Change Agility: The Ability to Thrive Today, and in Tomorrow’s Fast-Paced Business Environment

Let’s just call it, right from the start. Change is inevitable and change is constant.

Whether it’s technological advancements, market shifts, process updates or organisational restructuring – the ability to adapt quickly and effectively has become a crucial skill for businesses to enable them to thrive, even when (especially when) going through change.

I recently picked up a paper published by Korn Ferry (Feb 2024). They have surveyed over 400 CEOs from around the world and believe that the leaders of the future will be unlike any we’ve seen before.

‘They’ll need a brain for change’

Nearly 66% of CEOs said that agility and openness to change would be critical qualities for future success. Not only that, but in order to thrive in the future, leaders won’t just accept change, they’ll seize it and use it as a change to revolutionise their business.

In order to do this, leaders and their organisations will need to build change agility – the capability to anticipate, respond to, and capitalise on change.

Why do we focus on the organisation’s leaders?

Because during any change, leaders are fundamental to success or failure.

Consistently role-modelling the new behaviours expected from new ways of working.

Being the visionary in the changing landscape – linking the vision to the steps of change and being vocal and bold in their stance – the anchor in the storm.

Listening – more than ever before. Listening to understand. Acting with empathy. Creating psychological safe spaces for people to speak up and share their views, leaning into, and utilising the diversity of the workforce.

Driving trust through authenticity. We all go through emotions during change – we are all humans after all! But leading with authenticity can often show up as being vulnerable and having the humility to also share your journey through change. It’s not a sign of weakness to show this side, and you’ll find that it serves to quickly build trust.

So, how do we build that change agility into our organisations?

Building change agility does not just lie with leaders. But it is often the leaders who create the vision, provide the role-modelling, find the resources, and give the ‘permission’ for those within the organisation to lean into learning and practicing skill sets that will help the entire organisation thrive through change.

In this next section, I’m going to explore 5 different ways you can start to build change capabilities into your organisation.

1. Embrace a growth mindset.

Growth mindset, growth mindset, growth mindset…we hear this term so often…but why is it so important in enabling the organisation to become change agile? And is it as easy as just saying ‘shift your mindset’ (spoiler alert, no, not quite that easy!)

With change comes opportunity. Either opportunities through the change itself, or through unintended outcomes, which can then go on to spark innovation, and improvements that hadn’t yet been realised. But change is also challenging, unsettling, and bring with it learning anxiety around new skills that need to be learnt, the new behaviours that will be expected, and even the performance and reporting measurements that may be linked to those new ways of working. So, although having a growth mindset is the ultimate outcome, there are steps you can take to nudge the mindset, and these will be explored in the next few points.

2. A chicken and egg (which one comes first) scenario – open communication or a psychologically safe space? Rhetoric question…

Because it doesn’t matter. Both are needed if you want your organisation to become change agile.

Fostering a space where people can be open, and speak up without fear of humiliation, leads to mistakes being prevented.

Because someone feels they can speak up and highlight an issue, it can be recognised and dealt with before it becomes a problem or blocker to change moving forward.

It leads to junior (or senior) members of the team feeling that if they speak, their voice will be heard. And so, they do. And from them speaking up, a new idea is born and leads to innovation and growth that may have previously been missed.

Having a working environment where it’s okay to lean into constructive dissent, without feeling like you will be blacklisted, disadvantaged, or even bullied into changing your mind, leads to higher retention of staff, higher levels of engagement, higher levels of discretionary effort, and stronger organisational reputation, leading to better recruitment (and I could go on…if we look into the HR space, there are many more advantages, but I digress!)

3. Lead by example

Leadership plays a critical role in driving change. But we are all human being, we all have emotions, and we all will have a reaction to change. Now, leaders set the organisational vision, so in an ideal world, all change initiatives will be created in line with that vision, so the leadership should already be on board. They can then role model a positive attitude to the change, openly embrace new ideas, and actively participate and ‘rally the troops’ (sorry, throw back to my military days!).

But what if change is just as jarring for them? What if change is because there has been a huge market shift and the organisation needs to change, and quickly. What happens if the changes needed are because government legislation has changed, and the organisation suddenly finds themselves on the wrong side of a legal policy?

What do leaders do when they themselves are still coming round to the idea of change?

This is something that isn’t often talked about. But it needs to be.

In a change agile organisation, leaders understand that this may sometimes be the case, and prepare for it, by leading authentically and collaboratively. As a leader, you move through the change WITH your teams. You still lead, providing stability for them to be seen and heard, but you also lead with the humility to accept that you are also right there with them, collaboratively mapping the way forward.

4. Build leadership capabilities…early

Even in this article, I’ve been asking a lot from your leaders in creating a change agile organisation. Listen effectively, role model, show humility, be vulnerable, build trust, create a psychologically safe space…

But we aren’t born leaders…we learn and develop our skills…so building change leadership capabilities in your organisation is fundamental to enabling change agility.

Your leaders are the cornerstones of change agility.

My top tip? Start your leadership development BEFORE people get into leadership positions…too often we see leadership programs reserved for those in leadership positions…but why? We encourage people to reach for those positions, but don’t often help them until they get there…in a change agile organisation, leadership development happens at all levels.

Training and development opportunities that focus on change management to help them understand the ‘why’ behind reactions to change, on collaboration and communication, including how to listen to understand and how to give effective and constructive feedback to increase a psychologically safe environment, emotional intelligence – what it is, how we can enhance it and why we need it….

…these just touch the surface but give you a starter for 10 on what skills your leadership will need in a change agile organisation. Always happy to have a longer conversation about this…

5. Celebrate

Not just success but learning and experimentation. In a change agile organisation, having time and space to experiment and be curious is key to anticipating change and recognising where the organisation can capitalise on upcoming change.

Celebrate people ‘having a go’, even if they don’t ‘succeed’, they have created new connections firing in the brain, they will talk and tell others their ideas (psychologically safe space to speak up) and others will start also creating connections from the ideas brought up….connections in the brain that lead to conversations, which lead to further connections and use of the diversity of thought in the group, which leads to further experimentation and innovation…which will lead to growing a competitive advantage in the market place…all from creating a change agile organisation.

Something to think about…?!

One very effective way to create change agility in your organisation is to make sure you are investing in change management skills for your leaders and teams. This DOESN'T MEAN putting them into a classroom for a week to learn 50 models of change, and then sitting an exam to prove that they can recall the information...

At Glass Ripple Consulting, we teach change management differently, giving the knowledge, practical application skills, and support needed to be effective when leading through change. If you are curious and want to know more then the link is below to find out more!

https://zoepoulton.com/certifiedchangemanager

If you are interested in adding a group to the training then contact us through the link below and we can talk about volume discounts for your organisation!

zoepoulton.com/contact-4235