Harness the power of the people in your organisation by building an agile mindset and culture - A guide on the importance of building an agile culture

We’ve just published the results of our workplace culture research and you can download it free here.

Our guide offers a way to be more adaptive, innovative and resilient in a fast-paced digital economy. We looked at how SMEs manage change and transformation when they go through transition(s), such as a growth phase or through the process of Merger and Acquisition. Our research into organisational agility revealed four critical areas. We looked for key indicators of what we can term as potential misalignment within an organisation as organisational agility is not well understood.

We look at identifying the way organisations managed those four key elements of organisational culture to more efficiently pursue agile transformations.

The four elements we looked at where:

1. Recognition: One in five claim that there are never any personal development reviews inside their organisation…and strongly disagree that there is a system of recognition. Does your organisation recognise good or hard/smart work?

2. Communication: One in five companies claim that the organisation’s values are not visible and a similar number claim that the relationship between their role and the purpose of the organisation is not clear. Do you have an organisational purpose? How clear are the expectations and alignment of people?

3. Trust: Trust is more likely to be associated with fellow colleagues rather than senior management. How is the trust in other people and in the organisation?

4. Learning: In controlling cultures there’s less investment in skills and teams to make things happen. Is your organisation investing in training and development? Are the communication channels efficient and open? How would you rate the transparency in your organisation?

An agile culture is increasingly recognised as a critical component for the survival and growth of a organisation. We live in a fast-paced world where changing trends and consumer sentiment are the norm. There are rapid changes in competition, demand, consumer and employee expectations, technology and regulations. Significant disruption is not only to be expected but embraced and it is imperative for organisations to be able to adapt quickly.

Becoming agile is important to organisations. Despite companies ranking agility as a high strategic priority in their performance units, but the sentiment by respondents from our survey painted a picture of organisations falling behind in transforming activities in several parts of their structure—from innovation and customer experience to operations and strategy.

What’s more our survey also confirms that organisations that have successfully implemented an agile culture and adopted an agile mindset excel at both stability and dynamism.

The guide looks at the intertwined relationship between culture and leadership and how it shapes and influences change within organisations. We identify some of the behaviours that nurture and characterise an agile mindset and support people to understand the impact that adopting agile culture can have on communication, commitment and collaboration within your organisation.

If we’re not investing in our workforce what are we doing?