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May 26, 2022
Conscientious. Quick learner. Ambitious.
These are just a few of the many terms used to describe an employee with strong mental agility. The more employees you have that demonstrate these traits, the better off your company will be.
Learning agility is an employee’s ability to learn a new concept quickly and think outside of the box. At the same time, agility is also about unlearning ineffective processes and approaches — in short, knowing what isn’t working, abandoning it, and replacing it with a more effective alternative.
Empowering your employees with opportunities to cultivate this skill set can be a win-win situation for them and your company.
In this guide, we’ll delve into why you should offer your team innovative opportunities to develop their agility, what you’ll need to keep in mind as you do it, and a step-by-step approach to keeping your company as nimble as possible.
First, what are agility learning opportunities? In a broad sense, they start with training, professional development, and workshops that address one or any combination of the following criteria:
Let’s take a closer look at some of the tangible benefits your employees (and company) will experience by offering agility-centric learning experiences.
Learning agility could be your company’s organizational x-factor. According to research from Korn Ferry, employees who have “high levels of learning agility, tolerance for ambiguity, empathy, and social fluidity are five times more likely to be highly engaged.”
We know that with better engagement comes higher morale, longer employee retention, and accelerated revenue growth.
When times are turbulent, your company will need leaders who can step up to the plate and navigate the ship. You’ll know you have an agile leader in your ranks when they deploy new approaches or remedies to a new problem. In other words, learning agility can help them shed old beliefs or dated practices in favor of new, even unprecedented solutions.
But they can only rise as leaders (and drive diversification) if they’re kept up to date on processes and procedures and remain collaborative. The easier you make this for them, the better.
Creating and celebrating a culture of learning for your team comes with a slew of benefits. Show your employees that you value their continued learning and development so they can succeed in their respective roles.
How does prioritizing agility development promote a culture of learning? At its core, agility is about adaptation and transformation. And learning new concepts is at the cornerstone of both.
How can you institute a culture of learning in your company? That begins by first understanding how your employees learn. Not every adult learns the same way — we all have our strengths and areas for improvement.
Some might be audio or visual learners. Others might prefer access to asynchronous training modules or learning opportunities they can complete on their own time. And then there are employees that prefer scheduled, synchronous (instructor-led) learning opportunities. (Or maybe they need a combination of the two.)
No matter their learning style, you should offer continuous learning opportunities in a learning management system (LMS)-alternative platform they can access from anywhere, so they can absorb knowledge in a way that makes them the most comfortable. Moral of the story: if you want agile employees, give them agile workflows.
Of course, there isn’t a secret elixir or a single approach that works best for every company. Knowing your team members is important. Determine who your agile employees are. What about those who might not be as agile as others? Do they have the resources they need to cultivate their agility skill set? If not, what do they need? And what’s the best way to accommodate those needs?
Conducting a survey or holding meetings (either group or one-on-one) with your employees can give you deeper insights into their current agility levels.
Otherwise, start with the basics:
If you want to improve your company’s agility, start with running an honest assessment of how you’ve collectively handled change in the past and now. For instance, did you thrive in the face of the unexpected? Or did you treat change as more of a threat rather than an opportunity?
In addition to assessing your team’s collective response, it’s also beneficial to evaluate each individual’s response. Who on your team stepped up to the plate during those times? Who turned knowledge into action? And who shied away from the leadership spotlight?
To help your company become more agile as a whole, you have to focus on the role each person can play in driving change. Then, you’ll want to empower them to reach their potential.
That means communicating your collective vision and working together to achieve it. Doing this can demonstrate your commitment to transparency, as well. By doing this, you’re telling your team that you’re all in this together. That level of shared investment can bring out the best in each team member.
Whether your company is in-office or fully/partially remote, understanding how your employees work is critical for determining ways to sharpen their agility.
For instance, what does your digital workflow look like these days? Disorganized? Lacking critical updates? Not accessible to everyone?
To aid in agility-building, you need to have a realistic (and honest) grasp of your employees’ experience.
