Hate a full day of meetings? Here’s why ‘agile’ works

Too many business leaders are seduced by consensus and hide behind spin. In contrast, the agile chief executive has strong self-belief and gets things done, writes Tony Featherstone.

In this era of corporate spin, too much business communication is outsourced and stage-managed to within an inch of its life. Is it any wonder that community trust in institutions is falling?

I know of chief executives who cannot write an email without using a professional copywriter. My favourite is the chief executive who hires a journalist to tweet on his behalf; the CEO is presumably too busy and boring and prefers to fool his followers.

Presentations also have become overly stage-managed. Too many managers think they are a budding TED speaker. Their talk begins with a manufactured anecdote, has fake passion, a few slides and cringeworthy delivery. They should stick to PowerPoint.

In my experience, communication styles say much about an organisation’s leadership, decision-making, culture and authenticity. They help reveal if a company will move to an agile model in the digital economy or remain a lumbering bureaucracy.

Management consultancy McKinsey & Co says rapid decision-making is one of the five traits of agile organisations. Action-oriented decision-making is central to agility. Staff members are empowered to make fast decisions and there are fewer approval layers.

More companies are trying to move to an agile model of smaller, self-contained, empowered and networked teams. The goal is to be adaptive and entrepreneurial in the digital economy and better able to withstand nimble startups taking market share.

Compare this approach with organisations that decide by consensus. A team, usually larger than needed, forms around a project and the leader will not cull staff from the decision-making process for fear of offending them. Decision timelines are fluid.

Too many people attend meetings, and meetings take forever to organise or are delayed due to absences. Phone or video conferencing is used because staff members are scattered across locations, further dulling meeting effectiveness. Sound familiar?

Each person reviews the project, sometimes changing a colleague’s changes. The project is exposed to other teams in the organisation, leading to unnecessary changes from people who are too far away from the new product and its customers.

This consensus decisionmaking style creates grinding, soul-destroying progress. The team leader wants to be inclusive, encouraging and supportive, so listens to all opinions and factors them into the final product. Customers are lost in the process.

Worse, the project lacks authenticity and a voice. The internal process is more about internal politics and selfpromotion than exceeding customer expectations.

Compare that with an agile approach where a small, empowered team drives the project. The focus is on rapid project iteration and tight deadlines. More action, less talk.

Crucially, the team leader owns the project. They make quick decisions, confident in their skill and accountability for the finished product. They take risks.

I have interviewed many entrepreneurial chief executives who use this approach. They do not need questions emailed a week in advance of the interview or staff members who prepare scripted answers. They talk on their feet, have strong self-belief and get things done.

Their communication is authentic and stakeholders believe the message because they can tell it has not been workshopped by spin doctors.

I can accept large listed companies having an overly cautious approvals approach. They are subject to sharemarket continuous disclosure rules and law firms (through class actions) are waiting for them to trip up.

But too many organisations have allowed technology to lengthen rather than shorten decision-making processes and

Companies do not realise a dozen people were involved in the project when it needed only three or four.

have been seduced by a consensus style. Risk aversion in product launches is endemic.

The underlying problem is companies not auditing decisionmaking processes. They do not realise a dozen people were involved in the project when it needed only three or four, or that two of the five approval layers were unnecessary.

Next time you work on a new project, ask yourself: How many people were involved and did each need to be there? How many reviewed the project and were all reviews necessary? Was there too much decision-making by group consensus?

If more than a handful of key people are involved in the main review process, ask why. There might be a good reason, but as organisations grow they usually have more people and diaries to fill with unnecessary work. Sydney Morning Herald