Many leaders talk about the importance of agility, but it doesn’t seem easy to manage for most organizations.
Change management is necessary. And I’m not talking about the function of an organization–I’m talking about a mindset, a willingness to change. But you cannot change without communication. It’s about talking to people, it’s about engaging. During the course of the year, we know there are things that will happen that we cannot contemplate today. It’s important as our priorities shift that we change the goals and are willing to substitute that which we said we were going to do–once we all buy into it so that the organization can keep the accountability culture, but at the same time be responsible to the things we now know to do. It’s hard to have agility and accountability at the same time and not have them conflict, but it’s possible.
What happens when you make a wrong turn?
I always say, “We’re gonna make mistakes.†Risk management means you don’t do it in isolation. You establish what you’re trying to do, what you think the risks are–and you stay close enough to it so if you have to retreat or make a change you actually have not surprised anyone with the outcome. It’s important that this notion of agility and risk taking is one in which you learn the lesson and then move on. But if your organization can’t fail in a reasonable way, it will be stuck.Â