The 3 A's of Organizational Agility

Young Professionals Council 
Sarah Finney-Miller, NAI Summit

You may be thinking, what is organizational agility & why is it valuable? 


Experts define organizational agility as an ability for an organization to renew itself, adapt, change quickly, and succeed in a rapidly changing, ambiguous, turbulent environment. 


Operating and growing a business of any size in today’s digital environment is difficult. This is true from the perspective of business performance and sustainable revenue growth and from an employee engagement, growth and success point of view. 


In order to succeed in this kind of environment while managing the pressure of sustainable revenue growth, organizations need to apply a more agile approach to empowering HR leaders, managers and employees. Ultimately, all successful businesses help managers and employees to drive their best performance and growth initiatives that support overall business performance. The A’s of Agility Organizations that strive to embrace agility should follow the formula of the “Three A’s”—anticipate, adapt, act. Together, they represent a formula to make organizations more receptive to change, more prepared to exploit new market dynamics and, ultimately, improve business performance. 


Business Owners and Managers can play a key role by helping to create a culture that will: 

Anticipate— A workforce deals with change better when it happens often. Ensure that change is viewed as not only expected and manageable, but an opportunity, both within the organization and the industry. Disruption means to induce change regularly, such as by moving talent often and streamlining organizational hierarchy to be more customer-friendly. 
​

Adapt—Break down rigid silos and hierarchies that can inhibit teamwork, Leadership Summit and purposefully instill a collaborative spirit in the workforce. An organization moves much more quickly when it leverages the collective wisdom of its workforce. Create a learning culture in which employees can easily and freely create and share their knowledge, and recognize or reward them for doing so. 


Act—Identify specific areas that must become more agile. Restructure to minimize hierarchy and bureaucracy as well as empower individuals and self-directed teams to make decisions and get things done. Explore how to be more productive through smaller teams and also leverage a talent ecosystem of diverse roles. Agile teams are fueling some of the most innovative, fast-mov- ing companies today. 


Want to learn more? 


Join us for our Leadership Summit on March 5th at Moravian College. This half day workshop will be focused on Organizational Agility and Change Management with tips to keep yourself and your team members motivated, highly responsive to change, and per- forming at your best in any business environment. We hope to see you there. 
Lastly, be sure to join us at our monthly Meet and Greet on February 19th at Hop Daddy’s Brewing in Allentown.

​