below.

Leadership Agility in a VUCA World:

Update -- 2015
Nick Horney, Ph.D. Principal, Agility Consulting

1/12/2015
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OVERVIEW

In 2010, the first article on Leadership Agility in a VUCA World was co-authored by

Nick Horney, Bill Passmore and Tom O’Shea in the People &

Strategy Journal. The article was entitled “Leadership Agility: A

Business Imperative for a VUCA World” and was a wake-up call to

organizations about the critical need to identify and develop

leaders that demonstrate leadership agility. Since 2010, Agility Consulting has led the

way in researching and developing products and services for organizations to identify,

assess, develop and deploy leaders with agility.

VUCA BACKGROUND

The dynamic and fast-changing nature of our world today is best described by VUCA

(Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity), a term coined by the US Army War

College. Today, there are almost as many mobile phones in the world as there are

people. More than one-third of the world is online – a fivefold increase over the last

decade. Facebook now has more than 1 billion active users; YouTube gets more than 100

hours of video content added every minute; and over 175 million tweets are added to

Twitter timelines every single day. Interestingly enough, Facebook, YouTube and

Twitter did not exist a decade ago!

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LEADERSHIP AGILITY 2005 - 2014

During the past 10 years, many others (e.g., academics,

consultants, business executives, etc.) have become increasingly

aware of the critical need for leaders with agility within a

continuously changing VUCA business environment. There have

been no less than 500 articles, whitepapers, videos, seminars and

books on the topic of leadership agility or adaptability in a VUCA

world since our leadership agility article was published. Many of

these books, seminars and whitepapers referenced The AGILE

Model® and original Leadership Agility in a

VUCA World article (e.g., Human Resource

Transformation, Forbes and UNC Chapel Hill).

Several thousand leaders representing a wide

range of industry sectors and locations (foreign and domestic)

have participated in a leadership agility seminar designed and

implemented through Agility Consulting. While others remain

focused at a conceptual level, Agility Consulting continued

researching and working with clients in North America and globally to provide relevant

products and services that enable organizations to identify, develop and deploy leaders

with leadership agility. Currently we are working on another book focused on

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leadership agility that has a working title of Leadership Agility: How to Thrive with

Continuous Course Corrections.

Much has been learned globally over the past ten years about

leadership agility and will continue to be shared by Agility

Consulting’s Strategic Agility Institute, newsletters, articles,

whitepapers, webinars, videos, university programs and seminars including:

• Cost of Lack of Agililty -- Appreciation for the

cost of lack of agility, regardless of whether
experienced in the public or private sector;
• Agility as a Leadership Core Compentency --
Many companies are including leadership agility as
a core competency for current and future leaders;
• Talent Management/Scenario Planning -- Agility
Consulting has introduced the concept of Talent
Management Agility™ to many of its clients as a
means to integrate scenario planning with the talent
review process;
• Agility Analytics – Application of better tools and
enhanced analytics resulted in improved processes
for organizational decision making; Better analytics
to capture the impact of agility (e.g., 2013 -- Using
BCG‛s Adaptive Advantage Index (AAI), researchers
assessed 2,127 US public companies. The 0.91
correlation BCG found between the AAI and market
cap growth found that companies scoring 80% - 90%
on the AAI showed an average 20% growth in market
cap over the 5-year period);
• Spec Ops Agility -- Experiences shared from Navy
Special Operations to private sector companies about
leadership agility under “extreme” VUCA conditions;

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• Agility Mindset -- Agility is becoming a new way of

thinking about and preparing for trends and patterns
of change that in the past were categorized as
“unanticipated”;
• Agility Best Practices -- Knowledge sharing and best
practices communication between different different
organizations is accelerating the application of
leadership agility (e.g., application of The AGILE Model®
to the way leaders and managers plan for and conduct
meetings – see Conducting AGILE Team Meetings card;
• Agility Research -- There is significant overlap in
research, work, training, etc. that focuses on leadership
agility, adaptability, nimbleness and resilience;
• Universities -- More universities are updating their
programs and communications to include a focus on the
topic of leadership agility (e.g., University of Seattle,
graduate program at Rollins College);

LEADERSHIP AGILITY PRODUCTS AND SERVICES

(Available at WWW.AgilityConsulting.com)

Agility Analytic Products Focused on Individuals

• Leadership Agility Profile (LAP)™ -- The Leadership

Agility Profile™ 360 is one of the only online 360-degree
leadership agility assessment instruments specifically
designed to identify the strengths and developmental needs
required of leaders in an uncertain and turbulent business
environment. The LAP can also be used as a full self-
assessment or as "180° feedback" to compare your self-
assessment with how your boss or a trusted colleague rates
your leadership.
o LAP Self Report
o LAP 180 (Self and Boss)
o LAP 360 (Self, Boss, Peers, Direct Reports and
Clients)
• Leadership Agility Profile for Supervisors 360™

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• Leadership Agility Profile for Project Managers 360™

• Leadership Agility Profile for Sales Leaders 360™

• Agility Personality Profile™ -- The APP™ is a unique personality assessment specifically

developed to assess the underlying characteristics of agility. It focuses on the five traits that support
behavioral agility, which we uncovered through rigorous scientific research. These five personality
dimensions and their associated definitions are:

1. Focus -- Tends to create goals and concentrate

upon them until completion. Stays on track even
when it's difficult to do so. Becomes fully
engaged in tasks.
2. Confidence -- Approaches work with a sense of
self-assuredness. Has a high degree of trust in
own abilities. Eager to face challenges.
3. Proactivity -- Avoids a reactive mindset.
Anticipates tasks and continually looks for ways
to make progress. Accepts the need to act
without complete information.
4. Optimism -- Looks for positive aspects of
difficult situations. Bounces back after failing to
achieve. Finds hidden opportunities within problems
or challenges.
5. Inquisitiveness --Values the opportunity to learn. Comfortable in new
situations. Seeks and benefits from experiences that demand the
acquisition of new knowledge or skill.

