Growing your organization’s capacity for agility takes time—particularly for more traditional organizations trying to adapt long-held hierarchical structures.
Agile principles can challenge employees’ and organizations’ sense of identity, and it can be difficult for people in central positions of leadership to release the primary decision making to others. It can seem insurmountable to convert a cultural mindset focused on security to one open to risk, or to empower employees to think more creatively within their roles.
That’s why the very first step for any organization intent on building their agility is to step back and truthfully and intentionally figure out where you’re at today. Before implementing any changes, take the time to consider your decision making structure: are you more mechanistic or organic (look for the cliches used commonly among teams—there may be some good hints there). Are there decisions that are traveling along multiple “links of the chain” that could be made locally? How many people are truly empowered to make decisions?
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