Steps in Decision Making Process
Decision making process is like a school exam. Those who take good decisions will pass the exam and the rest who does not take right decisions will have to bear the consequences. Being able to take good decision is important for everyone, whether he/she is a student, teacher, manager, principal, president, leader of any institution […]
Ethics in Sales and Marketing
Markets present a clash of interest between various players. There is competition for resources, customers and price etc, which breeds ground for activities that may not get ethical sanctions. A certain code of conduct, policies and practices called ethics are required to manage markets and marketing. Marketing is the heart of all businesses and all […]
Importance of Compassion in Leadership
It has been researched that many leaders refrain from showing compassion at their work place. There are multiple reasons due to which they do so, discussing some of these below: Showing compassion would mean agreement with the subordinates: Many people think that being compassionate would mean that they are agreeing with whatever have been done […]
Pros and Cons of Reinsurance Sidecars
In the previous article, we have already studied about the concept of reinsurance sidecars. We now know what reinsurance sidecars are and how they are structured. We know why insurance sidecars have revolutionized the reinsurance industry. However, it is equally important to know what are the pros and cons of reinsurance sidecars so that a […]
Importance of Corporate Dressing
Corporate dressing refers to the art of dressing formally and correctly. Corporate dressing helps an individual to dress according to his work profile and organization culture. Formal dressing, if done correctly goes a long way in shaping one’s personality. People take you seriously if you are dressed sensibly. Remember no one likes to speak to […]
Volatility is most likely to remain constant and so is change. The market turbulence has posed challenges to most businesses around the world. But it has also played an important role in the emergence of new and non-traditional businesses – businesses that know how to respond quickly to the changing environment; businesses that have ability to turn information into insights; businesses that how to operate at the edge of chaos.
Business agility is a core differentiator and most companies agree that agility helps them engage a wider audience and generate more revenues. However, at the same time, they also agree that they have not been agile enough to foresee fundamental market shifts. Actually, they experience mixed readiness when it comes to agility.
Business agility is a mind-set. It’s a behavior. It’s the way an individual or organization responds to a stimulus at any given point. It’s the ability to sense change and willingness to respond to it. A stimulus can be financial, technological, social, economical or political. If you’re willing to eliminate resistance to change and are ready to respond to various stimuli, begin with fundamentals. In the previous article, we had discussed the characteristics that an agile business exhibits. Here we study the basic principles basis which an organization achieve those characteristics. Take a look:
Yes, lean management results in quick management. In today’s tumultuous business environment, it’s important to cut down on what is unnecessary to ensure quick execution. Chain of command needs to be shorter and simpler, so that the decisions are taken swiftly. In the digital economy when speed plays an important role, businesses need to cut the hassles and time involved in the approval process.
Wondering what lean management is? It is:
Flexibility is one of the most important fundamentals of organizational agility. The business processes should be simple enough to accommodate change at any stage. However, at the same time standardization is essential because it allows employees to straightaway get into an action, without spending much time in thinking. They need not reinvent the wheel every time they need to use it.
So, what’s the way out? Standardization and dynamism, in such a scenario, go hand in hand. It’s like operating in the middle of chaos and consistency. And how is this done? By defining the processes in such a way that they have scope for flexibility! And this can happen only when the processes are simple. Complexity doesn’t make a space for dynamism. But there are no hard and fast rules. What suits one company may not suit the other. How to balance fluidity and standardization completely depends on the objectives of an organization, nature of business and challenges it faces.
An interdisciplinary team is a group of experts from different fields/ areas of specialty working towards a common goal. It helps businesses benefit from multiple skill-sets and diverse areas of expertise to solve complex problems. Though it’s a coordinated effort but encourages free flow of ideas and information among team members.
Highly agile organizations have multiple interdisciplinary teams as they place more value in human intellect. They encourage their staff to brainstorm, generate ideas and work on them. Serial experimentation and execution is a culture.
People see uncertainty beyond their control and feel terrified with the very idea of it. It puts them in a situation where they feel almost paralyzed to make decisions. And when a crisis happens, they give up most likely. Companies often forget to integrate the agile thinking at middle and lower levels of management. Agility is not a responsibility of top management. It’s important to introduce and promote culture of agility throughout the organization. It’s a combined effort and collective action.
To respond effectively to changes, top management must have a process in place so that everyone from top to bottom can be involved in it. While doing this, it’s important to not let communication lapse. If possible, share the vision with the employees. By this, they become more attentive and extend full cooperation.
Disperse the functions and power away from a central authority. Moderate to highly agile companies take a rather flat approach. They believe in horizontal management rather than vertical management. The accountability to run processes, perform business functions and the power to make decisions is dispersed across the teams, allowing them to manage on their own. Decentralization or flat management is linked to massive participation of employees, which leads to management by results. It ensures:
What stops a company to respond to change is - the inability of its employees to participate in the change management process. Top management ignores the fact that the employees are not ready to change their mind-sets and adapt to the shifting trends. In such a scenario, nimbleness and agility don’t make much sense.
To integrate agility thoroughly, it’s essential to identify the gap at the root level. The true power lies in incorporating an agile mindset. Yes, it’s all in the mind. It begins here and ends here. Businesses must remember that it’s a continuous process.
Conclusion: Given the myriad factors that help organizations become agile, it can be said that an agile mind-set is more required than any other characteristics or traits. Organizations need to strategically implement it and manifest agility all its business processes. They not only need to manage change but must master change management.
Also, agility cannot be achieved overnight. It takes time and effort from employees from top to bottom. Agility is a strategic transformation. In a volatile business environment, only resolve to respond to change can keep organizations at the forefront of competition. And this is what has been keeping companies like Apple, Facebook and Google ahead of their competitors.
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