How Agile Are You?

Success for today’s leaders lies in their ability to be AGILE: being prepared to take their organisation down new paths; open to new ideas and new technological innovations; able to respond quickly to changing needs and keep ahead of the competition. This has been never been more apparent in our lives than now in 2020. as we position ourselves for a slow return to the new “normal”. This is a good time to interrogate how we want to function in future.

You don’t need to have all the answers; by looking to create a culture of innovation within your organisation you can begin to bridge the gap between what you have and what you aspire to.

Successful CEOs recognise that they need continually to evolve, even transform, their organisations to survive.  This requires a leadership mindset that is prepared to question long-held assumptions and beliefs, challenging the status quo if necessary.

Some of the qualities identified as critical for generating new ideas and driving change are:

• Understanding your customers’ changing values and needs; taking responsibility for ensuring that your organisation’s environmental, social and governance policies reflect the values of your customers.
• Balancing data-driven insight into customer needs and requirements with your own expertise and intuition. To get value out of increasingly sophisticated analytics, CEOs need to ensure they can trust the findings in front of them. Building a framework of checks and balances is crucial, ensuring reliable quality control measures are in place to enable you to make data-based decisions with greater confidence.
• Creating an environment where the willingness to change is recognised as a strength, not a weakness. Even if a venture may ultimately prove unsuccessful, learn from the experience.

How willing are you to challenge ingrained management and organisational thinking?

Further thinking on how to remain agile as a not-for-profit:

1. Develop a clear consensus role and focus within the organisation for the years ahead (agreed market position in Zimbabwe or SADC), ensuring your own capacity to replicate interventions that work and make a sustainable difference.
2. Generate confidence in the market that the team has a value-adding role for social investors, bringing lasting change for Zimbabweans and, in doing so, the team is correctly sized and resourced.
3. Ensure an inclusive process that involves all key stakeholders and challenges the organisation’s current thinking and programming.

Turn all the good thinking into real action for change, guided by a clear business plan that makes sense; ensuring balance between funding and overheads; identifying alternative income streams; and maintaining a healthy fixed to variable cost ratio  – with quarterly follow-ups.

Engage Q Partnership if you are interested in discussing these ideas further.