Being Agile – An experiential perspective

 

When the concept of Agility was incorporated into Project Management Professional Certification a few years ago, the addition seemed like the beginning of the way the world was evolving. However, looking back it has been the best and the most important change that has become more relevant than ever before in this uncertain business landscape. We see that agility has not just touched businesses but even our personal and professional lives, making it an all-encompassing phenomenon. Our life itself is now depending on how well we thrive amidst sweeping changes – how agile we are to rapidly changing circumstances! It is but natural that I chose to write about ‘being agile’ from the individual level rather than just for the businesses.

What we need to be AGILE going forward?

1. Open mindset (Acceptance) – Making peace with the fact that changes are going to be more, frequent and more disruptive is the first step. We could reduce the levels of emotional stimulations caused by difficult changes by practising acceptance
2. Proactiveness – Predict the change and be prepared rather than waiting out the turn of events. It gives a sense of victory even if we fail because at least we succeeded in predicted something and were not shocked by disruptions. It is akin to upskilling in upcoming fields like block chain, big data analytics, artificial intelligence, keeping in mind the trends in the industry.
3. Experiential learning – Practising deliberately to learn from experiences and sharing them as insights could be so valuable in terms of uplifting self and empowering others through our thoughts.
4. Work-life Agility – By redefining self, exploring possibilities and making choices for adapting to circumstances, we could walk the tight rope of work-life balance. The more and more we reinvent ourselves, make radically different choices to find solutions to challenges, the less and less stressful change is going to be.
5. Experimentation and Innovation – Individualism has garnered so much significance in the 21^st century and even in businesses we increasingly see mass customization rather than mass production of a single product. Innovation is key, therefore, to unlock the potential of changing customer choices and preferences. It goes without saying that Innovation has an impact on a personal level too in terms of influencing our everyday choices.
6. Throwing in moments of quietude and wise passivity everyday – Moments of stillness and wise passivity could be more energising and rejuvenating that could possibly fill our emotional banks, present us with an opportunity to accept anything, make us ready to embrace change and take any challenges head on.

People, as individuals, teams and even businesses are increasingly keeping their choices open, embracing open mindsets because it has become very clear than anything is possible and anything can happen. Though it may sound difficult most times, it seems to be the way around to handle the challenges that come with sweeping changes. Technology has been put to great use, almost stretched in fact, to accommodate the work-from-home scenario and innovations cropped up to find turnarounds from the business impacts that were caused.

Learning to be agile and practising agility has become the new recipe for keeping our balance and going one step further, for attaining success in this ever transforming world for both individuals and businesses alike.

Be AGILE, BALANCED and CHANGE-SEEKING - the ABC in today's uncertain world.