Article

By Eduardo Suárez Battán - Partner
July 2020

Agility

The speed with which technology is evolving causes great changes in our lives, both personally and at work, and even taking the limit to almost zero to be just one. In companies, it is also causing great changes in their businesses, in their operations, in the way they reach their customers and in the development of their products and services. There are new competitors that were not even on the “radar” and also customers (both in the business world -BtoB- and in the consumer world -BtoC-) have become more demanding, they change their loyalty easily, they want to buy omnichannel ( face-to-face and online), they appreciate the speed and evaluate all the time through networks and other digital channels.
This is part of what is rumored as the “Digital Transformation” and that it is something that is not well known what to do but that it is something that is already present in all companies and that their owners (or executives) know that they it's going to impact (sooner or later).
But let's try to better understand this in a more orderly way and without so much "fashion". The reality is that today technology is breaking paradigms and making everything more uncertain. The speed of change is increasing and we must be more agile in our actions, both in personal life and in work, because otherwise we will be "obsolete" and out of the market or we will make many companies disappear. The way we work, communicate, educate ourselves, lead others, interact and collaborate are changing rapidly.
The new generations are more demanding in the services and products, they want to receive them in an agile way (fast and effective) and they have more capacity to give their "verdict" in their satisfaction immediately and with the capacity to reach many people.
Companies must also be more sustainable in their performance and this is also evaluated by consumers. The internal climate of companies must be such that it allows working with greater flexibility and giving room for error. Leaders must be more coaches and facilitators of their team to put aside the "old bosses" who gave orders, demanded discipline and exercised a lot of control.
That is why executives have a great challenge ahead. They must know themselves more, they must be agile of mind, open to change, quick to seek results, have good communication skills and be modern in their leadership.
These are the six pillars of an executive's agility, which measured and then added together as a managerial / executive team, will determine the "agility of a company's management team." And why is this important? The technological changes and the way of operating that must be faced if a company wants to endure, depend on the agility of its management team. Without a top down commitment, companies will not be able to ride the wave of digital transformation that starts with a conviction of top management and the ability to ensure that the organization can face a cultural transformation that is broader and includes digital transformation.
The changes towards an agile and digital company are achieved with the conviction of the majority of the employees of a company and it is led by top management.
And how do we know if we have an "agile" executive team ready to face these challenges? This is where an external look is required from a consulting firm that understands technology, the business, and knows how to evaluate executives in a simple methodological way and focused on the six pillars of agility.
Our new service precisely focuses on evaluating a management team of a medium-sized company (ideally between 200 and 1000 employees approx) in these six pillars. It is done through an interview with two of our partners (to have diverse and unbiased opinions) and a psychometric test carried out by an independent psychologist. This allows us to have rich and comprehensive evaluations that then allow us to prepare a report indicating an agility index for each manager and one for the entire team and thus the company's agility. Suggestions and recommendations are provided to take action individually, as a whole and in the company (for example, in IT systems they are prepared for this transformation or if the management of human resources is requiring changes in the culture of the company) .
It is currently essential for companies to know their state of maturity to face this disruption and the agility of their main executives in the face of this transformation is the key to success.



Eduardo Suárez Battán


Partner

« Previous article

Pandemic and Agility

Next article »

HR Executive in Pandemic

We know how to identify talent

Contact us