisation, businesses can demonstrate a competitive agility where they are more responsive to customer and market needs.

Why do we need agile mindsets and agile behaviours? 

Building an agile mindset and culture offers a way to harness the power of the people in your organisation to find ways to be more adaptive, innovative and resilient, to give them more purpose. In this age of growing automation we need more thinkers as well as doers.

A Guide to Building Agile Culture - Building The Agile Business looked at how SMEs manage change and transformation when they go through a transition, such as a growth phase or through the process of Merger and Acquisition.

The findings centred around four key elements of organisational culture to more efficiently pursue Agile Transformations.

Those four elements were:

1. Recognition: Recognising good or hard/smart work
2. Communication: Organisational purpose, clarity of expectations and alignment of people
3. Trust: Trust in other people/ Organisation
4. Learning: Investment in training and staff development

So it’s worth businesses looking at these as part of the process of building the right mindset and behaviours.

The majority of business leaders interviewed agreed that agile was important to their organisation. Yet, adopting an agile culture remains the most significant self-reported barrier to digital effectiveness as also confirmed by a recent Gallup poll The Worldwide Employee Engagement Crisis

William E. Schneider in his book The Reengineering Alternative identified four types of culture. His competing values matrix model defined 4 different culture types as:

1. Collaboration
2. Control
3. Cultivation
4. Competence

Although it is true to say no single culture is ‘better’ than another, companies can have more than one culture, although there is usually a dominant culture and it's understanding this that's key, especially as any transformation or merger will change mindsets and behaviours.

What is the set of accepted behaviours, does it align to Mission, Vision, Purpose and does the business need to be more responsive to change, both internally and externally, or in other words be more agile?

“ An entrenched controlling culture and the behaviour that drives it can be one of the most destructive and restrictive barriers to change.”

If we’re not investing in our workforce what are we doing?

If you’re struggling with understanding your corporate culture, why the business isn’t growing as fast as it should and need some help then get in touch.

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You can read more about building business agility in our book.

For MORE exclusive content related to our book on Building the Agile Business, sign up here.

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