What barriers are standing in the way of them taking risks or offering up new, time-saving, cost-reducing solutions? If they’re overwhelmed with processes that are out-of-date and organizational charts that don’t reflect the current hierarchy in the company, they might be spending too much time looking for basic info, keeping them from their agile and innovative potential.
Creating a business playbook can accelerate their potential for greater agility.
A business playbook (AKA, a corporate playbook) is your team’s go-to, one-stop conduit of must-haves and need-to-knows. This is your employee’s one-stop-shop for easy access to your policies, standard operating procedures (SOPs), and training modules. It can also provide key info on who does what in your company, as well as how best to reach them.
Looking to incorporate agility-centric learning opportunities into your employees’ regular routines? There’s no need to start from scratch — get creative!
For example, professional training and development play an important part in your employees’ growth process. Here’s where you can tailor their training modules or process to their needs. You can post hypothetical or unprecedented scenarios in a discussion forum to see how they use their existing skills to analyze the problem at hand.
There’s no need to make this process difficult or add more work to your plate. Offering easily accessible, trackable, and testable agility training opportunities is an effective way to identify your most agile employees, build their agility skills, and foster their professional development.
Accepting that this process will continually evolve and change is critical if you want to see tangible growth on the agility front. And that’s the heart of agility, isn’t it? It’s about getting comfortable with accepting the unknown and working within those parameters so you can persevere (and scale) anyway.
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Seek feedback from your employees throughout the process. Tailor your questions in a way that focuses on how they felt about the agility-centered questions. To encourage and receive honest feedback, you’ll want to create a safe environment that shows your employees you value open communication.
What you do with that feedback is also essential in keeping your company nimble. Invite continued conversation from your employees. Determine what they feel should change or remain the same. Then, reflect. Consider what you can (or can’t) reasonably do to accommodate your employees’ agility-learning process. When one approach doesn’t work, try another.
From the business challenges that arose from the pandemic to the rise in employees demanding better work-life balance, leaders, and companies that can quickly adapt to these changes are in a better position than most. To survive and thrive in these changing times, you’ll want to offer agility-centric learning opportunities to your employees.
Part of that process includes equipping them with the tools and information they need, whenever they need them. The business world may be ever-changing, but that doesn’t mean your team can’t keep up.
Agility is difficult to improve, much less build from the ground up, when an employee doesn’t have what they need. Think about it this way: would you feel comfortable taking a risk or proposing an innovative solution if you didn’t have access to materials that would lead to an informed decision?
Of course not! You need to play with a full deck. If you want to keep your company as nimble as possible, ensure every employee has access to that deck whenever they need it.
Join 50,839 readers getting the The Manual in their inbox every Wednesday.
May 26, 2022
Conscientious. Quick learner. Ambitious.
These are just a few of the many terms used to describe an employee with strong mental agility. The more employees you have that demonstrate these traits, the better off your company will be.
Learning agility is an employee’s ability to learn a new concept quickly and think outside of the box. At the same time, agility is also about unlearning ineffective processes and approaches — in short, knowing what isn’t working, abandoning it, and replacing it with a more effective alternative.
Empowering your employees with opportunities to cultivate this skill set can be a win-win situation for them and your company.
In this guide, we’ll delve into why you should offer your team innovative opportunities to develop their agility, what you’ll need to keep in mind as you do it, and a step-by-step approach to keeping your company as nimble as possible.
First, what are agility learning opportunities? In a broad sense, they start with training, professional development, and workshops that address one or any combination of the following criteria:
Let’s take a closer look at some of the tangible benefits your employees (and company) will experience by offering agility-centric learning experiences.
Learning agility could be your company’s organizational x-factor. According to research from Korn Ferry, employees who have “high levels of learning agility, tolerance for ambiguity, empathy, and social fluidity are five times more likely to be highly engaged.”
We know that with better engagement comes higher morale, longer employee retention, and accelerated revenue growth.
