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Humanizing Agility

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Humanizing Agility

GUEST POST from Janet Sernack

Like many others, I invested time in isolation during the pandemic to engage in various online learning programs. As a highly credentialed coach to many global Agile and SCRUM leaders in major international and local organizations, I enrolled in an Agile coach certification program and enthusiastically attended all daily sessions. It was a disastrous learning experience, verifying my perception of the Agile community’s focus on a prescriptive rules-driven process to agility. The Agile Manifesto’s  highest priority is satisfying customers through the early and continuous delivery of valuable software; only two of the 12 principles mention people – “Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project” and “the best architectures, requirements, and design emerge from self-organizing teams.” So, with this in mind, what might be some of the benefits of integrating a technological and process-driven disciplined approach towards humanizing agility?

I am a conceptual and analytical thinker, an entrepreneur, and an innovator who is acknowledged as a global thought leader on the people side of innovation. I also teach, mentor, and coach people to be imaginative, inquisitive, and curious, always asking many open questions. I empower, enable, and equip them to become change-agile, cognitively, and emotionally agile and develop their innovation agility. The presenters responded to my method of inquiry by assuming that I knew nothing about Agile despite knowing nothing about my background.

As a result, they failed to certify me without communicating or consulting with me directly, despite my meeting all of the course evaluation criteria and having more than 10,000 hours of facilitation and more than 1,000 hours of coaching experience on the people side of change. I also have a comprehensive background in humanizing total quality management, continuous improvement, and start-up methodologies in major organizations.

I contacted the training company and challenged their decision, only not to be “heard” and be paid lip service when confronted by a rigid, linear, conventional, disconnected approach to agility and its true role and capability in catalysing change, innovation and teaming.

This is especially true considering the senior SCRUM and Agile leaders I was coaching at the time experienced very few problems with Agile’s disciplined process and technological side. They specifically requested coaching support to develop strategies to resolve their monumental challenges and complex issues involving “getting people to work together daily” and operating as “self-organizing teams.” How do they go about humanizing agility?

Making sense of agility

Despite my disappointment, I bravely continued researching how to make sense of agility and link and integrate it with the people side of change, innovation, and teams. I intended to enable leaders to execute agile transformation initiatives successfully by combining a human-centered approach to agile software development through humanizing agility.  

Agility refers to a leader, team, or organization’s ability to make timely, effective, and sustained changes that maintain superior performance. According to Pamela Myer’s book “The Agility Shift”, – an agility shift is the intentional development of the competence, capacity and confidence to learn, adapt and innovate in changing contexts for sustainable success. We have incorporated this approach into our innovation learning and coaching curriculum at ImagineNation™ and iterated and pivoted it over the past 12 years in empowering, enabling and equipping people to become “agility shifters” by humanizing agility.

Humanizing agility differently

Agility can be humanized and expanded to include change, cognitive, innovation, and organizational agility, all powerfully fueled by people’s emotional energy. This is fundamental to achieving success through non-growth or growth strategies and delivering equitable and sustainable outcomes that will make the world a better place for all humanity.  

It involves identifying pivots, unlearning, learning, and relearning, embracing new approaches, frameworks, and tools, and developing new 21st-century mindsets, behaviors, and skills.

Humanizing agility involves empowering, enabling, and equipping people to be, think and act differently autonomously and competently, especially in the conflicted, chaotic, unstable post-COVID world of emerging unknowns.

Like innovation, agility is contextual.

Humanizing agility supports people to adapt, grow and thrive, become nimble by enabling:

  • Teams to deliver product releases as shorter sprints to collect customer feedback to iterate and pivot product development.
  • Leaders, teams, and organizations respond quickly and adapt to market changes, internally and externally.
  • People must think and feel and be able to quickly make intentional shifts to be effective, creative, inventive, and innovative in changing contexts.

That empowers, enables and equips people with the mindsets, behaviors, and skills to adapt, grow, and thrive by developing their confidence, capacity, and competence to catalyze and mobilize their power to move quickly and easily, think creatively and critically to make faster decisions and solve complex problems with less effort.  

Humanizing Agility – The Five Elements

1. Emotional energy

Emotional energy is the catalyst that fuels creativity, invention, and innovation.

Understanding and harnessing this energy inspires and motivates individuals to explore and embrace creative thinking strategies in partnership with AI.

Emotional energy catalyses people’s intrinsic motivation, conviction, hope, positivity, and optimism to approach their world purposefully, meaningfully, and differently.

When people are true to their calling, they make extra efforts and are healthier, which positively impacts their well-being and improves their resilience.

2. Change agility

Change agility is the ability to anticipate, respond, be receptive, and adapt to constant and accelerating change in an uncertain, unstable, conflicted world.

It involves developing a new perspective of change as a continuous, iterative, and learning process that has to be embedded in every action and interaction, not a separate standalone process.

