Disruption by design: 6 traits of agile organizations

There is no question that we are living in decidedly volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous times! The pace of change has become increasingly so, challenging organizations to adapt nimbly or be disrupted by competitors who do. Leaders in learning and development face a critical challenge in supporting the workforce through times like these.

Agile organizations possess a unique set of traits that allow them to respond swiftly to changing market demands, seize emerging opportunities and effectively navigate through uncertainty. In this article, I will explore what I call the Six Traits of Agile Organizations and how leaders, including chief learning officers, can cultivate and foster these attributes in the workplace.

We’re never going to change this slow again

Most of us understand the need to be more nimble, more innovative and bolder to compete and win in this climate. There’s just one problem: We’re stressed, we’re overworked, people are leaving and we simply cannot tolerate any more change right now! All this uncertainty is making us sick and exacerbating the task of attracting and retaining top-tier talent.

Over a career spanning nearly 30 years in change management, I have witnessed workforce resistance to change in organizations of all shapes and sizes, in both the public and private sectors and around the globe. We are told that people just don’t like change, but the truth is some people do. What makes some folks resist change and stress out over uncertainty, while others thrive?

We all have individual characteristics and personal traits, that define what I’ll call a “natural set point” for our tolerance for change and uncertainty. There are multiple self-assessments available to help folks understand their tolerance for change. Research such as that on growth mindset clearly demonstrates that these skills can be trained and developed.

The resulting focus on wellness and individual skill-building for resilience is a welcome development. However, that alone, is not the answer, because workforce resilience is actually a function of both individual traits and environmental factors — we’ll call that culture.

The Organizational Change Model depicts the equation between individual traits and organizational (or environmental) factors that, taken together, produce a workplace response to change and uncertainty. You can hire and train for more resilient individuals, but that is only half the battle. You’ll need to cultivate an agile environment — a culture — to produce an agile workforce.

Curating an agile culture 

Perhaps more so today than ever, leadership plays a pivotal role in driving transformative change and fostering a culture of adaptability. Leaders of adaptive organizations are visionary, open-minded and possess the ability to navigate through ambiguity while inspiring their teams to do so as well. They encourage experimentation, embrace failure as a learning opportunity (rather than a performance correction) and empower their employees to make decisions. Instead of relying solely on top-down directives, adaptive leaders encourage decentralized decision-making, enabling faster responses to emerging challenges and opportunities.

In other words, leaders of agile organizations are changing the way we manage change. Change management can no longer be just an event-based strategy. Change events are happening too frequently and are too volatile for that. In today’s VUCA world, CLOs must build change tolerance into their corporate DNA — into their culture. And that requires a new leadership approach. A new mindset if you will.

I call that mindset “disruption by design.” Quite simply, leaders need to send a message that we intend to be a culture of disruptive innovation. We will choose to disrupt ourselves, internally, lest we be disrupted externally. We will choose to be Uber, not the taxi stand! Today’s leaders need to adapt and shift their mindset to be “culture curators.” To build such a culture — an environment — we can leverage these Six Traits of Agile Organizations:

• Transformational leadership.
• Organizational justice.
• Positive communications.
• Participatory management.
• Social support.
• Group engagement.

Let’s review each of these six traits in just a bit more detail.

Transformational leadership

Building an agile culture starts with transformational leadership. Leaders should articulate a future-state vision that they intend to create. The vision should be aspirational and clear. This is not a memo and definitely not a plaque on the boardroom wall. Leadership should paint the workforce a picture — make it colorful and bold — use pastels. The workforce will need to “feel” this future — not just understand it intellectually but connect with it emotionally. 

