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GROWINGAGILITY


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2 Introduction4 Agility and change6 Personal agility8 Emotional agility10 Acceptance and commitment therapy12 Habits14 Flexibility18 Relationship agility20 Resilience22 Agility at scale26 Organisational agility27 Volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity28 Leadership agility31 Strategic agility34 Portfolio agility35 IT Agility36 BYOD and BMAD38 Agile absoption39 Innovating after failure

41 Spotting opportunities (and dangers)

44 Conclusion45 Reading list

CONTENTS.


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IntroductionGrowing Agility

In ancient Greece, people told storiesabout a fantastical creature knownas a centaur: half-man, half-horse,with the strength of both combined.

Its thought that the myth was bornwhen people saw horseback ridersfor the rst time. Because theydnever had the idea to tame, train andride a wild horse themselves, theconcept of a person on horseback wasinconceivable. The centaur was theirattempt to interpret what they saw.

Why are we talking about a Greekmyth? Well, the gure of thecentaur taps into the heart ofwhy agility is important. Its about

recognising and seizing opportunitiesthat others simply cant see.

INTRODUCTION.In business, you cant predict and plan for every eventuality. What youdo have control over is how you will respond. Thats what growing agilityis about: becoming more exible in your behaviour, and developingyour ability to dodge, jump, tackle or even pick yourself up after beinghit by those curveballs that work throws, whether its getting feedbackthats hard to swallow, losing out on a promotion, or a failed project.

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The ancient Greeks in our story whoinvented the myth of the centaurwerent agile. But the horsebackriders, the centaurs, were. They madea mental leap and realised that theycould harness the strength, speed andstamina of the horse for their ownneeds, even though it hadnt beendone before. And as a result, theyended up being elevated to mythicalstatus by their less innovative peers.


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1 Design Your Day , Nokia, http://nokia.ly/DYDebook

2 Mobile Mastery , Nokia,http://nokia.ly/MMebook,

3 Teams That Flow, Nokia,http://nokia.ly/TTFebook

Centaurs reappeared manyyears later in the 1990s, with theinvention of centaur chess, whereplayers brought their sport to newheights by playing in partnershipwith computers. Amateurs wereable to defeat grandmasters bycombining the analytical power andvast memory of a machine with thehuman capacity for creative decision-making and mental dexterity.

Both kinds of centaurs show therewards that can be reaped bybeing agile enough to spot theopportunities o ered by new ideas,emerging technology or change,and taking advantage of themswiftly. In our working lives, weshould all aim for the kind of agilityexempli ed by the centaurs.

Growing Agility is the fourth bookin Nokias Smarter Everyday series:in Design Your Day 1 we looked athow to employ design thinking to

improve your productivity; MobileMastery 2 was about how to forgea mindful, purposeful and playfulrelationship with the technologyin your life; Teams That Flow 3 was

about how to collaborate moree ciently; in Growing Agility wewill build on all these themes.

Over the course of this book, well lookat how you can become more agile ona personal and emotional level, andalso at how you can scale those ideasup to teams and whole organisations.

Introduction3

Agile

For some, agility will always besynonymous with agile softwaredevelopment. While what weretalking about in Growing Agilityhas plenty in common withagile, its not the same thing.

While agile provides an approachto project management andteam structure, here werelooking at ideas to increase yourpersonal agility, the agility ofyour team, and the agility of theorganisation you work for.


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4 Nassim Nicholas Taleb,Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder

At present, the pace of changefeels relentless new technologyhas changed our workinglives beyond recognition anddisrupted whole industries.

Many of us like to think that changeis rare - we feel like it should be aone-o event, with a beginning andan end. The reality is that changeis a constant state - nothing staysthe same forever. If this seemsdaunting, agility is your friend.

Knowing that you are agile - thatyou can react quickly and accurately

- makes change less intimidating.

Agility is liberating and makes youstronger. With agility, the thingsyou cant see over the horizon,the obstacle in your path, the

new discoveries, are sourcesof opportunity and excitement,rather than things to fear.

Agility and change.Change is the catalyst for agility. Without change throwing obstacles inour path, theres no need to be nimble, light and able to react quickly.

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Nassim Nicholas Taleb coined theterm antifragile to describe thisquality of being strengthened bychange. In his book Antifragile: ThingsThat Gain From Disorder he writes:

Some things bene t from shocks;they thrive and grow whenexposed to volatility, randomness,disorder, and stressors, and loveadventure, risk, and uncertainty.Yet, in spite of the ubiquity ofthe phenomenon, there is noword for the exact opposite offragile. Let us call it antifragile.Antifragility is beyond resilienceor robustness. The resilientresists shocks and stays the same;the antifragile gets better. 4


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5 Emily Lawson and Colin Price,The psychology of change management,McKinsey Quarterly, http://nokia.ly/1guJceG

But becoming more agile is achange in itself. So how can youmake change easier to swallow?McKinsey suggests that the followingfour things can make changeeasier on a psychological level:

1. PurposeWhen you act in a way that doesnt

t your beliefs, you experiencesomething called cognitivedissonance. Cognitive dissonanceis an enemy of change, becauseit means you dont fully believein what youre doing. To makechange stick, you need to havea story that rings true to youabout why you should change. Inthis book, well try and tell you astory about why becoming moreagile is a change worth making.

2. Reinforcement and rewardYoure more likely to adopt anew behaviour if it is rewardedand reinforced through things

like goals, targets and rewards.However, we like novelty too,and over time rewards andreinforcements get boring andbecome less e ective. Coming upwith new goals and rewards will helpyou maintain a change over time.

3. Time and practiceWe cant change instantly, it takestime and practice. To change, youneed to absorb new information inchunks, test it out, and integrateit with your existing behaviour.

4. Role modelsHaving role models aroundyou, particularly at work, canhelp changes to stick, byproviding tangible proofthat change is possible. 5

In any moment of decision, the bestthing you can do is the right thing. Theworst thing you can do is nothing.Theodore Roosevelt

Introduction5


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PERSONAL AGILITY.Agility starts with you, and personal agility is your ability to react tothe world around you in a timely and appropriate way.