When times are turbulent, your company will need leaders who can step up to the plate and navigate the ship. You’ll know you have an agile leader in your ranks when they deploy new approaches or remedies to a new problem. In other words, learning agility can help them shed old beliefs or dated practices in favor of new, even unprecedented solutions.
But they can only rise as leaders (and drive diversification) if they’re kept up to date on processes and procedures and remain collaborative. The easier you make this for them, the better.
Creating and celebrating a culture of learning for your team comes with a slew of benefits. Show your employees that you value their continued learning and development so they can succeed in their respective roles.
How does prioritizing agility development promote a culture of learning? At its core, agility is about adaptation and transformation. And learning new concepts is at the cornerstone of both.
How can you institute a culture of learning in your company? That begins by first understanding how your employees learn. Not every adult learns the same way — we all have our strengths and areas for improvement.
Some might be audio or visual learners. Others might prefer access to asynchronous training modules or learning opportunities they can complete on their own time. And then there are employees that prefer scheduled, synchronous (instructor-led) learning opportunities. (Or maybe they need a combination of the two.)
No matter their learning style, you should offer continuous learning opportunities in a learning management system (LMS)-alternative platform they can access from anywhere, so they can absorb knowledge in a way that makes them the most comfortable. Moral of the story: if you want agile employees, give them agile workflows.
Of course, there isn’t a secret elixir or a single approach that works best for every company. Knowing your team members is important. Determine who your agile employees are. What about those who might not be as agile as others? Do they have the resources they need to cultivate their agility skill set? If not, what do they need? And what’s the best way to accommodate those needs?
Conducting a survey or holding meetings (either group or one-on-one) with your employees can give you deeper insights into their current agility levels.
Otherwise, start with the basics:
If you want to improve your company’s agility, start with running an honest assessment of how you’ve collectively handled change in the past and now. For instance, did you thrive in the face of the unexpected? Or did you treat change as more of a threat rather than an opportunity?
In addition to assessing your team’s collective response, it’s also beneficial to evaluate each individual’s response. Who on your team stepped up to the plate during those times? Who turned knowledge into action? And who shied away from the leadership spotlight?
To help your company become more agile as a whole, you have to focus on the role each person can play in driving change. Then, you’ll want to empower them to reach their potential.
That means communicating your collective vision and working together to achieve it. Doing this can demonstrate your commitment to transparency, as well. By doing this, you’re telling your team that you’re all in this together. That level of shared investment can bring out the best in each team member.
Whether your company is in-office or fully/partially remote, understanding how your employees work is critical for determining ways to sharpen their agility.
For instance, what does your digital workflow look like these days? Disorganized? Lacking critical updates? Not accessible to everyone?
To aid in agility-building, you need to have a realistic (and honest) grasp of your employees’ experience.
What barriers are standing in the way of them taking risks or offering up new, time-saving, cost-reducing solutions? If they’re overwhelmed with processes that are out-of-date and organizational charts that don’t reflect the current hierarchy in the company, they might be spending too much time looking for basic info, keeping them from their agile and innovative potential.
Creating a business playbook can accelerate their potential for greater agility.
A business playbook (AKA, a corporate playbook) is your team’s go-to, one-stop conduit of must-haves and need-to-knows. This is your employee’s one-stop-shop for easy access to your policies, standard operating procedures (SOPs), and training modules. It can also provide key info on who does what in your company, as well as how best to reach them.
Looking to incorporate agility-centric learning opportunities into your employees’ regular routines? There’s no need to start from scratch — get creative!
For example, professional training and development play an important part in your employees’ growth process. Here’s where you can tailor their training modules or process to their needs. You can post hypothetical or unprecedented scenarios in a discussion forum to see how they use their existing skills to analyze the problem at hand.
There’s no need to make this process difficult or add more work to your plate. Offering easily accessible, trackable, and testable agility training opportunities is an effective way to identify your most agile employees, build their agility skills, and foster their professional development.
Accepting that this process will continually evolve and change is critical if you want to see tangible growth on the agility front. And that’s the heart of agility, isn’t it? It’s about getting comfortable with accepting the unknown and working within those parameters so you can persevere (and scale) anyway.