Participatory management

Agile leaders will give workers a voice in helping them shape the future-state vision. They will involve others, boardroom to the mailroom. Participatory management — engaging others in shaping your vision — turns stakeholders into stockholders. Stakeholders are the folks you inform as partners once decisions have been mostly formulated. Stockholders are co-creators. They own the change with you. Your leaders have involved folks in shaping vision. Now, they should trust them to execute too. Delegate and don’t micro-manage. Enabling decision-making closer to the customer is the only way to move as quickly as you need to move today, and it builds a sense of shared ownership in success by allowing folks to feel trusted and in control during times of uncertainty and change. Give others an equity interest in making the vision real by involving them. Leaders may move a bit slower, yes, but they will build a shared vision — and shared ownership in success.

Organizational justice

Involving others will build trust, another of the Six Traits. Organizational justice — the sense that everyone is treated the same and fairly — is key to everything else you’ll do as a leader and as a curator of organizational resilience. Model the change you need to see in others. Don’t ask others to do what you won’t do yourself. Don’t order folks back to the office while you work remotely. Building shared vision is a great first step, but ultimately, folks won’t follow you if they don’t trust you. 

Positive communications

Another way you’ll build trust is through positive communications. Often, leaders (and managers) can allow uncertain times to isolate them from their teams. Waiting, they think, until they have more clarity to answer staff questions makes sense. It doesn’t. Regular communications about early “wins” and even the setbacks you should anticipate, will keep folks informed (even when you don’t have all the answers). Be honest about setbacks and how you plan to adjust. Listen to their ideas too. Regular, straightforward communication is critical. Absent hearing from you, staff will make up their own reality, and trust me, it will not remotely reflect conditions as you know them to be. Communicate early and often. Train managers as coaches and put them in regular communications with their teams. Your workforce will notice, and they will trust that you have their best interests in mind.

Social support

So much of what you’re trying to foster, as today’s leader, is a sense of social support within the organization. Put simply, people only cope well with uncertainty (and changes are uncertain), when they feel a sense of support. We call this psychological safety. No matter the label we choose, people adjust to change, they try new approaches and they innovate, when they feel safe to do so. Leaders need to re-frame the organization’s definition of failure. Failure can’t always be seen as a performance issue. Rather, it must be viewed as an opportunity to learn, and to try again. Today’s pace of change requires us to ideate, pilot and adjust based on experiences — even “failures.” Let your workforce feel safe to fail, as long as they fail fast and fail forward (learn), and you’ll be crafting innovative, “Disruptive by Design™” organizational DNA. 

Group engagement

Finally, leaders should leverage group engagement in building an agile culture. We humans still live (and work) in tribes. Great leaders map organizational tribes and tribal leaders. (Hint, their names are not always in a box on your organizational chart.) These opinion leaders are critical to success in building a change-tolerant DNA.

Social comparison theory teaches us that when folks are evaluating a change in their environment, they try to determine whether it is a threat or an opportunity for them — through a process I-O psychologists call “attribution and appraisal.” In simple terms, folks want to assess who or what is causing this change (attribution) and whether the likely outcome will be an opportunity or threat to them (appraisal). Social comparison tells us that folks look to others they trust and respect when making this evaluation. They look to others in their work orbit (their tribes) to see how they are reacting. Group engagement (involving tribal leaders) in shaping vision and the strategies for execution, makes these opinion leaders stockholders in your change. Leaders who win the support of tribal leaders will build positive engagement with the whole tribe.

So, there you have it.

Event-based change management techniques will always have a place, but change initiatives will go smoother, faster and with far less workforce resistance if you’ll cultivate a culture of resilience in your teams.

CLOs should be re-assessing their approach to leadership development and prioritize skills that develop leaders as culture curators. Leaders and managers should be trained to foster an environment where workers are encouraged to share new ideas, try new approaches and even fail (as long as they fail fast, and fail forward). 

Prioritize leadership development that nurtures a disruptive mindset and embeds change tolerance into your organizational DNA. Train managers as coaches and pivotal communicators of this new culture. CLOs who do will have crafted a culture that attracts and retains talent, one that can flourish through change and uncertain times, and that can compete and win in a VUCA world.