Being more agile on a personal levelhas a number of advantages. It leavesyou better able to react to change,take advantage of opportunities andprotect yourself from threats. It canalso make you feel happier and moresatis ed, because being agile is abouttaking control of situations that mightotherwise leave you feeling powerlessand stressed.

In this section, were going to look athow to achieve this. Well cover:

Emotional agility Habits Flexibility Relationship agility Resilience


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With greater emotional agility youcan maximise your con dence, turnnegative emotions into positivethoughts and access humility thatyou might not know youre capable of.Emotional agility isnt just valuable inyour personal life though; its one ofthe most valuable business skills thatyou can possess.

Traditionally, a lot of people think ofthe workplace as somewhere whereemotions shouldnt come into play,and some of us even pride ourselveson being emotionless at work.

However, work is emotional - successin business can feel just as great as itdoes in your personal life, and failureand disappointment can be just asbitter. The answer isnt to block outthese feelings - its to approach themin an agile way.

Every decision you make throughoutthe day is motivated not just by thethings you observe, but also by yourunique subconscious inclinations,the so called gut feelings that havede ned many great business leaders.

Sometimes gut feelings can betrusted to point the way, and othertimes the best course is to ignorethose feelings and focus on the facts.Thats when emotional agility comesinto play.

At its core, emotional agility is about knowing yourself, and developing a greaterlevel of control over your feelings and reactions.

7Growing Agility Personal agility

Emotional agility.

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6 Susan David and Christina Congleton,Emotional Agility , Harvard Business Review,http://nokia.ly/18o3bc8

In an article for the Harvard Business Review , Susan David and Christina Congletonoutline a simple method for evaluating your level of emotional agility:

1. Choose a situation in your working day that would normally challenge you. This could be anything from public speaking to negotiating contractual terms- any task that makes you feel under pressure.

2. Identify the thoughts that come into your head in that situation - for example Im going to make a mistake or Im not being respected.

3. Identify the associated feelings that come with those thoughts -for example fear or anger.

4. Ask yourself how much you try to make that thought and the associatedfeelings go away - a lot, or not all?

5. Ask yourself the extent to which you buy into and believe those thoughtsand feelings - a lot, or not at all? 6

Personal agilityGrowing Agility 8


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9 Personal agilityGrowing Agility 9

Look at your answers to thesequestions. Are you trying to ignoreyour thoughts and feelings? Are youbuying into them? If the answer is yes,you could bene t from being moreemotionally agile.

Being more emotionally agile meansbeing mindful of your thoughts andfeelings, and addressing them in apurposeful way, rather than ignoringthem, or obsessing over them. Whenyou achieve emotional agility, youll

nd that it can help to cut yourlevels of stress and improve yourperformance at work.

The trick to being emotionally agileis not to try and suppress your innerthoughts and instincts, or to acceptthem unquestioningly. Instead, whenwe display emotional agility, we areanalytical, goal-focussed, and inpossession of total clarity - uncloudedby the inner monologue of Im not

good enough to do this, or mycolleagues are ignoring me.

Its normal and healthy to feelemotions at work - trying to ignorethose feelings is counter-productive.Emotions are the result of thesituations we nd ourselves in; ratherthan suppressing your emotions youshould make an e ort to acknowledgethem instead. Take a brief pause tolisten to what your brain is telling you,and then take action accordingly.

If negative thoughts dominate yourmind, rather than forcing yourselfto ignore them you may bene tfrom a brief pause to realign yourperspective. Consider how much ofthat emotion is based on objectivefacts, rather than assumptions, andhow much of the matter is within yourcontrol. Try to see the reality of theissue more clearly, and approach itwith calm, assured logic.

Being able to take the reins of youremotions and swiftly check any

negative patterns before they takecharge will allow you to be moreproductive, driven, healthy, and aboveall, happy in your daily life.


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Personal agilityGrowing Agility

7 Robert Zettle, ACT for Depression: A Clinicians Guide to UsingAcceptance and Commitment Therapy

One approach is through the use ofacceptance and commitment therapy(ACT). ACT is a kind of behaviouranalysis that uses mindfulness,acceptance and behaviour change totry and teach people to better controltheir thoughts and feelings, and aimsto promote psychological exibility.

According to ACT, when wereemotionally distressed its the resultof being too rigid psychologically. Ifwere too unbending in our behaviour,we get cognitively entangled -bogged down in negative emotions,constantly revisiting our mistakes andsetbacks, unable to move forward.

Acceptance andcommitment therapy.Lets have a look at how we can putemotional agility into practice.

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According to the ACT model, mostproblems are caused by mentalbehaviours at a root level. Thesemental behaviours are explainedby the acronym, FEAR:

F usion with your thoughts. Evaluation of experience. Avoidance of your experience. Reason-giving for your behaviour. 7

The positive alternative to FEAR is ACT:

Accept your reactions and be present. C hoose a valued direction. Take action.


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8 Dr Russell Harris,Embracing Your Demons: an Overview of Acceptanceand Commitment Therapy, Psychotherapy in Australia,http://nokia.ly/18o2K1w

The six core principles of ACT which can help you develop the psychologicalexibility you need to be more agile in your working life are:

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1. Cognitive defusionLearning methods to reduce thetendency of making abstractthoughts, images, emotions,and memories more real.

2. AcceptanceAllowing thoughts to come andgo without struggling with them.

3. Contact with the present momentAwareness of the here and now,experienced with openness,interest, and receptiveness.

4. Observing the selfAccessing a transcendentsense of self, a continuity ofconsciousness that is unchanging.

5. ValuesDiscovering what is mostimportant to ones true self.

6. Committed actionSetting goals according to valuesand carrying them out responsibly. 8

Being mindful about repetitivemental behaviour that resultin unproductive loops is theprimary goal. Its not aboutignoring setbacks or forcingyourself to be cheerful in theface of adversity, but ratherconditioning yourself to recognisethe way that you are feeling(e.g. regretful or embarrassed),rationally determining a path tomove beyond that feeling, andthen beginning the process ofdoing what needs to be done.

