I have been working on agile leadership for many years, and there is still confusion about what agility means in business. Some managers have the impression that an agile company is one that works in a somewhat chaotic or short-sighted way. The word is also often used for anything that comes out of the start-up scene.
To be honest: I have seen many start-ups, and hardly any of them was organized in an agile way. Many cultivate a spirit you do not find in larger companies, but the only thing a corporate board can learn from that is this: with a strong vision of the future, even a loosely organized group will make a considerable effort.
For two decades I worked on strategy and transformation, always asking myself: how does a board with strategic intent turn its slides into action?
Nine out of ten strategic initiatives fall short of expectations. It is uncomfortable to know that most of what you aim for will not come to pass.
Today I see many corporations attempting an agile approach — often accompanied by well-known consultancies. They set up squads, funnels and tribes, launch programs, impact hubs, digital factories, agile leadership formats. Countless terms that sound innovative. And sometimes my blood boils when I notice how little of it reflects agile thinking and behavior.
To calm down, I spent two days walking in the Alps. On the way I thought about the dozens of agile programs I have been involved in. What about them was truly agile? And why is the word used so often and practiced so rarely?
Agility is exactly what it was conceived as: a complex social change that persistently demands adapting the way people organize decisions and work. It is not yet fully understood. We live at a time when leaders and organizations have to find out for themselves what agility means for them. They have to try, fail and learn — the last point is the decisive one.
When someone talks all too readily about agility and change today, I become suspicious. The reality behind such speeches may be that someone wants to force others to think the way he does — while a strong unconscious resistance keeps him from changing himself.
When a new leader takes office, they often demand that everything must change. What they mean is: everything except themselves.
Seven hypotheses emerged along the way.
1 · Agility is for the complex, not the complicated
When does it make sense to proceed in an agile way? That is not an either-or question but a both-and question. The art of line management lies in distinguishing which parts of a strategy benefit from flexibility and which from stability.
An agile approach suits complex topics in which cause and effect are unclear — exploring the unknown, adapting to markets that cannot be derived from past figures. In other situations it makes progress harder than it needs to be.
2 · Agility is a mindset
You can use agile methods, tools and routines and still lead in a strictly hierarchical way. Tools do not change structures. The prerequisites are an open mindset, curiosity and confidence in the abilities of others.
3 · Customers first
If you are a senior leader: how much of your time do you spend understanding the jobs your customers want you to get done for them — internal and external? How much time on direct, first-hand feedback of your own?
My bet: less than five percent.
4 · The leader’s dilemma
Many line managers were promoted on the strength of their expertise. That is why some enjoy being the bottleneck — having the final say.
Therein lies the dilemma: whoever wants to lead a self-directed team has to give up the urge to intervene in its professional results. That means doing things that do not feel like leadership: delegating trust, developing people, organizing support. At the same time, management remains important, even the most agile team needs a clear mandate.
5 · Awakening swarm intelligence
MIT professor Thomas Malone ran intelligence tests with leadership teams. The individuals averaged an IQ of 120. When the same teams took the test together, the score dropped to 70.
The reasons lie in unconscious biases. Malone found four conditions under which things go differently: diversity of perspectives, thinking that is structured and open at the same time, reciprocal contributions and the ability to address nonverbal signals. Each of them reappears in the agile approach — above all in separating meetings about the subject matter from meetings about collaboration.
6 · Agile means disciplined
To many, that sounds like a contradiction. Agile work is highly disciplined work that enables teams to deal with complexity. Teams are open about how they solve a problem, but if they do not stick to agreed formats and rules, they get worse results. It takes someone to make sure that planning, alignment, review and retrospective actually take place.
7 · Leadership is shared
Successful agility requires very different people with specific expertise and a shared interest: professions across silos and hierarchies that complement one another and stand up for results together.
It is not always easy to convey that leadership in this context can be a shared process. It takes people who take the lead on their own initiative when their role calls for it, and hand it back when it does not.
What is uncertain about these hypotheses
They are hypotheses, not findings. Malone’s IQ experiment is a laboratory finding and cannot simply be transferred to a board team. The five-percent bet in hypothesis 3 is a bet, not a survey.
What our work does show: organizations that introduce agile formats without working on the social dynamics end up, after a year, with additional meetings and the same decision paths. That is no longer a hypothesis.