Seek feedback from your employees throughout the process. Tailor your questions in a way that focuses on how they felt about the agility-centered questions. To encourage and receive honest feedback, you’ll want to create a safe environment that shows your employees you value open communication.
What you do with that feedback is also essential in keeping your company nimble. Invite continued conversation from your employees. Determine what they feel should change or remain the same. Then, reflect. Consider what you can (or can’t) reasonably do to accommodate your employees’ agility-learning process. When one approach doesn’t work, try another.
From the business challenges that arose from the pandemic to the rise in employees demanding better work-life balance, leaders, and companies that can quickly adapt to these changes are in a better position than most. To survive and thrive in these changing times, you’ll want to offer agility-centric learning opportunities to your employees.
Part of that process includes equipping them with the tools and information they need, whenever they need them. The business world may be ever-changing, but that doesn’t mean your team can’t keep up.
Agility is difficult to improve, much less build from the ground up, when an employee doesn’t have what they need. Think about it this way: would you feel comfortable taking a risk or proposing an innovative solution if you didn’t have access to materials that would lead to an informed decision?
Of course not! You need to play with a full deck. If you want to keep your company as nimble as possible, ensure every employee has access to that deck whenever they need it.
May 26, 2022
•
Conscientious. Quick learner. Ambitious.
These are just a few of the many terms used to describe an employee with strong mental agility. The more employees you have that demonstrate these traits, the better off your company will be.
Learning agility is an employee’s ability to learn a new concept quickly and think outside of the box. At the same time, agility is also about unlearning ineffective processes and approaches — in short, knowing what isn’t working, abandoning it, and replacing it with a more effective alternative.
Empowering your employees with opportunities to cultivate this skill set can be a win-win situation for them and your company.
In this guide, we’ll delve into why you should offer your team innovative opportunities to develop their agility, what you’ll need to keep in mind as you do it, and a step-by-step approach to keeping your company as nimble as possible.
First, what are agility learning opportunities? In a broad sense, they start with training, professional development, and workshops that address one or any combination of the following criteria:
Let’s take a closer look at some of the tangible benefits your employees (and company) will experience by offering agility-centric learning experiences.
Learning agility could be your company’s organizational x-factor. According to research from Korn Ferry, employees who have “high levels of learning agility, tolerance for ambiguity, empathy, and social fluidity are five times more likely to be highly engaged.”
We know that with better engagement comes higher morale, longer employee retention, and accelerated revenue growth.
When times are turbulent, your company will need leaders who can step up to the plate and navigate the ship. You’ll know you have an agile leader in your ranks when they deploy new approaches or remedies to a new problem. In other words, learning agility can help them shed old beliefs or dated practices in favor of new, even unprecedented solutions.
But they can only rise as leaders (and drive diversification) if they’re kept up to date on processes and procedures and remain collaborative. The easier you make this for them, the better.
Creating and celebrating a culture of learning for your team comes with a slew of benefits. Show your employees that you value their continued learning and development so they can succeed in their respective roles.
How does prioritizing agility development promote a culture of learning? At its core, agility is about adaptation and transformation. And learning new concepts is at the cornerstone of both.
How can you institute a culture of learning in your company? That begins by first understanding how your employees learn. Not every adult learns the same way — we all have our strengths and areas for improvement.
Some might be audio or visual learners. Others might prefer access to asynchronous training modules or learning opportunities they can complete on their own time. And then there are employees that prefer scheduled, synchronous (instructor-led) learning opportunities. (Or maybe they need a combination of the two.)
No matter their learning style, you should offer continuous learning opportunities in a learning management system (LMS)-alternative platform they can access from anywhere, so they can absorb knowledge in a way that makes them the most comfortable. Moral of the story: if you want agile employees, give them agile workflows.
Of course, there isn’t a secret elixir or a single approach that works best for every company. Knowing your team members is important. Determine who your agile employees are. What about those who might not be as agile as others? Do they have the resources they need to cultivate their agility skill set? If not, what do they need? And what’s the best way to accommodate those needs?