In times of di culty, the hardestthing is often doing anything atall, as problems can be like sticky

ypaper for the brain. The sooneryou can pick yourself up and begin

something anew, the sooner youcan leave past mistakes where theybelong - con ned to the past.


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Habits.Up to 40% of our actions are performed without consciousdecision on our part 9 - theyre the result of habit.

In neurological terms, a habitis a cycle of repetitive actionscreated over time by consistentreinforcement of patterns inthe brain. Its a shorthand yourmind uses to repeat conditionedtasks while conserving as muchmental energy as possible.

We can perform tasks like makinga cup of co ee or walking to workwithout having to think too deeplyabout what were doing, becausetheyve formed as habits. Thiscan be an advantage in manysituations - delegating easy tasksto your subconscious frees up

mental capacity for other things.But approaching some areas ofyour work like this - just followingyour normal course of action,without thinking, without lookingfor new ways of doing things - isthe opposite of being agile.

Agility is all about being readyand willing to take an unexpectedcourse of action. Its important tothink about times when followingyour normal pattern has causedyou to miss out on an opportunity,and what habits you need to break(or at least be more aware of) sothat it doesnt happen again.

5 Mihly Cskszentmihlyi,Flow: The Psychology of the Optimal Experience

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7 David Neal, Wendy Wood, Jefrey Quinn, Habits - a repeat performance, Current Directions in Psychological Science

http://nokia.ly/1d9JL8e


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13 Personal agilityGrowing Agility

10 Charles Duhigg,The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life And Business

Charles Duhigg, author of The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in LifeAnd Business , writes that habits are a loop made up of three steps:

1. The cueThe cue is a trigger that sparksthe habit loop. It could be alocation, a time of day, an action,or a person or people, or a feeling.

2. The routineThis is the action that is triggeredby your brain responding to a cue.

3. The rewardThe reward is the bene t youget from your routine. 10

Try to identify the habit loops thatstand between you and greateragility. What are the cues that spark anegative pattern of behaviour - beingchallenged by a colleague, unexpectedchanges, or your annual appraisal?What is the routine you fall into - doyou feel angry, upset, do you criticise

or doubt yourself? It might seem liketheres no reward to these negativebehaviour loops (there certainlyisnt on a psychological level) but ona physical level, there is a reward -

adrenaline. Your subconscious mindexperiences these threats in the sameway as it would if you were beingchased by a lion across the savannah,and it gives your body a bump ofadrenaline to help it cope.

To break these negative habit loops,try to respond to the cues witha di erent routine. The six coreprinciples of ACT that we discussedin the previous chapter may helpyou approach a di cult situationin a new way, and achieve a happieroutcome and a tting resolution,rather than just unpleasant emotionsand an ultimately unsatisfying jolt ofadrenaline.

We are what we repeatedlydo. Excellence, then, is notan act, but a habit.

Aristotle


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However, many of us are hooked onthe idea that we have a particularpersonality type that dictates how weact. This kind of thinking is the enemyof exibility and agility, and absolvesus of responsibility over our actions.

In their book Flex: Do SomethingDi erent , Ben Fletcher andKaren Pine suggest that wehave three kinds of habit:

1. Habits of perception How we make sense of the world.

2. Habits of attitudeOur biases and prejudices.

3. Habits of behaviourThe things we do.

We go through many situations on

autopilot, relying on these three kindsof habit and past behaviour patternsto decide our course of action.

Flexibility.Improving your emotional agility and changing your habitsboth rely on developing exibility in your behaviour.

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So rather than our behaviour being the result of a personality type, it is morethe result of always doing things the same way. 11 And that isnt a good thing:

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On the face of it, it just doesnt makesense for a person to behave thesame way in all types of di erentsituations. The world is constantlychanging, families are dynamic,people die, jobs change or are lost,

nances grow and shrink and thesechanges call for adaptability anddi erent responses. The more xeda persons personality is, the hardertheyll nd it to adapt to the new. Themore vulnerable they will be to stress.Life is so varied and so changeablethat there isnt one personality typesuited to it. How can a person makethe most of what life throws at themif they have xed ways of being? Ifthey approach todays situationswith yesterdays strategies?. 12

Fletcher and Pine suggest thatthe answer to this is to ex - to

try and make your behaviour lesspredictable and more spontaneous.

The way they suggest doing thiscouldnt be easier: its as simpleas doing something di erent. Itcan be something very small andseemingly insigni cant. Someof their suggestions include:

Dont wear your watch for the day.

Sit in place youve neversat before.

Tell a stranger a joke.

Go for a walk and take pictures ofthe things you see.

Pick up some litter. 13

The theory is that doing somethingdi erent, something that youwouldnt normally do, can help

spark change by making you moreexible. Try one of the ideas above

and see what happens as a result.

11,12, 13 Ben Fletcher and Karen Pine,vFlex: Do Something Di erent


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DONT WEAR YOUR

WATCH FOR THE DAY.

SIT IN PLACE YOUVENEVER SAT BEFORE.

TELL A STRANGER A JOKE.


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GO FOR A WALK ANDTAKE PICTURES OFTHE THINGS YOU SEE.

PICK UP SOME LITTER.


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Your personal and emotional agilityplay an important role in yourworking relationships in two ways.

Firstly, if you have a high level ofpersonal agility you will nd it easierto work and collaborate with yourcolleagues. This isnt about alwaysgiving way to others - that mightnot always be the right course ofaction. What its really about is beingable to be exible in your behaviourand reactions. Those unpleasantthoughts and di cult emotions thatwe discussed in the Emotional agilitychapter are often the result of ourinteractions with others - if you canbe mindful of your reactions, movebeyond negative thoughts and nda way out of a challenging situationwith a colleague it will help strengthenyour relationship with them.

Relationship agility.Relationship agility refers your ability to be exiblein your interactions with other people.

