How agility can be measured

Agility promises success. After all, agility is supposed to create more stability in an increasingly dynamic and volatile world. However, many organizations struggle with this vague term. It doesn't have to be, because agility can be broken down into tangible elements and thus helps to measure the status quo in your organization.

Anyone who wants to appear modern uses agility as a buzzword in one way or another. The term is used just as often and in different contexts. For some, it refers to very specific concepts and methods such as Scrum or Design Thinking. For others, it means more of a basic attitude towards how organizations function. We at Great Place To Work belong to the latter group: we believe that organizations need to develop an agile mindset in order to be agile. This is because the right basic attitude (mindset) is needed first, before you can deal with the craft (skillset) and the tools (toolset). Otherwise, the cultural basis is missing and the hopefully introduced concepts and methods remain nothing more than good ideas, but inevitably fail.

But why do all organizations suddenly want to become agile? The answer is simple:

• Constant change is the new normal. The world has become volatile, uncertain, complex and unpredictable ("VUCA"). Traditional approaches to management, leadership and daily work no longer work. Corporate management today is more like a white-water rafting trip than - as it was 20 years ago - a rowing trip on a calm lake
• Digital transformation has become the dominant paradigm, changing not only the way we work and communicate, but also turning processes and entire business models upside down. And those who do not embrace digital transformation will themselves be turned upside down - as Nokia has painfully discovered.
• COVID-19 has shown how conditions can change unexpectedly and quickly. Novartis, for example, introduced home office for good. Agile organizations were able to adapt much faster and even benefit from the crisis.

Agility is thus becoming an organizational capability that is both crucial to the company's success and ensures its long-term survival.

Goal definition comes before agility

The more vague a term is, the more important it is to proceed analytically and based on evidence. If you want to become more agile, you first need to be clear about what the organization expects from it. Agility is not an end in itself, but must support the overarching strategy and its goals. Companies typically organize themselves in an agile way so that they can react more quickly to dynamic changes in the market. This is achieved through a clear distribution of tasks and short decision-making paths. As a result, hierarchies become less and less important and competence-based teams become more and more important. Agility thus increases the effectiveness of organizations, promotes their transparency and creates attractive development platforms for employees. Employees no longer have to hope to reach a certain hierarchical level in order to perform a function. What they now need - and this is much more important - is the right skills.

Raising the status quo 

Following the definition of goals, an assessment of the current situation is required. At Great Place To Work, we work with our model for agility and digital transformation. It shows that the ability for digital transformation depends on an organization's data, customers, culture and processes. However, we can only directly influence and develop the last two. Culture and processes each have four design fields (see Figure 1). These design fields are mutually dependent and influence each other. Only those who take measures and improve in all areas can achieve the full benefits of agility.

Regardless of the model, a survey of employees is recommended to determine the status quo. Possible questions include topics such as: 

• Are we getting better by constantly giving each other feedback?
• Do we allow ourselves radical ideas in order to be truly innovative?
• Are we experimenting with new ways to decide and act faster?
• Do we also allow solutions that are not perfect in order to make faster progress?
• Do we network within the company in order to utilize the knowledge and experience of others?

Such specific questions allow conclusions to be drawn about the basic attitude in the organization and the degree of agility. In our experience, there is often a large discrepancy between the perception of management and executives and the assessment of employees. We even offer a specific survey to measure this discrepancy. However, this transparency is an important step towards becoming more agile in the future.

Compare with the benchmark

The reason for the discrepancy between employees and managers? In general, organizations tend to forget to take their employees along on the journey. In our study on agility in companies ((Change Engine while Flying)), we identified four types of agility: Active innovators have maximum confidence in the future. The majority of optimists are confident that their own organization will successfully master the challenges. The Steadfast fear change and would prefer to maintain the status quo, while the Pessimists firmly believe that everything will change for the worse. The distribution of these types within the organizations is interesting: For example, only 9% of employees are active innovators and 30% are optimists, while 52% are among the steadfast and 10% are pessimists. This means that less than 10% of employees are truly agile, while more than 60% are critical of agility.

Setting off into the agile future

The question now is how to turn the stable employees into optimists - or even active innovators. On the one hand, this requires a quantitative employee survey that provides an evidence-based analysis of the current situation. The TARGET position, i.e. the ideal future state, is then defined in workshops for each design field ((see Figure X above)). The necessary measures are then derived. Once again, the involvement of employees is crucial: Firstly, the more they are involved, the better the measures will be; secondly, it increases their commitment; and thirdly, it provides the initial spark for agility, which automatically makes the organization a little more agile.