Conducting a survey or holding meetings (either group or one-on-one) with your employees can give you deeper insights into their current agility levels.
Otherwise, start with the basics:
If you want to improve your company’s agility, start with running an honest assessment of how you’ve collectively handled change in the past and now. For instance, did you thrive in the face of the unexpected? Or did you treat change as more of a threat rather than an opportunity?
In addition to assessing your team’s collective response, it’s also beneficial to evaluate each individual’s response. Who on your team stepped up to the plate during those times? Who turned knowledge into action? And who shied away from the leadership spotlight?
To help your company become more agile as a whole, you have to focus on the role each person can play in driving change. Then, you’ll want to empower them to reach their potential.
That means communicating your collective vision and working together to achieve it. Doing this can demonstrate your commitment to transparency, as well. By doing this, you’re telling your team that you’re all in this together. That level of shared investment can bring out the best in each team member.
Whether your company is in-office or fully/partially remote, understanding how your employees work is critical for determining ways to sharpen their agility.
For instance, what does your digital workflow look like these days? Disorganized? Lacking critical updates? Not accessible to everyone?
To aid in agility-building, you need to have a realistic (and honest) grasp of your employees’ experience.
What barriers are standing in the way of them taking risks or offering up new, time-saving, cost-reducing solutions? If they’re overwhelmed with processes that are out-of-date and organizational charts that don’t reflect the current hierarchy in the company, they might be spending too much time looking for basic info, keeping them from their agile and innovative potential.
Creating a business playbook can accelerate their potential for greater agility.
A business playbook (AKA, a corporate playbook) is your team’s go-to, one-stop conduit of must-haves and need-to-knows. This is your employee’s one-stop-shop for easy access to your policies, standard operating procedures (SOPs), and training modules. It can also provide key info on who does what in your company, as well as how best to reach them.
Looking to incorporate agility-centric learning opportunities into your employees’ regular routines? There’s no need to start from scratch — get creative!
For example, professional training and development play an important part in your employees’ growth process. Here’s where you can tailor their training modules or process to their needs. You can post hypothetical or unprecedented scenarios in a discussion forum to see how they use their existing skills to analyze the problem at hand.
There’s no need to make this process difficult or add more work to your plate. Offering easily accessible, trackable, and testable agility training opportunities is an effective way to identify your most agile employees, build their agility skills, and foster their professional development.
Accepting that this process will continually evolve and change is critical if you want to see tangible growth on the agility front. And that’s the heart of agility, isn’t it? It’s about getting comfortable with accepting the unknown and working within those parameters so you can persevere (and scale) anyway.
Seek feedback from your employees throughout the process. Tailor your questions in a way that focuses on how they felt about the agility-centered questions. To encourage and receive honest feedback, you’ll want to create a safe environment that shows your employees you value open communication.
What you do with that feedback is also essential in keeping your company nimble. Invite continued conversation from your employees. Determine what they feel should change or remain the same. Then, reflect. Consider what you can (or can’t) reasonably do to accommodate your employees’ agility-learning process. When one approach doesn’t work, try another.
From the business challenges that arose from the pandemic to the rise in employees demanding better work-life balance, leaders, and companies that can quickly adapt to these changes are in a better position than most. To survive and thrive in these changing times, you’ll want to offer agility-centric learning opportunities to your employees.
Part of that process includes equipping them with the tools and information they need, whenever they need them. The business world may be ever-changing, but that doesn’t mean your team can’t keep up.
Agility is difficult to improve, much less build from the ground up, when an employee doesn’t have what they need. Think about it this way: would you feel comfortable taking a risk or proposing an innovative solution if you didn’t have access to materials that would lead to an informed decision?
Of course not! You need to play with a full deck. If you want to keep your company as nimble as possible, ensure every employee has access to that deck whenever they need it.
Organize Chaos, published daily and hosted by Chris Ronzio, covers the playbooks, the people-powered strategies, and productivity hacks SMB leaders need to take their team to the next level.
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