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The second way personal agilitycan help is in a ecting the mood ofthe whole team. Emotions can becontagious - in the hive-mind of aclosely-knit group a bad mood canspread quickly, a ecting moraleand productivity. This is particularlytrue if the negative thoughts andfeelings are coming from the leaderof the team - if the leader is feelinggood, then so does the rest of thegroup, but when they let negativeemotions take over, it spreads like avirus, a ecting every aspect of thegroup dynamic. This can happenwithout us even realising it.


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Its human nature to mirror thefeelings and behaviours of thosearound us. If the person were talkingto smiles, so do we. If they are sad,our own faces will shift to a frownre exively. If the members of theteam (and the leader in particular)have a high level of emotionalagility, it can make a huge di erencein terms of keeping it happy andproductive, as everyone makes ane ort to keep their negative feelingsunder control and be mindful of theemotions of those around them.

Emotional agility is a key factor whenits time to join a new team. Startinga new job can be daunting at thebest of times, and those who makethe smoothest transition and t inquickest will be those that have thehighest level of emotional agility.

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14 Laurence Gonzales,Surviving Surv ival: The Art and Science of Resilience

Resilience is another kind of agility -its the speed with which you canadapt to a setback, and return toyour normal level of productivity.

If a client gives you negative feedback,does it throw you o for the rest of theday? If your boss rejects one of yourideas, how long will it be before youhave the courage to pitch another?

While you cant always control yourcircumstances, at the very least youcan strive to control your response,and agile minds nd it much easierto climb back on the metaphoricalhorse after being bucked o .

Laurence Gonzales, author ofSurviving Survival: The Art and

Science of Resilience writes abouta concept called the locus ofcontrol. Gonzales claims thatpeople either view themselves ashaving an internal locus of control,which means they fundamentallybelieve that they control their own

Resilience.Even with a high level of personal agility, sometimes things will gowrong - we wont react in quite enough time, or well choose the wrongcourse of action. When things do go wrong and were blindsided,its resilience that allows us to recover and thrive again.

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destiny, or they have an externallocus of control, and believe thatevents happen purely by chance.

According to Gonzales, those whobelieve they can directly control theirexperiences are better equippedto deal with adversity, su er lessstress, and respond better tocriticism. The self-assurance that youare in control can result in a moreoptimistic outlook - it means that yourproblems are within your power tosolve, and nothing is set in stone. 14

Resilience isnt an inborn trait - itsa skill you can learn. A few smallcognitive adjustments can transforma setback into an opportunity, anda major dip in motivation into

a drive to better ourselves.

The rst step is to simply acknowledgewhat has happened, and carefullyallow yourself to recognise twothings about the situation:


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1. The real consequences (andnot what you fear they might be).

2. How it has made you feel.

For example, lets imagine that youdiscover that piece of work for whichyou are responsible is going to missits deadline. Firstly, try to mentallyseparate your concerns (were goingto lose the client, or my colleagueswill think Im unreliable) from objectivecertainties. Focus solely on what youknow, and what can be done next. Inour example, it is a certainty that theclient will need to be informed that thepiece will be late. It is also a certaintythat adjustments must be made tospeed up the schedule, and the wheelsshould be set in motion to facilitatethose adjustments. By making thesefacts overt, you arrive right away ata set of clear actions for your nextsteps. The greatest threat of failureor misfortune is that it stuns us intoimmobility - the paralysis of fear that

so many of us struggle to recover from.

This process is known as strategicacceptance, and is an enormouslyuseful mental process for situations ofupheaval, di culty, and unpredictability.The key is to not think that a problemmeans more problems are to come;

instead, a problem only meansthat the way forward is clear.

Once the path forward has beenilluminated, spare a moment to bemindful of your own wellbeing. Are yousuddenly nervous? Are you angry?

Any intrusive thoughts will distractyou and negatively a ect yourperformance, so hasty progress maynot be the best strategy. Being agileisnt a race; your decisions need tobe logically sound. Take a moment toadjust your adrenaline level by takinga walk around the o ce, or talking toa colleague about an unrelated matter.Set yourself a time frame so that youarent avoiding the problem. After

fteen minutes or so, consider if youare calm enough to make an informedchoice, and if so, resume work. If not,you may need to take a deeper look atyour fears and address the larger issue.

None of us look forward to obstacles,

but it is important to be prepared forthem, so that we arent left powerlesswhen things dont go according toplan. With the exibly of agility andthe robustness of resilience, youshould have everything you needto deal with any eventuality.

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Agility at scaleGrowing Agility

One of the greatest challenges tothe agile mind-set is that agilitybecomes harder to achieve thelarger your company or greateryour personal success.

Growth and success pose a challengeto staying agile and being ableto react fast - there are moreconnections and implications thatmake you feel like you cant movequickly or make dramatic changes indirection. When an obstacle appearsin your path, you can feel like a

juggernaut - your only option is toslow down and hope the obstacle willgo away, or try to crush it in your path.

But the kinds of changes werefacing in our era arent likely to just go away, and theyve alreadyderailed plenty of businesses that

tried to carry on regardless.

Its the time to learn how to be agileat any size. Its bene cial to makeagility part of your DNA and part ofthat of your organisation - make sure

AGILITY AT SCALE.An agile organisation begins with agile people. The measure of business agility ishow successfully personal agility can be scaled up to an organisation as a whole.

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that your people feel that they havethe ability and freedom to be agile,and that this attitude can scale up toteams and the whole organisation.

Its also time to start rating agilityas highly as growth; building yourability to change and adapt shouldbe just as important as growing insize or reaching business targets.

Nokia started as a paper mill, thenmoved into rubber, then cable andelectronics, then radio telephones,then mobile phones, followingchanges in society, adapting to andinnovating new technologies over thepast 150 years. The former makerof rubber galoshes, tires and TVsintroduced multitasking mobileswith basic web-based functionsin 1999, and is poised to start a

new chapter, once the plannedacquisition by Microsoft of theDevices and Service business (thepart of the business that develops,manufactures, sells and supportssmartphones and mobile phones)is completed, which is expectedin the rst quarter of 2014.. 15

15 The Nokia Story, Nokia,http://nokia.ly/17mxiwT


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Agility at scaleGrowing Agility 23

The ideal to strive for is anorganisation thats agile through andthrough - where each individualspersonal agility combines to makethe whole organisation agile. Agilitygaps can occur at any and everylevel of a company, from theexecutives to the rank and le.

