Starting with the cultural layer 

Just as understanding the personality of a person is key to working effectively with that person, understanding the culture of an organization is critical to setting up an effective engagement and change strategy. It's more than just starting with "why", it dives into the unseen norms and values of a company to see why leaders do what they do. It is this visualization that provides insight into action and change.

The problem typically starts with the assumption that agility is just another process. In coaching agile organizations, understanding culture recognizes that agility comes with its own success framework which may or may not align with the success framework of the organization.

This workshop explores the Schneider core-cultural model and how it can be applied to organizational awareness and movement toward organizational agility. We will explore multiple real corporate case studies of how this awareness enabled their agile growth and sustainability. 

Moving into a systems perspective

Peter Senge identifies "Systems Thinking" as The Fifth Discipline, the one linking all of the other disciplines together, and without which, people become the prisoner of their own system (e.g., the slowly boiled frog). The ability to identify, visualize and characterize systems within the organization is a critical function of the organizational agility change agent.

All systems within an organization emerge from the cultural values and are exposed through processes, policies and behaviors. The challenge is to see the systems at play, and to do that, you need the ability to look beyond individual and team behavior.

This workshop explores a number of models including Senge's disciplines, Coplien and Harrison's organizational patterns, Sinek's golden circle, and Cooper's organizational structures along with many agile systems to visualize, identify and develop organizational agility. 

Finally focusing on leadership

While agile practices are typically implemented at a team level, Agile Leadership is required to effectively re-align the systems and ultimately impact the culture to enable and grow their agility. Leadership Agility is not just a title, it is a mental maturity model (a.k.a. a system) for leadership.

Organizational leadership will ultimately determine whether agility is successful and sustainable. Without impacting leadership, agility will be short-lived and often dysfunctional - we've all seen it. Leadership agility can be measured, visualized and taught.

We’ll explore Joiner and Joseph's Leadership Agility model and Rock's SCARF model in developing more personal, inter-personal and organizational agile leadership.