Culture, strategy, and agility

With the pace of change accelerating, organizations must be agile and adaptive. They must respond quickly to new threats and opportunities to keep delivering results and adding value to their customers, employees, shareholders, and community. Let’s explore what that means for the strategy, structure, and culture of future-fit organizations - inspired by Gary Bolles, author of The Next Rules of Work.

Especially the combination of automation and globalization is transforming markets and causing disruption. As the pace of quick technological changes keeps accelerating how do we navigate this world of constant change?
Most organizational pyramids (the classic hierarchy) are too slow and frustrate their staff. Their structure, processes, and strategies seem carved in stone. Information travels slowly upward and frontline workers and teams have to wait for decisions to travel back down. Organizations are wasting precious time and energy - and who can afford that in these challenging times?

The flow of continuous change

Digital technology has disrupted “the way we do things around here” but it can also help us organize better and faster and deliver the solutions and results that our stakeholders need. We can communicate in real-time across vast distances and we can distribute work more efficiently so hierarchies are flattening.

If we dare to let go of the old “stone” structures, we can go with the flow of a more “fluid” era where we’re riding the waves of change constantly. Change management is something of the past (going from state A to B and then fixing status quo B in stone again). Instead, managing change will be a permanent journey, a natural activity for both people and organizations (that are groups of people).

Of course, we need some anchors when we’re riding the waves. Those anchors include the purpose of the organization, the core competencies, and values.

As Gary Bolles outlines in his course on Linkedin, “We need to stop thinking there's some mythical future state or destination. Instead, we need to develop the practices that will allow us to navigate a lifelong journey where the organization has the strategic empowerment to constantly change and grow.”

That means we need a different approach to strategy, culture, structure, and processes. The traditional strategy pours strategic concrete over the organization. Even if a strategy is right for a specific point in time, conditions change quickly, so it won't be right before long. Also, gaining alignment throughout the organization can take so long, that it won't be the right strategy by the time it's fully implemented. 
Most organizations move in fits and starts rather than in fluid adjustments to changing conditions. That’s not effective - so how do agile organizations navigate turbulent waters?

Anchors for agile organizing

They have anchors like an inspiring purpose, clear goals and key behaviors, and empowered teams that make decisions and can test those decisions quickly. Their culture (how people think and act and interact) supports learning and change.

The organization's strategy comes from its purpose. If you have worked through the purpose, you have a mission, a vision, and clear values and behaviors. Now, everyone in the organization has the same information about what success can look like. 
Strategic goals are great, but they need to be executed by mostly imperfect people. That’s why you need alignment. Alignment is the process of linking together the organization's strategic goals with the goals of each individual in the organization. Every single worker needs to understand which of the strategic goals they're supporting and how their activities help the organization to be successful. This goes for teams as well. 

The power of teams

In my work with organizational culture, the most important change is coming from the teams. Everything happens in a team - it’s where we influence each other on a daily basis. We copy the way we do things around here - and we can change that together. We can develop a habit of learning together. A team that holds a socially safe space facilitates learning, innovating, and performing together where the sum of the team is more than its individuals.
How we act and interact in the team matters - it shapes the culture - and the culture shapes how we act and interact…

Also, healthy, learning teams have great collective intelligence to solve issues, learn and adapt. A team of people who are empowered to make decisions about their work and results can deliver great results. 

In summary, using the culture of teams as an anchor in an agile organization means: giving people a clear idea of what success looks like and then getting out of their way.

Leaders let go and hold the space

Though many leaders say they want to foster a culture of innovation, they aren't willing to sign up for what it takes: a high level of trust and a potential loss of control. How can you let go of control and trust the collective intelligence of teams?

I can only agree with Bolles’ advice for leaders: Grant your staff permission to try new approaches and learn together from mistakes. Remember to focus on the problems that need to be solved and the results to be generated rather than telling team members the steps they need to follow.

What are some behaviors that leaders need to do so others can copy them? 

• Think about being open to new information and changing your mind. 
• Encourage critical thinking and asking questions. 
• Solicit honest feedback and learn from it. 
• Let go of control by trusting the team. Delegate your decision-making power to the team, as much as you can. 
• Hold the space like a great host at a party. Facilitate their thinking, decision-making, learning, and performing. Focus on the vision, the goals, and the results - let them achieve those results in a way that suits them.
• Be a coaching, supportive leader.
• Help them tackle the red tape from your organization’s past. Do you see too many lengthy procedures and processes? Any long process is a tax on innovation. Extended processing means you can't identify a problem to be solved and rapidly find a solution. In my client work, we have shortened procedures, deleted too many details, and set rough boundaries within which people had professional autonomy. We suspended regular meetings or parts of the permissions that were needed to lift administrative delays and give people ways to learn, innovate, and adapt.

What would the future, agile organization look like?

• Individuals are empowered to make decisions about how to support the strategic goals. 
• Teams bind dynamically around problems. People identify a customer need or a problem and work together to solve and deliver it. 
• Managers step back into the role of strategic adviser, facilitator, and coach.
• The organization alternates between periods focused on incremental changes and deeper strategic change over the long term. It’s working on current results, but also working on future options. It’s being a stable organization and a startup at the same time.

Looking at the above criteria for agile organizations, what does an agile culture look like when you map it on the competing values framework? You can see the polarities that you need to balance - individual and collective, stability and change.
What would your organization score when assessing the culture through the OCAI?
You can read more about the four culture types here.

It seems that an agile culture requires a mix of all culture types - with an emphasis on the entrepreneurial, learning Create Culture and the people-oriented Collaborate culture. But you also need the results-oriented Compete culture and a healthy dose of the structured Control culture. What do you think?

© Marcella Bremer, 2024

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