In the second half of this book, welllook at how to build on the ideasdiscussed in Personal agility androll them out to an entire company.

Whenever you see a successfulbusiness, someone once madea courageous decision.Peter Drucker

Twitter was the product of a hackday at a podcasting platform calledOdeo - it became apparent thatactually this side project had morepotential than the primary productdid, so the company refocused andstarted again, with huge success.

Blockbuster struggled because itfailed to adapt to the way peoplesviewing habits were changing due tonew technology. Meanwhile companieslike YouTube and later Net ix saw theopportunity and took it. Net ix hasntstopped there either - its now makingTV companies nervous by producingits own content, and securing therights to show the kind of hot-ticketprogrammes that would previouslyhave been reserved for big networks.


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Nokia started as a paper mill, then moved into rubber,then cable and electronics, then radio telephones, thenmobile phones, following changes in society, adapting to


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Organisational agilityGrowing Agility 26

A McKinsey survey found thatnine out of ten executives rankedorganisational agility as being criticalto business success and as growingin importance over time. The surveyalso found that businesses that weremore agile had higher revenues, moresatis ed customers and employees,and improved operational e ciency. 16

In order to make your organisationtruly agile, as well as agile employees,you need several di erent kinds ofagility to come together, and wewill look at each of the followingkinds of agility in more detailin the rest of this section:

ORGANISATIONALAGILITY.Organisational agility, also known as business agility, is the speed withwhich a company can make decisions, take action, and operate internally.

Leadership agility Strategic agility Portfolio agility IT agility Agile absorption

16 Building a nimble organisat ion, McKinsey


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Organisational agility

Originally derived from militaryterminology, it is used in businessas a framework to analyse changes,opportunities and challenges:

VolatilityIs the change fast or slow? Arethere any external factors thatcould speed it up or slow it down?

UncertaintyIs the situation predictable? Howlikely is it that youll be surprised?

ComplexityHow many di erent factorsand forces have an impacton the situation?

AmbiguityHow clear cut is the situation?Is it likely that you could misread it?

Volatility, uncertainty,complexity, andambiguity.VUCA stands for volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity.

We mention it here, because times ofchange, opportunity and challenge arewhen agility really comes into play.

Remembering the acronym andthinking about these four qualities canhelp you to ask the right questionsand choose the right course of action.You should also remember to useit to analyse the risks associatedwith not making a move, as well asthe risks that come with making it.

If you are deliberately trying to createa future that feels safe, you willwilfully ignore the future that is likely.Seth Godin

Growing Agility 27


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Growing Agility

17 David Wilkinson,The Ambiguity Advantage: What Great Leaders Are Great At

If you want to thrive through change,having a leader who exempli es agilityis a huge advantage. An agile leaderwill increase your chances of havingthe kind of agile strategy you need.(Well discuss strategic agility more inthe next chapter.) Leadership agilityreally comes into its own when theresa change or obstacle on the horizon -in the face of that ambiguity, knowingthat the person at the top has theability to react, adapt and choose theright course of action is reassuringand inspiring to everyone involved.

David Wilkinson, author of TheAmbiguity Advantage: What GreatLeaders Are Great At , writes thatthere are four modes of leadership:

Leadership agility.Leadership agility is the ability of a person to command and guidea team or organisation through changes and challenges. Its acrucial bridge between being agile on a personal level and beingagile on an organisational level - the two halves of this book.

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1. Technical leadershipThese leaders are averseto ambiguity and risk, andattempt to create certaintyin the face of ambiguity.

2. Cooperative leadershipThese leaders try to explainuncertainty, and build teamsaround them to mitigate risk.

3. Adaptive/collaborativeleadershipThese leaders focus on makingsure there is agreement ondecisions, and get the group tolook at ambiguity together.

4. Generative leadershipThese leaders use ambiguity

to nd opportunity, andtend to be life-long learnersand proli c innovators. 17


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The fourth mode - generative leadership - tends to be themost agile mode, because the people who exemplify it welcomechange, are comfortable with ambiguity and thrive in the kindof situations that leaders who t the rst mode fear.

Some people have an inclinationtowards agility, and will naturallyfall into the fourth mode ofleadership. But if youre not innatelythat kind of leader, you shouldntthink that youre locked into oneparticular mode of leadership. Youcan develop your leadership styleand grow your agility to meet theneeds of your organisation.

What will make the di erence is acommitment to growing your agilityand making it a part of your leadershipstyle. The following ve traits areall key to leadership agility - thinkabout how you can develop theseskills and characteristics in yourself:

1. Welcoming change and ambiguityThe most important attributeis to teach yourself not to fearchange, and to look for theopportunities that it o ers.

2. Curiosity and love of learningMost of us are curious in one wayor another, often the issue is thatwe feel we dont have the time todedicate to following that naturalcuriosity and learning new things.Make time in your day for learning

- even if its only reading thatinteresting article you bookmarkedbut never got around to looking at.

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Organisational agilityGrowing Agility

18 http://nokia.ly/DYDebook19 http://nokia.ly/TTFebook

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3. Creativity and visionCreativity isnt inborn, we all havethe capacity to innovate. The keyis to create the right environment

- Design Your Day 18 and TeamsThat Flow 19 are both full of tipsto help you accomplish this.

4. Emotional agility andself-awarenessWe explained the importanceof emotional agility and self-awareness in the rst sectionof this book, and it is no lessimportant for leaders - it helpsyou to understand the reasonsfor your behaviour and decisions.

5. Courage and convictionTo make bold decisions, and makethem fast, you need no smallamount of courage and plenty

of conviction in your decisions.To have courage and conviction,you need belief in yourselfand the team around you.


