The Agility Mindset (eBook)

Fiona Cannon OBE. Fiona is the Lloyds Banking Group Diversity & Inclusion Director and the Director of the Agile Future Forum. She has been working on the issue of agility for a number of years: Lloyds Banking Group was the first UK company in the 1990’s to introduce flexible working for all employees. She was also chair of the Employers Group on Work Life Balance which was established in 2000 to look at how employers could support flexible working for employees. Fiona was also a member of the Governments’ Work and Parents taskforce in 1999, which developed the original UK flexible working legislation. In her role at Lloyds Banking Group, Fiona has been implementing the lessons learned as a member of the Agile Future Forum. Fiona was awarded the OBE in the 2011 New Year’s Honours List for services to equal opportunities. She has also recognised as a Working Families Pioneer by Working Families and named European Diversity and Inclusion champion in 2015.

Foreword 5
Preface 8
Acknowledgements 10
Contents 13
List of Case Studies 14
List of Diagrams 15
1: From Flexibility to Agility 16
Four Trends 20
Beyond Flexibility 23
The AFF’s Role 27
Summary 29
References 29
2: Understanding the Economic Benefits of an Agile Workforce 30
Testing the Agile Intuition 31
The Meaning of Agile 31
Identifying Current and Potential Value 33
Identified Business Benefits 34
How Agile Workforces Generate Value 36
A Deeper Understanding 41
Common Agile Working Practices 41
Look at the Workplace, Not at the Sector 44
The “How to” Toolkit 45
Golden Rules of Implementation 45
Be Business-Led 46
Understand the Needs of the Business and the Workforce 46
Develop the Agile Working Model Bottom-Up 47
Consider Big, Strategic Changes 47
Prepare and Educate Leadership First 48
Agility Is Mission Critical 50
Summary 51
3: Agility in Context 53
Agile Work Readiness Index (AWRI) 53
The Link Between Agility and Productivity 60
The Evolution of Agile 66
Towards the Agile Culture 68
Organisational Readiness 68
Internal vs. External 69
Control vs. Change 69
Organisational Balance 70
AFF OAI Key Findings 71
A Prize Worth Seeking 72
Summary 73
References 74
4: Assessing Agile Value 75
The National Need 75
Business Value Assessment in Practice 76
Bottom-Up 82
The BVA Approach 83
Step One—Selecting Your Teams and Preparation 83
Team Selection 83
Preparation 84
Step Two—Providing the Context and Defining Agility 84
Step Three—Understanding Business Goals and Learning from Case Studies 85
Step Four—Prioritise Agile Practices 87
Step Five—Making the Business Case 90
Step Six—Identifying Enablers and Barriers 91
Preparing to Roll-Out 92
Summary 94
Reference 94
5: Talent 95
The Employee’s Perspective 96
Agility and Diversity 100
Agility Transcends Gender 101
Career Stages 103
Managing the Agile Workforce 106
Employer, Employee Relationships 112
Attracting and Keeping Good People 116
Summary 118
References 118
6: Understanding and Overcoming Obstacles 120
Culture and Attitudes 121
Self-Limiting Beliefs 123
Infrastructure 124
Bureaucratic Barriers 128
Management Capability 129
Leaders 132
Generations 137
Rigorous Agility 138
HR Policies and Practices 139
External Challenges 143
Benchmarking Agility 144
Summary 145
7: Agile Futures 146
Changing and Staying the Same 147
Individuals and Organisations 151
Organisational Structure 154
Future Leaders 158
The AFF’s Role 159
The Road Ahead 162
Final Words, by Sir Winfried Bischoff 165
Reference 165
Appendix: List of Agile Future Forum Founder Members 166
Index 168