Nimble Organizations
The Characteristics of Nimble Execution
In a previous post, I defined a nimble organization as one that has a sustained ability to quickly and effectively respond to the demands of change while continually delivering high performance. Gaining and sustaining nimbleness is not easily or casually achieved. To fully leverage its potential requires commitment and tenacity from the very top of an organization. This begins when members of the Board (or equivalent strategic sanctioning body) and senior leadership declare their deeply held belief that nimble execution is a vital strategic advantage. This conviction must then be translated into two levels of intention: more
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The Contained Slide
In my last post, I talked about The Zone, that place where dysfunctional symptoms form and begin to have an adverse impact on productivity, quality, and safety. This is where an organization can learn to operate in a “contained slide”—functioning just short of losing full control, yet able to squeeze the optimum speed and agility from its reservoir of adaptation resources.
Competitive ice skaters must contend with pushing the limits of their speed when going around corners as well as the traction that occurs between the blade on their skate and the surface of the ice. There is an optimum point when pressing this boundary that produces what can best be described as a contained slide. This is when skaters rely on their abilities to read the subtle information gained from their senses and experience to accelerate or slow down so they only briefly lose their balance (chaos), but then quickly regain it (order). Just as the speed begins to exceed a skater’s ability to regulate further action, he or she more
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www.connerpartners.com
Between Bedlam and Calm—The Nimble Zone
In my last post, I described nimble organizations as those with a sustained ability to quickly and effectively respond to the demands of change while delivering high performance. Constrained organizations, on the other hand, constantly inhibit their own efforts to implement change.
Today, clients struggle with perpetual unrest and ongoing change, and there is no terrain without vulnerability—only greater or lesser risk and liability. Constrained organizations see themselves as having to choose between two hazards: non-competitive order or hyper-unstable chaos. They fear that if they under-use their adaptation capacity, they won’t be able to keep pace with market demands that are growing increasingly dynamic and competitive. Yet, if they thrust more change on their people than they can effectively absorb, more
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Constrained or Nimble? Name Your Organization.
“It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory.”
— Edward Deming
As change facilitators, we are just as vulnerable as any professional to becoming so focused on the tactical trees in front of us that we lose sight of the forest. Compare this with the orthopedic surgeon who diagnoses the stress fracture but dismisses repeated migraines, or the urban planner who develops his piece de resistance in one small section of town, but ignores expanding decay in surrounding areas.
We run the risk of being so focused on helping organizations with their individual change endeavors that we don’t take into account their ability to address change from a generic standpoint. If we are riveted to the initiatives at hand, we can fail to help prepare our clients for changes that haven’t even been identified yet. When this happens, we unintentionally keep them in a strictly reactive mode instead of helping them also address the preventive side to execution…helping them get ready for more
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©2010 Conner Partners, Inc.
www.connerpartners.com