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Strategy and agility might seemincompatible at rst glance.Strategy is seen as slow, laborious,monolithic, whereas agility is fast,nimble, small. However, strategycan be agile, and agility is actuallyan advantageous strategic quality.It gives you a greater chance of

spotting and seizing game-changingopportunities, 20 to quote Donald Sull,a professor of management practiceat the London Business School.

In his book The Upside of Turbulence:Seizing Opportunity in an UncertainWorld, Sull explains the importanceof being able to make fast decisionsthrough the example of Mittal Steel.

Lakshmi Mittal, the founder of thecompany, embraced turbulence andgrew a single steel mill in Indonesia

into one of the most valuablecompanies in the world at a timewhen other steel companies werestruggling. One of his seemingly mostrisky but ultimately shrewd decisionswas the purchase of one of the largeststeel mills in the world in Kazakhstan,

Strategic agility.Strategic agility means approaching your strategy in anagile way, as well making agility a part of it.

despite the fact it was in a state ofdisrepair, running at half capacity, wassusceptible to earthquakes, and camewith the responsibility of running anorphanage, hospital, trams, schoolsand a newspaper in the neighbouringtown. Despite all these potentialissues, and the fact that he hadlittle knowledge of Kazakhstan as acountry, Mittal acted fast and boughtit within a month, and it proved tobe a hugely successful endeavour. 21

Growing Agility

20 Donald Sull,Managing in uncertainty: competing th roughorganisational agility, McKinsey Quarterly

http://nokia.ly/1kDcncQ

21 Donald Sull, The Upside of Turbulence: SeizingOpportunit y in an Uncertain World

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22,23 Professor Yves Doz and Mikko Kosonen,Fast Strategy: How Strategic Agility Will HelpYou Stay Ahead of the Game

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Nokia has also experienced successby being strategically agile; in the1990s everyone else saw mobilephones as a professional service,

but Nokia correctly predicted thatmobile phones would be a consumerproduct with near-universalreach and acted accordingly. 22

In their book Fast Strategy: HowStrategic Agility Will Help You StayAhead of the Game , Yves Doz,professor of strategic management,and Mikko Kosonen, a former CIOat Nokia, write that there are threekey dimensions of strategic agility:

1. Strategic sensitivityBeing aware of new trendsor developments (and theirimplications) early on.

2. Collective commitmentThe ability of leaders tomake bold decisions quickly.

3. Resource uidityHaving the internalability to recon gure and redeploy resources fast. 23

These three factors provide a goodframework within which strategicagility can occur, because togetherthey mean that you have the

awareness of opportunities (andrisks), can make decisions aboutwhat action to take quickly, and thenspring into action with equal speed.

Truly successful decision-makingrelies on a balance betweendeliberate and instinctive thinking.Malcolm Gladwell


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When an organisation has agilityhardwired into everything it does,from the way it communicates, tothe decisions that it makes, itsonly natural that the same logicbe applied to the business thatthey do. Being con dent that youknow your eld inside and out is,without question, the hallmark ofany market leader, but that doesntmean your business should betethered to just one type of activity.

Involvement with a broad range ofinterconnected yet independentstreams of business is a conceptknown as portfolio agility. This ismost likely the domain of the mostsenior managers in any company, butbeing able to spot opportunities andkeep an open mind for diversi cationis the true test of agile management.

Portfolio agility.Portfolio agility is a companys ability to move resources betweendi erent areas of a business in a timely and e cient way.

Great ideas can come from just aboutanywhere, so those at the top ofthe chain need to be prepared tospread attention across individualdepartments, not just the granddirection of the company as a whole.

Growing Agility 33


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Organisational agilityGrowing Agility 34

Donald Sull writes that the way toavoid running into di culty withportfolio agility is to systemiseexecutive power within eachdepartment. Without the ability tocontrol their own fate, more isolateddepartments can frequently beneglected or starved of resources,especially within larger corporations.

By granting more power at lowerlevels, you reduce the strainon higher-tier management byremoving the need for them topay attention to minutiae, andyou empower every branch of thebusiness with the opportunityto grow their own success. 24

20 Donald Sull,Managing in uncertainty: competing throughorganisational agility, McKinsey Quarterly

http://nokia.ly/1kDcncQ


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IT agility is a valuable quality,because having the right technologyhelps people do their jobs better,faster and more e ciently, andalso provides an opportunity toget ahead of the competition.

VUCA (the acronym we introduced atthe start of this section) is particularlyrelevant for IT agility, where therapid pace of technological changecan amplify volatility, uncertainty,complexity and ambiguity.

Bearing VUCA in mind as arisk assessment of sorts, thefollowing tips could help youto boost your IT agility:

1. Look for new opportunitiesIn order to be truly agile, you needto be ahead of the curve when

it comes to knowing what newtools, devices, software, devicesand trends are emerging. (See thechapter on Spotting opportunitiesfor ideas on how to do this.)

2. Make time for playtimeMake time to try things out andexperiment with new technology.

A small budget of time andmoney to invest in new tech

IT agility.IT agility is about is how quickly you are able to discover andadopt new technologies into your working processes.

toys for your o ce could leadto brilliant new discoveries.

3. Try a pilot schemeIf a new piece of technologypasses the play test, or if theressomething that people areclamouring for, but youre notready (or able) to take the plungeand roll it out full-scale, you couldtry a pilot scheme to see howviable the idea is, and highlight anyproblems or bene ts early on.

4. Work on your exibilityBeing reliant on one single toolor piece of tech is a risk, and willultimately make it harder you to beagile. Look for new opportunitiestoday to avoid being caught with allyour eggs in one basket tomorrow.

Growing Agility 35


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A number of businesses haveintroduced a BYOD (bring your owndevice) policy, where workers bringtheir own smartphones, tablets, andeven laptops to the o ce. The BYODtrend has grown rapidly over thepast years, and workplaces whereBYOD isnt an o cial policy ndthat it happens anyway, becausepeople notice that the tools theyuse at home will also be useful atwork. (Although there may be anelement of wanting to show o thelatest must-have gadget too!)

