One of the key areas we at AAB Consulting Limited are focusing on with our clients is Organisational Agility. Increasingly, organisations are facing disruption on an unprecedented scale – customer expectations are changing and we need to be able to react quickly and definitively. Industries have been turned on their heads by advances in technology and the availability of data – there is no option to hunker down and hope that you ‘survive’ – you won’t. Disruption causes chaos and chaos demands agility.
Organisations in public, private and third sectors need to adapt at pace to changing demographic, social, technological and economic conditions. Sometimes the change is driven by new technology that enables new ways of working or market forces when a new disruptive entrant enters the landscape but increasingly it is driven by users – demanding different, better, faster services and new products.
So what does agility look like and what are the people aspects that are so important at each stage?
- an actionable business strategy that charts the bold decisions required to create the new order of things. Ask yourself how bold you and your organisation are being with the big challenges you know you are facing but don’t like to talk about. Are you doing the easy thing or the right thing?
- the design and development of new products and services from the perspective of users. Nothing new here you may say but the important step is embracing the energy created at this stage to wrap the organisation around the new not the old. Reflect on the products and services you use every day. How does it feel to you as a user?
- delivering change without any drama - focus on early and incremental delivery of change that is accompanied by an increase in capability and confidence in teams so that they can grow and become self-sufficient. How often have you seen great initiatives falter as they try to do too much or don’t build capability / capacity into teams to deliver?
- use the new data and insights available to you to secure the assurance you need regarding delivery. Importantly, harness the sense of ‘team’ and the pride and confidence that comes from good delivery to go on and do more.
So, that is – at its most simple level - the importance of the human interest story in organisational agility. Please get in touch – I would love to hear your thoughts and any comments. Drop me an email at lesley.fordyce@aabconsulting.uk