The global leader for creating 
AGILE organizations!


AUGUST 2015


Seizing the Agility Advantage 
By Tom O'Shea, CMC, Organizational Agility Practice Leader 

Focused, Fast & Flexible is not only the headline title for our new book but also represents the primary capabilities organizations need to navigate with speed and resilience in the VUCA world today.  Each of those defining characteristics sound easy but we all know they are incredibly difficult to master and sustain ... especially in complex, globally distributed organizations competing in fast paced dynamic markets.  More important is the requirement to align those qualities with what really matters - your strategy and success model - while embracing a core value system at the same time. 

Chapter Four in our book includes a discussion on the dynamics of creating FOCUS in organizations along with some practical illustrations to help us know the difference when we are not.  It is getting harder and harder to establish the right focus let alone permeate it throughout your organizations.  You might appreciate an earlier article we wrote that included some tools others are using to help such as Roger Martin and A.G. Lafely's model in Playing to Win - Your Key Agility Touchpoints - Are You Agile or Fragile?.  Your journey to create an agile organization starts with the clarity of your focus on the things that matter.        
 >>READ MORE

Future-Proofing Your Business: How Sustainable is your Sustainability?
86% of CEOs/Senior Executives stay less than 5 years!
By Mike Richardson, Team Agility Practice Leader

These days, sustainability can be short lived! Many businesses think they have sustainable strategy, sustainable execution and sustainable leadership ... until they don't! As a small example, but one that more and more of us have participated in, just ask your average taxi-cab firm right now with the emergence of Uber! 
 
Is your sustainability so last year too? While visiting Vistage groups as a Resource Speaker, I conducted a research survey with more than 600 CEOs/Senior Executives responding across a spectrum from hi-tech to low-tech, local to global, large and small, young and old.  One of the questions asked our members what they expect the reconfiguration life-cycle of their industries/businesses to be? That is, the time horizon within which they expect their industry/business to be reconfigured to a state significantly unrecognizable with how it is today. The easiest way to think about that is to look backwards and then turn around and look forwards. As an example, looking backwards 4 years, the cell-phone industry has been reconfigured to a state which is significantly unrecognizable with how it used to be - 4 years ago Blackberry was still #1 in the business professional demographic, now it's not. Apple and Google were still relatively recent entrants, now they aren't ... now they are dominating. Nokia was #1 in total handsets sold, now it's not.  Samsung was still on the rise, now it's #1. Turning around and looking forwards, it will likely be 4 years or less for the same to happen again.

Let's Get Agile Together with The VUCA Report™
By Ben Baran, Ph.D., Agility Analytics Practice Leader

As we're sure you've noticed, the world is becoming increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA). In our last newsletter, we announced The VUCA Report™, an ongoing global study that will systematically capture and report important trends and agility practices to help leaders and organizations thrive.
 
If you haven't participated in this effort already, we sincerely request your help.
 
All of the details are available from  The Strategic Agility Institute, but here are the basics:
 
1. We invite you-and all of your colleagues (feel free to forward this to others)-to take the The VUCA Report Survey™.  
 
2. Everyone who takes the survey will be joining in a global effort to build knowledge about our VUCA world and agility.
 
3. Everyone who takes the survey will receive a free report-what we're calling The VUCA Report™-outlining the results.

Agility Affiliate Network: Brian Anderson     

Brian Anderson is an Agility Consulting Affiliate based in the San Francisco, CA area who has more than 20 years of experience as a consultant, line executive and human resources executive.  He has helped many leading companies become more agile by driving organizational transformation, executing strategies and improving leadership effectiveness (e.g., Accenture, Agilent, Apple Computers, Barclays Global Investors, Bechtel, Blue Shield, Boeing, Cisco Systems, Hewlett Packard, Honeywell, Sun Microsystems, Transamerica, TRW and Wells Fargo). Brian has collaborated on a number of engagements and presentations with Agility Consulting.  For example, Nick and Brian co-presented at an annual Human Resource People & Strategy Conference with their clients from Apple and Aramark.  The presentation was focused on innovation and was titled:  "How Apple and Aramark create a Liberated Environment for Breakthrough Products and Services."

For those interested in becoming an Agility Consulting Affiliate, please contact Nick Horney.

Creating Agility in a VUCA World!



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