Business Management Memo - Future VA Meats Workplace

8 TD | January 2019

M erriam-Webster defines agility as the “quality or state of being agile” and lik-ens it to nimbleness and dexterity. In the context of work and how organizations find success, agility means having the right people, skills, and expertise; rapidly adapting to new demands from the market and business; and cross collaboration, among other capabilities.

In Obstacles to Agility: Reimagining Work Summit Executive Report 2018, respondents to the Catalant- sponsored report and event offer their feelings about the key drivers to business agility and how well their organizations performed on each.

Catalant gathered responses to questions around agility from attendees prior to the Reimagining Work Summit, which brought together nearly 80 executives, analysts, academics, and policymakers. Attendees discussed data-driven insights into the speed of work, market-shaping trends, and front- line lessons learned.

During the event, Joe Fuller, professor of man- agement practice and co-director of the Managing the Future of Work Initiative at Harvard University, noted that “The first challenge for an employer is keeping what it’s got, and making a work environ- ment that speaks to the higher aspirations of those people who voluntarily signed up to work for you and making the most of their talents. [This] means putting them on a conscious learning path, showing them the power of investment in their capabilities.”

A significant challenge to creating an agile envi- ronment is accessing the right skills and expertise to move initiatives forward as quickly as they need

to in today’s world of work. While accessing the right talent was ranked as the most important agil- ity driver, at 9.8 on a scale of 10, it was given only a 6.5 in terms of performance. Knowledge manage- ment fared much worse, coming in at the bottom of driver performance, at 4.9 out of 10.

Other business driver performances that rated poorly included cross-functional collaboration, vis- ibility into ongoing work, and workforce planning and deployment. As noted in the report, “Businesses that want to operate with more agility and innovate faster must rethink the way they structure work and invest in technology to match their best people with their most critical projects.”

While 79 percent of respondents said that busi- ness agility drivers are extremely important to them, 61 percent of them gave their organizations an average agility performance rating of 6 or lower out of 10.

What are the answers to these struggles with business agility? Accessing the right talent, both inside and outside of the organization, may mean turning to external consultants, boutique firms, as well as alumni and retirees.

In terms of the struggles around knowledge man- agement, the report notes that machine learning and artificial intelligence can help. These technol- ogies provide insights for business leaders into project timelines and performance and also enable leaders to track deliverables.

Patty Gaul is a senior writer/editor for ATD; pgaul@ td.org.

Agility Required The future of work will require businesses to be nimble to meet pace, challenges.

BY PATTY GAUL

of respondents say business agility drivers are extremely important to them.

research

79%

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