Corporate agility
Did you ever participate in the Canada Fitness Awards in the 1970s and 80s? Back in the day, the Canadian government launched a national fitness program for kids called the Canada Fitness Awards.
Apparently, a fitness statistic at the time was an average 65-year-old Swede was in better shape than a decades younger Canadian. So, as a nation, we needed to get in shape. The Canada Fitness Test consisted of push-ups, sit-ups, the dreaded flexed-arm hang, some sprints, a shuttle run, and a distance run.
Students were awarded bronze, silver, gold, or the coveted Award of Excellence, based on their achievement in each event.
My first crack at the test I got a bronze level of fitness. I was mortified. My mortification sent me on a journey of self-improvement. My objective? The Award of Excellence, of course.
I did whatever I could to address the areas in which I needed improvement.
I learned the standards, and then I practiced each of the events until I could achieve the standard of excellence in each category.
One of the events that was tough to practice on your own was the shuttle run.
The shuttle run was designed to test agility.
The shuttle run involved running back and forth between two lines, each time bending down to pick up a small bean bag to shuttle it back to your starting point.
It was all about acceleration, nimble movement, and a fast change in direction to get back to your starting point. So how’s your agility? I mean, your corporate agility? Today’s world demands organizations learn to change at an increasingly fast rate.
Businesses need to learn to assess, plan and act with increasing speed, or they will be left behind by those businesses who have learned to do so.
In business it’s not survival of the fittest, it’s survival of the most agile.
Corporate agility involves making decisions as rapidly as possible, then executing those decisions equally as quickly.
Rapid decision making and implementation can determine if you are a market leader, or a follower, a winner, or a loser.
One environment where agile decision making is the difference between life and death is that of a fighter pilot.
Fighter pilots must make life and death decisions in nano-seconds.
So much so, the United States Air Force Colonel John Boyd developed a decision making cycle known as the OODA loop.
It stands for observe, orient, decide, and act.
Boyd applied the concept to the combat operations process, often at the strategic level in military operations.
Likewise, organizations need to assess their OODA loop.
What is the speed of your decision making process?
How fast are you able to observe what is going on, then orient your company and your people to that reality, decide the best course of action and then take that action?
Practicing the OODA loop is like the shuttle run for organizations.
You can improve your agility by practicing your ability to observe, orient, decide and act.
It’s all about the speed with which you can move from awareness to execution.
Here is a very simple component you can implement immediately to improve your organizational agility.
One complaint often heard in hallways, offices and around water coolers is how much time is wasted in meetings.
Scores of hours each week are eaten up by weakly-led meetings where participants leave asking the question: What on earth did that accomplish?
One method of keeping useless meetings at bay is what I call the what-who-when strategy.
Very simply, at the end of each point of discussion three questions asked are asked. What is going to be done? Who is going to do it? When is it going to be done by? These three simple questions will create action, accountability and a time frame within which progress must be made.
Then, of course, the leader must follow up and hold people accountable to accomplish their objectives.
Every set of meeting minutes should have three questions after each point: What? Who? When?
Think of it as your shuttle run of deliverables. By doing this you will increase your agility, and move closer to accomplishing your corporate Award of Excellence.
Kelowna-based David MacLean helps leaders through the Executive Committee Canada and his business, Wholehearted Leaders. Reach him at dmaclean@tec-canada.com.