• Agility Scenario Profile™ -- The ASP™ presents the individual with

24 situations and six potential actions one could take in each situation. The
individual rates each potential action in terms of how likely they would take
each action. Their responses will be compared and scored against ratings from
experts.

• Imagility™ -- The objective of Imagility™ is to help managers and/or

facilitators rapidly accelerate the implementation of organizational
initiatives. Through the facilitated use of a variety of color images you will
begin to create dialogue among participants. Dialogue enables the reaching
a shared vision of the situation. Through the use of Imagility™, a
facilitator can rapidly enable participants in any problem-solving meeting,
new product launch, project team session, etc. to openly clarify issues,
challenges and resistance regarding an initiative or challenges faced in the
current situation.

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Agility Individual Development Resources

• The Agility Advantage Seminar™ -- Leadership success in the 21st Century depends on an
ability to be future-oriented, anticipate and act on external
opportunities and recover from unforeseen changes. This highly
interactive experience will help participants lead business units
and organizations with greater
foresight and expose them to the
behaviors and processes associated
with agile leadership and agile
organizations. In addition to the
experience shared by the facilitator
and participants, a particularly
unique aspect of this experience is
the presentation by a Navy SEAL
leader who will share vivid examples of his
application of agility in leading teams during highly volatile environments.

• Leader LINKS™: Experiential Application of

Leadership Agility on the Golf Course -- Leadership
Agility Experienced on the Golf Course – Participants learn how to
apply The Agile Model® concepts to a business simulation that is
experienced while playing golf. Each member of a foursome
practices leadership agility and receives feedback while serving as
the leader during at least 4 holes of golf. No golf experience is
required, since the primary focus is on the application of leadership
agility not a low golf handicap.

• Leadership Agility Workshop -- Building Leadership Capability to Sense and Respond during
Times of Uncertainty and Turbulence – Learn how to apply The Agile
st
Model® to enhance the critical 21 century core competency of leadership
agility. Participants will discover their leadership agility strengths and
development needs by completing the LAP 360.

• Leadership Agility in a Matrix Organization – Application

of Leadership Agility framework in organizations that are designed in a
matrix structure which often limits the capability of leaders and
organizations to capture the benefits of being more agile.

• Leadership Orienteering: Experiential

Application of Leadership Agility While
Competing on an Orienteering Course -- primarily
focused on the team leader to experientially reinforce high
performance team qualities. It is a one-day event which is easily
integrated into the business agenda and primary purpose of the
team (e.g., new project team start-up, new product introduction,
new leader within a particular organizational unit, etc.). Generally,
the team is subdivided into smaller groups with assigned group leaders
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and given the task of completing an orienteering course in the shortest period of time. Group dynamics are
observed by the participants and facilitators and summarized and discussed in the debriefing session.
Typical orienteering equipment is used (e.g., map, compasses, flags, etc.) and help bring to life some of the
dynamics leadership agility in team settings.

Agility Applied to Executive Coaching

The AGILE Coach™ (OODA Loop Framework for

coaching) -- We believe the most effective coaches have an
advanced degree in the area of organizational psychology and
encourage any organization considering a coaching program to ask
detailed questions about education and experience. The core
coaching model (four step coaching process) used by Agility
Consulting is referred to as The OODA Loop Framework. The
first step in our AGILE Coach certification process requires that
each coach have the appropriate psychological training
represented by the standards and ethics of the Society of
Industrial/Organizational Psychologists (Division 14 of the
American Psychological Association). The second step in the
certification is focused on training and mentoring those qualified
as coaches in a repeatable and clearly understood process called
The Agile Coaching Model™ -- a four step process designed around
the OODA Loop (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act) decision making model
developed by Col. John Boyd.

• High Potential Coaching

• Turnaround Coaching
• Development in Role Coaching

LEADERSHIP AGILITY – 2015 AND BEYOND

As the world continues to be characterized by VUCA, we will share our research and

best practices regarding Leadership Agility throughout 2015. Included in this research

will be a summary of Leadership Agility Profile data collected globally over a period of

about ten years across numerous industry sectors and organizational levels. We will

share best practices that we have learned from the data and will integrate the results

into the work we do with our clients.

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We will continue our research into additional leadership agility topics (e.g., Emotional

Agility -- EA) as we apply the appropriate psychometric rigor to ensure reliablity and

validity of our EA assessment tool.

Nick Horney, Ph.D., Principal

Agility Consulting & Training
3816 Pinetop Road
Greensboro, NC 27410
(w) +1-336-286-7250
[email protected]
WWW.AgilityConsulting.com