Pivoting at pace: The secrets of building personal agility at work

Agility refers to an organisation’s ability to adapt to changes in their turbulent environment; how well do they cope, how responsive are they, and how able are they to pre-empt change? ‘Organisational agility’ thus reflects where they sit: ahead of, or behind, that change curve.

Despite the uncertainties they face, effective organisations find ways to raise their performance levels and make positive impacts. They’re able to change direction in a timely way while maintaining their business momentum. They’ve developed ways to think about change and have built sets of capabilities to manage it.

Stephen Covey’s 7 habits of highly effective people encouraged us to control what we can control. In this article, we’ll frame change at a more granular level, to see what individuals are more able to ‘control’.

We’ll position individuals as agents in that organisational change process and explore what ‘personal agility’ might mean. The intention is to provide insights and ideas that can help strengthen your agility muscles, to nudge you closer towards becoming a little more agile.