Business Agility Increases Organizational Immunity

Can Business Agility be used to immunize your organization?

Immunizing your organization with Business Agility tools can help increase resistance to market turbulence and other business diseases. One of the biggest controversies currently raging is how to handle Covid-19. Four camps have emerged:

• Therapeutics - curing
• Vaccination – man-made prevention
• Increasing Immunity – natural prevention via better health
• A combination of those three

What if this same discussion can be applied to the sudden and completely unplanned-for effects of the almost global mandated lockdown caused by the virus? Can Business agility help?

Is the Cure worse than the Disease?

In trying to cure the effects of the lockdown, many governments have attempted to give away free money to keep the economic system afloat. First, this prolongs the life of clinically-dead/Zombie companies with newly printed or taxpayer money, inspiring even more irresponsible behavior by those companies lucky enough to get bailed-out. An inquiring business mind might wonder, “What does giving away free money have to do with capitalism?”

An even bigger, follow-up question becomes whether or not there exists enough “free money" to therapeutically accomplish this solution, especially when measured against the unprecedented and disastrous economic contraction these same players caused? And, what happens to the remaining, yet decreasing trust in this solution if/when taxpayers begin to inquire more deeply as to the origin, sanity and long-term effects of this “free money” approach?

Prevention or suspension?

Vaccination or “man-made prevention” in this case can be likened to the locking down of everyone, healthy as well as sick, into their homes or neighborhoods. Vaccines “prevent” infection by injecting a small dose of the virus into the body. This approach often causes a mild to violent reaction/side-effect in the recipient. Evidence would suggest that lockdowns also seem to cause side effects too. Isn’t it more or less common sense that a big side-effect of staying inside, without benefit of sunshine and exercise, is a decrease in your immunity and an increase in frustration? What happens when these lockdowns are lifted or, the trend of frustrated and healthy people refusing to honor them continues to increase? Will you and your business be ready to handle a possibly drastic surge in new business, while still having to guard against increased infection risk for your employees and friends?

Immunity, Natural prevention (without side effects).

Increasing your immunity (and the “Herd’s”), so far, seems to have been undervalued and underreported. This approach has historically been shown to improve our chances to avoid sickness and reduce the severity, should we indeed catch something. There are some national experiments (such as Sweden’s) now in progress that should provide up to date and measurable evidence of how true this still is. When it comes to the virus du jour, different reports cite Vitamin D, Zinc, Vitamin C, sunshine, fresh air and exercise as effective ways to increase your chances of at least reducing the threat of infection.

Each one of these vitamins, as well as sunshine, fresh air and exercise can be thought of as tools to improve your body’s immunity. Used consciously and correctly, they all seem to contribute to making your system stronger and more resistant to dis-ease in general. Most have no side-effects when taken responsibly. Now how does this relate to your business and markets?

Immunity and Business Agility

Employing proven Business Agility tools, responsibly, correctly and at the proper time, can act as vitamins and exercise for your organization, strengthening its resistance to unexpected market turbulence and other forms of dis-ease. Simple things like a better understanding of what business agility is and accurately measuring how agile your company currently is can provide a great start. A comprehensive workshop and/or using an agility index to benchmark your current business agility status will do the trick to uncover your organization’s immunity strengths and weaknesses

Once these data points are revealed, other simple, but powerful and proven tools can be employed to empower your organization and further increase its resistance to market turbulence. Of course, there are more sophisticated tools and indexes that can radically empower your organization as well. Some specific actions to take can include the following:

· Routinely reviewing your marketing strategy and making sure it addresses your current and constantly changing market horizon.

· Changing your budget system from an annual one to a rolling budget system and freeing up unused or inefficiently placed funds in the process.

· Anchoring important decisions more deeply and firmly with your employees by including more of them in the process.

· Creating a “skunk works” to get the creative juices flowing again.

· Assessing your corporate training offer and improving both its output and input, both internally as well as externally to your end users.

· Lessening dependence upon historical KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) by installing a DNS or Dynamic Navigation System to better monitor your current status, measure forward progress and eliminate unnecessary delays caused by managerial excuses.

All of the above business agility tools can also be applied to strengthen you organization, regardless of the business environment, with little or no side-effects.

There are other, more sophisticated ways to strengthen your organization’s immune system and yes, a combination of three approaches cannot hurt, but the major message is to start now! The quicker you establish a collaborative, business agility culture within your organization, the quicker your ability to protect yourself from all forms of market dis-ease will be strengthened and your bottom line enriched. Corporate training helps.

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