Basics of Enterprise Agility

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Do you lead change but have yet to hear about Enterprise Agility? This article is for you! I will start with the basics of Enterprise Agility so you can understand why it exists and is needed.

In 2001, the Agile Manifesto introduced a set of values and principles for a new way of developing software focused on individuals, working software, customer collaboration, and responding to change. This gave rise to popular frameworks like Scrum and Kanban, revolutionizing software development.

However, as business environments have become increasingly complex and fast-changing, traditional agile methods have proven insufficient for enterprise-wide agility.

The Agile Manifesto was created in 2001 by a small group of pioneering but mostly male software experts from a few Western countries. While their values and principles revolutionized software development, today's organizations have much more diverse demographics, interests, and needs.

Enterprise Agility is a holistic organizational, social, and business model that enables your company to adapt to accelerated change and exponential market conditions while prioritizing workforce wellbeing, customer needs, and overall company value. (Enterprise Agility University)

Companies today need to be adaptable and innovative at all levels, not just in products or software development. This requires a more holistic, scientific and strategic approach with a greater diversity of perspectives.

What is Enterprise Agility?

Enterprise Agility is a holistic ecosystem that provides organizations with the mindset, principles, models, and tools to thrive in times of accelerated change. It goes beyond tactical agile software practices to cultivate resilience, innovation and shared progress across the entire enterprise. Some key aspects of Enterprise Agility are:

• It is based on the science of accelerated change from fields like neuroscience, behavioral psychology and strategic mobility. This scientific foundation influences the models and tools.

• It focuses on developing five interwoven types of agility—technical, structural, outcomes, social, and mental. Together, these enable organizational adaptability.

• It offers a different approach to finance and value creation like the TriValue Company Model, which optimizes value for customers, the company and workforce. This creates mutually beneficial relationships and build something crucial in Enterprise Agility called Shared Progress.

• It equips leaders, teams and individuals with future-ready skills like cognitive flexibility, intellectual humility, and strategic innovation. It also offers something called Future Thinking to prepare the company for the unexpected.

• It provides a new way of thinking (EAWT) to navigate uncertainty and rapidly evolving contexts.

• This also includes the Sustainability Zones, a framework for assessing and evolving an organization's sustainability practices across six levels. The Sustainability Zones allow organizations to evaluate their current sustainability mindsets and behaviors.

Why Enterprise Agility?

Today's business landscape is radically different from the past. Markets are changing exponentially fast, driven by technological disruption, global connectivity, and shifting consumer expectations. In this environment of constant turbulence and uncertainty, traditional business models are no longer sufficient.

Approaches focused only on customer centricity and shareholder returns have worked well in times of stability but are now hindering business agility. When change was linear, process optimization and rigid hierarchies ensured efficiency. These have now turned into barriers blocking our alignment and sustainable progress.

In my opinion, in a world of constant uncertainty and upheaval, these models encourage insular thinking, short-term views, misplaced priorities, and lagging capabilities. What is needed is a completely new way of structuring, leading, and operating organizations. At its core, Enterprise Agility provides a fundamentally different perspective on the interconnections between businesses and the societies in which they operate. Rather than viewing customers as isolated entities to be exploited, it sees collaborative partnerships as the path to mutual benefit and success.

With exponential technology changes redistributing economic leverage, the goal shifts from maximizing shareholder returns towards balancing value across diverse stakeholders. And shared progress in the organization becomes the glue fostering agility.

Enterprise Agility equips companies to reinvent themselves continuously by sensing threats and opportunities in real-time. It provides flexible frameworks over one-size-fits-all prescriptions. It develops future-ready leadership and workforce capabilities that thrive in ambiguity.

By taking a holistic, partnership-focused and scientifically grounded approach, Enterprise Agility enables organizations to unlock collective human potential and lead change amidst uncertainty by adding the crucial concept called Shared Progress.

By taking a new perspective and holistic approach, Enterprise Agility gives organizations the ecosystem to evolve and succeed in times of uncertainty continually.

Where to Start with Enterprise Agility

Embarking on an Enterprise Agility journey can feel daunting at first. But we're here to support you every step of the way. We've created the Enterprise Agility World community website just for you. It contains hundreds of articles and descriptions of dozens of frameworks we have developed in the last few years.

JOIN OUR EA WORLD COMMUNITY WHATSAPP HERE

We also organize free weekly training with global experts and created a WhatsApp group where you can connect with other change professionals worldwide. You don't have to walk this path alone! You can also get my latest book Enterprise Agility Fundamentals to make the transition smooth and rewarding.

What excites you most about joining this global community dedicated to enterprise agility and positive change? I'd love to hear your thoughts on this!