Agility and You

This pandemic has taken a toll on everyone in different ways. People have lost their jobs, savings, the very definition of the normal, and far too many have lost their loved ones. Yet, in such adversity, we continue on. Life is full of challenges and hardships to face, some we bring on ourselves and others we have no control over. Some may build our confidence along the way and others we just try to muster what we can to endure and persevere. Why is it that while some of us are able to breeze through such challenges, others struggle?  

Awareness of Self

I’ve come to understand that agility helps people to emerge successfully from such hardships, navigate through challenges, and enrich interactions - personally and professionally.

When we speak about agility we often talk in terms of businesses, organizations, communities, leadership etc. But what I want to draw special attention to here is s elf agility. It’s not often talked about — though every single one of us practices agility at various levels. Although some are more consistent than others, and some show an ability to be agile in real time rather than after the fact. 

I love the way Sara Bigwood describes agility in her blog, Agile Vs Agility :

 Agility is being able to see through your habits and beliefs, to move past the autopilot, and become intentional with your behavior, emotions and thoughts. To rise above your actual level of consciousness and reach a new one that encompasses more perspectives, creates more space for others to bring their full potential, to co-create, collaborate, be safe to speak up, disagree with respect, share half-baked ideas, and take ownership.” 

What is striking in this definition is the call toward self-awareness and the intent to rise above your default, while creating space for the expansion of others’ potential. 

That reminded me of The Arbinger Institute’s book, Leadership and Self-Deception , which a mentor of mine had suggested when I approached her with a problem managing a stakeholder.  Her advice to me was, “The key to leadership lies not in what we do, but in who we are”.

During the last 18 months, there have been times I have lost my cool and other occasions where I have shown great agility. When I have lost my cool, it was out of frustration that someone else was avoiding ownership of a situation or that it was someone else's fault that I was in the situation at all. After some deep reflection, I have come to realize that the psychological process within our minds defines our responses or reactions to a given situation.

Leadership and Self-Deception reminds us that, as human beings, we are social beings; we have a natural moral onus to do right by others, and when we don’t, we deceive ourselves from the very simple act of kindness, the basic act of treating others' needs as our own.

Once we see others in a distorted way and as the source of our problems, we are putting ourselves at the center of the universe and seeing others as mere objects, whose needs are secondary and less legitimate than our own.  As a result, we feel lack of commitment, lack of engagement, lack of trust,  face communication problems, and so on. This deception limits our ability to reach our full potential and betrays the basic obligation that we have to see others as they are - as people.

On the other hand, when we see others as people who have feelings, hopes, fears and needs, we naturally become good communicators. We relate and can convey even the hardest messages without imparting bad feelings. We create an environment of openness, trust and fellowship where people work really hard, put in effort for the collective good of the group not for individual accomplishments. That human-oriented focus fosters an environment for collective agility.

So, agility is fostered from within each of us. If you are feeling unpleasant about something, it's not something that’s always external. The unpleasantness is within you, so fixing the external environment alone doesn’t work. The only thing that has been proven to work is building self awareness on our perception, clarity on the intent and action towards the common good.

The only thing I will add to Sara’s wonderful description is ‘ NOW ’!

Rashmi Fernandes is an Agile Leadership Journey Guide who works with leaders and teams to co-create outcomes that lead to agility and positive team culture, while focusing on strategic alignment. She specializes in enabling product teams to focus on customer centricity and arrive at shared understanding towards a common purpose. As an Innovation Catalyst, she coaches teams on how to take an idea from concept to life.