One step further than BYOD isBMAD (buy me a device), where thebusiness takes requests and buyssta the tools that they say they need.

With both BYOD and BMAD there areadvantages and disadvantages:

BYOD and BMAD.Another way to increase your IT agility is to put your sta in charge.

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Pros: Opportunities for agility

and innovation - you tap intothe opinions, knowledge andideas of more of your stathrough the tools they bringto work or ask for.

Productivity - making sure peoplehave the right tools for theirindividual needs makesthem more productive.

Satisfaction and trust -showing that you trust youremployees enough to choose theirown tools can help to boostemployee satisfaction. It sends agreat message to the outside world,and to potential employees whoare really passionate about

technology too.

Cost-savings - allowing peopleto bring their own devices ratherthan buying them has obviouscost bene ts.


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Cons: Interoperability and compatibility-

devices from di erent makersrunning on di erent operatingsystems can represent a challengewhen it comes to editing, saving andsharing documents between users.

Security - allowing people touse their own devices has obviousrami cations for IT security due to di erent operating system basedcharacteristics, which need tobe addressed.

Support - the more di erent devices and tools your companyis using, the harder the IT team willhave to work to support them all.

Ultimately, whether BYOD and BMAD

will work in your company dependson its particular make up andsta . Both ideas bear explorationthough, and could be worthy of apilot scheme to try them out.

Growing Agility 37


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In the business world, failure issometimes seen as a dirty word, andfew executives would like to admitpublicly that they have failed. Yetmarkets shift, favours are ckle, andthe economy is an unpredictablebeast. The strongest companiesare not those lucky enough tohave never been tested, but thosethat are resilient, those that canbe pushed hard and still survive.

Nature shows us that the way tosurvive troubled times is not throughstubbornness, but through adaptationand evolution. Whoever is able toadapt to suit their surroundings isable to thrive in any environment,and that requires a unique form ofagility, known as agile absorption.

Agile absorption is when the uidityof an agile mind-set combines withthe toughness of resilience, creatingwhat might be best described as

the ability to take a punch, andcome back stronger. It has a lotin common with Nassim NicholasTalebs concept of antifragility, whichwe discussed in the chapter on

Agile absorption.In our section on personal agility we looked at the importance of resilience

in circumstances where we are laid low by failure. Resilience is a valuablequality for businesses too; many of the worlds biggest and most successfulbusinesses have had to weather a number of storms throughout their history;the best will have come through those storms stronger than before.

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Agility and change. Taleb writes:Antifragility is beyond resilienceor robustness. The resilient resistsshocks and stays the same; theantifragile gets better. 25

Donald Sull writes that while agilitywill allow a company to stake outan early position, absorption willmean it can secure an early leadand reinforce its position againstcompetitors. But you dont have tochoose between absorption andagility - the former is not the soledomain of established enterprisesand the latter doesnt just belongto start-ups. Agility and absorptioncomplement one another, and thebalance between them should shiftas circumstances change. Gettingthe mix right, instead of relying

heavily on one or the other, increasesthe e ectiveness of these bothapproaches during volatile times. 26

It is not the strongest of the speciesthat survives, nor the most intelligentthat survives. It is the one that isthe most adaptable to change.Charles Darwin

25 Nassim Nicholas Taleb,Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder

26 Donald Sull,How To Thrive In Turbulent Markets,Harvard Business Review, http://nokia.ly/1h3oAHP


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FordIt took Henry Ford several attempts to get his company o the ground. His

rst venture, the Detroit Automobile Company, was founded in 1899 butproduced low-quality cars at a high price and was dissolved in 1901. Hisnext attempt, the Henry Ford Company, lasted for just a year thanks toa dispute with his business partner. The third and nal incarnation, FordMotor Co, almost failed too - it was close to bankruptcy, and was onlysaved by a timely investment. After this last brush with failure, Ford wenton to become one of the biggest car manufacturers in the world.

MicrosoftIn the 1970s when they were still in high school, Bill Gates and Paul Allenstarted a company called Traf-O-Data, after nding a way to automatereading the raw data from roadway tra c counters and creating reportsfor tra c engineers for local governments in the US. The business wasinitially successful, but ran into trouble when US central governmentstarted reading the data and producing the reports for free for the localgovernments. The company was rendered obsolete and folded. Buildingon this early experience, Gates and Allen went on to form Microsoft.

Rovio

The Finnish company Rovio makes the wildly successful Angry Birdsgames. But in at the start of 2009, it was close to bankruptcy. Thecompany had created 51 di erent games titles before Angry Birds, buthad been selling them on to publishers. At this point, Mikael and NiklasHed who ran the company realised that this model wasnt working forthem nancially, and also spotted the opportunity in mobile gaming. Theycreated Angry Birds, self-published and experienced huge success.

Innovating after failure.It is possible for organisations to innovate and succeed after failure,provided that they have the right level of agile absorption. Here are threeexamples of companies that succeeded after experiencing failure:

Growing Agility 39


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Spotting opportunities (and dangers)

1. Communicate and avoid striation

Communication is a particularlyimportant factor. Open andagile communication enablesknowledge and ideas to movefreely within a business.

A common blocker to goodcommunication and organisationalagility is a phenomenon known asstriation. This term, popularised byDan McQuillan, describes the wayin which knowledge and ideas movethrough a business. Largely due togeographic location and social culture,ideas rarely trickle down the power-ladder, and only very occasionallydo they get passed upwards.

Instead, the communication networksof each department are compressedinto rigid horizontal layers like thestrata of the earth - informationmoves easily from side-to-sidebetween people on the same layer,but it takes tremendous e ortto communicate vertically. 27

One solution to the striation problemmight be to implement a policy ofhot-desking, where workers regularlymove their workstation around theo ce. This means that shoulder-to-shoulder neighbours vary from day today, and new conversations are morelikely to spring up. Word of mouth willpass the strongest ideas around, witha minimum of e ort. Creating morebreak-out spaces around the o cewhere people can gather also helps,as does creating opportunities inthe day for people to meet and talk.

