From an organization’s perspective, personal agility is very important especially in this current era where business is changing at a very fast pace. There are many seminars, workshops, and exams for tools and methodologies in every organization. There are various models to develop people in a collective setting. Nevertheless, when it comes to the agility at a personal level, not much is out there to address in this arena. Therefore, to enhance the business agility in any given company, institution, or entity, an individual’s agility in many facets needs attention and honing.
“Enterprises must embrace a more fluid way of working to compete effectively—one that quickly allows for new technologies to be assessed, tested, analyzed, and acted upon. This ‘fail fast, succeed faster’ mentality requires a fundamental shift in work culture and behavior.”1
“Strive for progress not perfection” (unknown)
This quote personifies the Personal Agility Lighthouse (PALH™) model2 shown below in Figure 1 wholistically. This is one of the reasons we refer to the lighthouse as the goal. What does a lighthouse stand for and its symbolism to our topic Personal Agility? Lighthouses are constructed to withstand powerful storms and are frequently depicted as symbols of strength. They are also used to symbolize shelter, protection, and peace for the same reason. Lighthouses expose the connection between inanimate structures and human emotion in a way that few other buildings can. Equipped with powerful radio transmitters and lights bright enough to penetrate the darkness, lighthouses serve as maritime and aerial navigational aids. They are often used to symbolize true guidance and steadfastness in relationships, teams, and organizations, encapsulating their ability to weather any storm. Lighthouses have also been used to represent the determination to achieve goals, no matter the challenges. They are almost always erected in desolate places because that is where the guidance is of utmost importance. That is the symbolism that the seven agilities hold where individuals and teams hone their personal agility to achieve project and organizational performance excellence.
Figure 1
A lighthouse’s strong design and aura of imperturbability are used to depict strength and virility to withstand the strongest storms. However, lighthouses do not always evoke positive feelings. Because lighthouses tend to be located in isolated areas, they can symbolize fear, desolation, and death. Additionally, since their blinding light has occasionally guided ships to their destruction, lighthouses can represent deception and betrayal. Escape from inside a lighthouse is virtually impossible; for this reason, they have also been employed as symbols of bondage. Personal agility is no different with its ups and downs. Finding a way through these travails is what the seven agilities are deployed for.
The preamble to implement the model is to have an agile mindset. The framework will work only if the conviction is attuned to this outlook. The skill sets needed to tackle tomorrow’s possibilities is by charting a plan for self-improvement in our minds. The solutions for the challenges of tomorrow have its foundations in the experiences of today. We plan, sell, communicate, collaborate, and network globally across all cultures. We must embark on an honest reflection of what we do today and make conscious improvements. This process coupled with continuous learning will lead to the skill sets to break the paradigms and tackle the possibilities of the future.
To elaborate further; the VIBGYOR (Versatility, Ingenuity, Bridging, Gold Plating, Yield, Originality, Resilience)3 concept where management is shown as pursuing behaviors of management in various disciplines that engages and develops originality and creativeness for exceedingly successful outcomes and performances. Here management can be seen as a multicolored rainbow, where Versatility is stated as dependencies that link the management chain without breakage, but at the same time these dependencies need a versatile approach for easy collaboration and execution. This concept holds water in the performance of teams where each of the seven agilities is to be groomed as well.
We feel it is important that high performance in an organization is imperative. Perspectives of these seven flavors of ours are the sails that need to be directed appropriately for an organization to have its performance at its peak in our minds. Indeed, the search for competitive advantage is driving much of the rapid development amidst various dimensions. By improving the decision-making capability of managers and teams, management can help an organization enhance its competitive position in the market and be a high performer with profitability hand in hand. McClelland4 contended that three dominant needs underpin human motivation. The following three are the needs:
- Needs for achievement
- Needs for power
- Needs for affiliation
McClelland believed that the relative importance of each need varies among individuals and cultures. We feel that to understand this the seven agilities are to be embedded in the veins.
We take this theory a couple of steps further with the seven agilities of education agility, change agility, emotional agility, political agility, cerebral agility, learning agility and outcomes agility that we feel show the guiding light to the intended shore. High-performing organizations, those we call champions, develop the capability to continually finding your feet, adjusting, and innovating. To further this thought, Victor Vroom’s Expectancy Theory5 states that the intensity of a tendency to perform in a particular manner is dependent on the intensity of an expectation that the performance will be followed by a definite outcome and on the appeal of the outcome to the individual.
Discoveries through the journey of all the agilities brought us to the conclusion and research plus interviews unearthed that there is certainly a logic and segue so to speak for these seven agilities to have a distinct value chain. The value stream mapping is shown below.
Logic to the sequence for the seven agilities of the PALH™ model to transform individuals
The end goal is to get better at what you do, which can be enabled by ideation. According to Wikipedia, the word “Ideation”6 is the creative process of generating, developing, and communicating new ideas, where an idea is understood as a basic element of thought that can be visual, concrete, or abstract. Ideation comprises all stages of a thought cycle, from innovation, to development, to actualization.
“Ideate” is simply a tie into learning agility, education agility, and cerebral agility, which aligns with personal agility. Engaging these three supports the three concepts of personal agility, namely political agility, emotional agility, and change agility, making the ideation come to life. This brings about the perfect outcome intended, bringing the outcomes agility into the right beam of light. One needs to have change agility to ideate and engage.
As we go from personal agility, all the way to organizational agility, we sail through the seven principles given below that clear the path to the lighthouse. In the chapters that follow, we are going to elaborate the principles of our model given below.
Principles of the PALH™ model
1. We need to constantly keep advancing ourselves to reroute our capabilities—Education Agility
2. We need to relearn ourselves to improve competencies—Change Agility
3. We have to treat others with deference—Emotional Agility
4. We need transparency for organizational growth—Political Agility
5. We need to focus on organizational goals not the impediments of alterations—Cerebral Agility
6. We need to have the courage to say “I don’t know”—Learning Agility
7. We need to commit to excel in the outcome that is foreseen—Outcomes Agility