Innovation & agile. Two terms are often heard together and even more often used interchangeably. While they can (and do) exist together, there is a fine distinction that separates them.

Agility forms the foundation of an environment that fosters cohesive comprehension and acceptance of change, leading to the formation of an innovative mindset.

Innovation is the instigation of new thoughts and ideas that are ground-breaking in nature, forming because of an agile environment.

Extremely innovative teams may churn out revolutionary ideas that may not see the light of day if disparate business units resist even the thought of change.

McKinsey uses a smart-phone analogy to best describe agility – think of an agile business as the smart-phone that can allow you to download apps that you haven’t even imagined yet, without having to reinvent the phone.

Resistance to change increases the fragility of any company or team. This fragility needs to be replaced by a backbone of agility that can help people evolve rapidly, matching the new business conditions of today.

So how DO you transform your organization to be more agile? What are the best ways you can encourage teams to adopt agility as a standard operating procedure?

Unified Teams

Replace team control with team guidance. Provide a purpose that permeates across an organization to provide a common goal that transforms into strategic direction for the company. A sense of unity also enhances top-down and cross-team functionality as well as accountability, enabling increased adaptability.

Independent Teams

Enable teams to take ownership and responsibility of their actions fosters an empowered approach to team functioning. Removing archaic rules and processes and old-school approaches to problem solving allows teams to positively influence and craft the direction of the company.

Rapid Action Teams

Swap out traditional approval and decision-making cycles with models that encourage swift changes to strategic direction and execution. Standardizing operational procedures helps teams move quicker and collaborate easier, removing any potential obstacles along the way.

Transparent Teams

Encouraging cross-functional team performance can be done by inculcating a sense of transparency between teams, allowing for one team to pick up where the other team left off. Sharing of thoughts and ideas also forms a sense of trust between individuals and teams, vital for collaborative efforts.

Trusting Teams

Planting a sense of trust between management and teams, creates a sense of mental (and employment) safety that empowers teams to make increasingly radical decisions. Management should focus on providing the environment and support needed while trusting teams to deliver maximum business impact, irrespective of team activity.

Next Generation Teams

It’s vital that teams are equipped for the change they are expected to instigate. Working with technology that is integrated into the organization provides an additional layer of agility that helps teams match changing consumer needs. Operating with antiquated machines and technology significantly slows down the change you are looking to incorporate.

Last, but not the least, teams need to ensure that an agile culture of continuous learning and improvement is scalable across the organization. Start-ups suffer business changing issues while tackling quick growth and its imperative that large companies do not fall into this trap as well. By building a solid foundation of collaboration, quick decision making and transparency; large organizations are setting themselves for success when it comes to transforming themselves into agile corporations.