Other ideas include company socialnetworks like Yammer - they allowpeople at every level of the company

to share things they nd interesting,and also nd out about things theymight not otherwise have seen.

Finally, making sure that managementregularly have time to talk to teammembers is also vital. (See thesection on communication in TeamsThat Flow 28 for more ideas.)

Spotting opportunities(and dangers).A factor in achieving agility as an organisation is spotting opportunitiesand dangers so that you can react to them, rather than collide withthem. Here are some ideas for building an early warning systemthat keeps you up-to-date with the latest developments.

Growing Agility 41

27 Dan McQuillan,From Free Software to Ar tisan Science, Journal of PeerProduction, http://nokia.ly/1jSXKV2

28 http://nokia.ly/TTFebook


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Spotting opportunities (and dangers)Growing Agility

2. Look outside your organisation(and your industry)

Ideas dont always come from obviousplaces. It can be hugely bene cialto keep an eye on successes andfailures in other companies and otherindustries. You might just spot anidea that could be applied to your ownorganisation or industry in a new way.

Its important to acknowledgethat you cant know everything -when youve realised that, youcan focus on building knowledgenetworks so that you tap into otherpeoples knowledge, and lterout the things you dont need.

Social networks can provide youwith great access to people andideas that you might not otherwisehave had. As we explained in MobileMastery , sociology suggests thatweak social ties - your relationshipswith acquaintances rather thanclose friends - are responsible fortransmitting a lot of information,

far more than travels through thestrong ties you have with closefriends or family. This is becauseyour weak ties are likely to knowpeople that you dont, which meansthere is a greater chance of themtransmitting novel information to you.

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Social networks like Twitter andLinkedIn give you the ability

to make more of these weakties and enjoy the valuable

ow of information they a ord.You can make weak ties withinnovators and early adopters thatyou might never meet in your dailylife through social networks, and tapinto their knowledge and connections.

3. Be playful

Being playful is one of the coreideas in Mobile Mastery , and itsrelevant for Growing Agility too.

Play has an essential role in theprocesses of learning and innovation,and it fosters creativity. Technologyis also inherently playful. We treatnew devices like a child treats a newtoy: we covet them; we get pleasurefrom using them; we dont look atthem and see functionality, we seepossibilities, novelty and excitement.

Its important not to lose this

excitement and sense of fun, as playcan lead to clear bene ts in terms ofbusiness and personal development,because of its interrelation withinnovation. Being playful gives youthe chance to make discoveries thatcould give you the edge personallyand professionally, and also giveyour business an advantage over

less innovative competitors.


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Spotting opportunities (and dangers)

4. Allow time for experimentation

Sometimes people need time tocome up with new ideas, or spaceto step back and see the biggerpicture. This often gets pushedaside in the busy working day, so youneed to make an e ort to nd timefor creativity and experimentation.A number of companies do thisby allowing their sta a setamount of time for innovationor to spend on new projects.

Chance favours the connected mind. Steven Johnson

Growing Agility 43


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ConclusionGrowing Agility

We wrote Growing Agility becausewe wanted to make you thinkabout how you respond to changes,challenges and opportunities.

If we accept that change is a constant,rather than a stand-out event, wehave a choice of two courses ofaction: we can ignore it, keep ourheads down and try to carry on asnormal; or we can take the agileapproach, welcome it and lookfor the opportunities it o ers.

Ultimately, growing agility is aboutrejecting the idea of business asusual and acknowledging thatthe world we live and work inmeans this just isnt possible.

Growing agility starts with you,and making sure that you are agile

personally and in your emotions andbehaviours. And if you share yourideas and discoveries (and perhapsthis book too) with those around you,it will spread into every corner of theorganisation you work for, makingit better equipped to thrive, makeopportunities out of challenges, andbecome a little smarter every day.

Conclusion.Thanks for reading Growing Agility . We hope that youve foundit useful and that its given you some food for thought.

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To nd out more about SmarterEveryday, take a look at:

@NokiaAtWork

www.linkedin.com/company/nokia

http://conversations.nokia.com/category/nokiaatwork/

www.nokia.com/business

Other Smarter Everyday ebooks:

Design Your Day http://nokia.ly/DYDebook

Mobile Mastery http://nokia.ly/MMebook

Teams That Flow http://nokia.ly/TTFebook


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Reading listGrowing Agility 45

Susan David and Christina Congleton,Emotional Agility,Harvard Business Review ,http://nokia.ly/18o3bc8

Professor Yves Dozand Mikko Kosonen,Fast Strategy: How Strategic AgilityWill Help You Stay Ahead of the Game

Charles Duhigg,The Power of Habit: Why We DoWhat We Do in Life And Business

Ben Fletcher and Karen Pine,Flex: Do Something Di erent

Laurence Gonzales,Surviving Survival: The Artand Science of Resilience

Emily Lawson and Colin Price,The psychology of changemanagement, McKinsey Quarterly,http://nokia.ly/1guJceG

Dan McQuillan,From Free Software to ArtisanScience, Journal of Peer Production,http://nokia.ly/1jSXKV2

David Neal, WendyWood, Jefrey Quinn,

Habits - a repeat performance, CurrentDirections in Psychological Science,

http://nokia.ly/1d9JL8e

Donald Sull,Competing through organisationalagility, McKinsey Quarterlyhttp://nokia.ly/1kDcncQ

Donald Sull, The Upside of Turbulence: SeizingOpportunity in an Uncertain World

Donald Sull, How To Thrive In TurbulentMarkets, Harvard BusinessReview, http://nokia.ly/1h3oAHP

Nassim Nicholas Taleb,Antifragile: Things ThatGain From Disorder

David Wilkinson,The Ambiguity Advantage: WhatGreat Leaders Are Great At

Robert Zettle,ACT for Depression: A CliniciansGuide to Using Acceptanceand Commitment Therapy

Building a nimble organisation,McKinsey Quarterly

Reading list


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