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Enterprise Agility Leaders Network: 12 ways to be more adaptable with Lynne Cazaly

Deloitte Enterprise Agility Leaders Network & Learning Circle is an interactive and collaborative community that comes together to solve the common challenges that transformation leaders across Australia are facing on their organisation’s path to agility. The series of events run for this community are focused on connecting, informing, and empowering leaders as it relates to their organisation’s agility agenda.

In July, the Leaders Network had the absolute pleasure of hosting an international keynote speaker and a multi-award-winning author on better ways of working, Lynne Cazaly. In the event, Lynne shared 12 ways organisations and teams can be more adaptable through their behaviours and actions; something that we know is on the minds of many Transformation Leaders.

Lynne took us through what it means to be agile and adaptable which boils down to three key concepts:

  • Idea speed: How quickly can an organisation translate ideas into something that benefits the customer?
  • Customer at the centre: Understand who the customers are and what they need to make their world, life, experience better.
  • A culture of ease: Understand what frustrates people, what slows them down and how to make them collaborate. How to make being adaptable easier for your people?

With this understanding in mind, Lynne then shared 12 different ways organisations and teams can become more adaptable.

Use data to inform, connect the dots and understand the deeper meaning of what is going on in the organisation.

If people in our organisation are not able to listen, it is going to be a big blocker as they are caged with certain beliefs. If leaders can help people to be better listeners, they can adapt better.

Ask the questions: How willing are you to learn? How short is the feedback loop? How can we accelerate it? If we can get people to learn, we can change something.

People make collective sense as they listen together. It is a great capability to make people more adaptive, responsive, and agile.

Facilitator does not have to be the person in front of the room but facilitator should set up the environment so people can listen and collaborate.

Lynne shared that research shows that visualisation increases productivity in meetings by 25%. Visualisation gets people connected to the topic and lead to faster and better engagement.

Identify opportunities to run tests in an environment that supports learning and growth through failure.

Learn how to engage people and become a great communicator. Spontaneous thinkers are those who are adaptable at heart.

Focus on what you have and “make do with what you got”. Test the brain to go only with what you have.

Engage with the way our people are and feel what they feel. A lot of organisations do empathy maps with customers, but we can use it for our people to listen to their pains and gains.

While ingenuity talks about maximising with what you have got, creativity is about generating something from your ideas.

Lynne shared that the word wonder is a good one, such as asking “I’m wondering if you would like to …” as it engages curiosity and thought of future possibilities.

Now it is time to reflect, what is your organisation’s adaptability on the scale from low to high?

Low – Deny, resist, block or fight the transformation

Medium-low – Go with the transformation

Medium-high – Create, improvise, experiment

High – Lead, coach and guide others to adapt

Based on where your organisation is on the scale, analyse where the point of resistance is. Consider how you can help your organisations and teams to be more adaptable through the 12 ways covered above.

Read more about Deloitte Enterprise Adaptability here.