Requiring the development of new mental models, states, traits, mindsets, behaviors, and skills to drive business and workforce outcomes that are critical for an organization to survive and thrive through any change.

Change becomes an ongoing opportunity, not a threat or liability, and humanizing agility in the context of change agility is a core 21st-century competency for leaders, teams and coaches.

3.Cognitive agility

Cognitive agility is the extent to which people can adapt and shift their perspectives and thought processes when doing so leads to more positive outcomes. 

Cognitive agility refers to how flexible and adaptive people can be with their thoughts in the face of change, uncertain circumstances, and random and unexpected events and situations. Being cognitively agile helps people break down their neuro-rigidity and eliminate any core fixed mindsets; it supports their neuro-plasticity and develops a growth mindset and ability to perceive the world through multiple lenses and differing perspectives.

Humanizing agility in the context of cognitive agility enables people to make sense of and understand the range of challenges, problems, and paradoxes at the deeper systemic and surface levels, preparing them for smart risk-taking, effective decision-making, and intelligent problem-solving. 

4.Innovation agility

Innovation agility is the extent to which people develop the courage, compassion and creativity to safely deep-dive into and dance with cognitive dissonance—to passionately, purposefully, and apply creative tension and develop neuro-elasticity, to play in the space where possibility lives—between the present state and the desired creative, inventive, and innovative outcome.

To empower, engage, and enable people to use their human ingenuity and harness their collective intelligence to be innovative in the age of AI by adapting and growing in ways that add value to the quality of people’s lives, which is appreciated and cherished.

5.Organizational and leadership agility

Organizational agility involves developing an ability to renew itself, adapt, innovate, change quickly, and succeed in a rapidly changing, uncertain and unstable operating environment. It requires a paradoxical balance of two things: a dynamic capability, the ability to move fast—speed, nimbleness, responsiveness and stability, and a stable foundation—a platform of things that don’t change to provide a rigorous and disciplined pillar.

Organizations and leaders prioritizing humanizing agility also prioritize differing and creative ways of being, thinking and acting. They maintain their strength by focusing on their core competencies while regularly stretching themselves for maximum flexibility, adaptiveness and resilience.

Finally…. Imagine humanizing agility

Imagine what you could do and the difference we could make to people, customers, organizations, communities and the world by humanizing agility in ways that embrace and embody the five elements of agility to harness the human ingenuity and people’s collective intelligence guide vertical, horizontal and transformational changes the world and humanity need right now.

Please find out more about our work at ImagineNation™.

Please find out about our collective learning products and tools, including The Coach for Innovators, Leaders, and Teams Certified Program, presented by Janet Sernack. It is a collaborative, intimate, and profoundly personalized innovation coaching and learning program supported by a global group of peers over 9-weeks. It can be customized as a bespoke corporate learning program.

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What Change Agility Really Means for Your Team

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Beyond the Buzzwords

What Change Agility Really Means for Your Team

GUEST POST from Chateau G Pato

In the relentless current of today’s business world, we often find ourselves adrift in a sea of corporate jargon. Amongst the swirling tides of “synergy” and “disruption,” one term stands out, vital yet frequently misunderstood: **”change agility.”** It’s more than a trendy phrase; it’s the fundamental heartbeat of thriving organizations and individuals in an era of perpetual transformation. As a human-centered change and innovation thought leader, I can tell you that genuine change agility isn’t just about surviving; it’s about elegantly dancing with uncertainty, leveraging every twist and turn as an opportunity for growth. It’s no longer a strategic option; it’s a core competency.

So, let’s cut through the noise. What does it truly mean to cultivate this essential capacity within your team, in a way that genuinely empowers your people?

The Three Pillars: Sensing, Adapting, Thriving

Many mistakenly equate change agility with mere speed—reacting quickly. While responsiveness is a component, true agility is a much richer, more deliberate capability. Think of it as an organization’s biological immune system: constantly vigilant, rapidly adjusting, and ultimately strengthening itself through every challenge. This system operates on three interconnected human-centered pillars:

  • Sensing (The Early Warning System): This is your team’s collective ability to proactively detect even the faintest signals of shifts—whether they’re subtle changes in customer behavior, disruptive technologies on the horizon, competitive moves, or internal team dynamics. It requires active listening, peripheral vision, and a culture that encourages curiosity and questioning. It’s about empowering every team member to be an environmental sensor.
  • Adapting (The Flexible Response): Once a signal is sensed, this is the capacity to adjust strategies, processes, and most importantly, **mindsets** rapidly and effectively. It’s about being flexible, embracing experimentation, and having the courage to pivot when necessary. It’s about designing systems and empowering people to make informed decisions quickly, without bureaucratic friction.
  • Thriving (Growth from Change): This is where true agility shines. Beyond merely surviving a change, agile teams leverage it as a spring board for innovation, new opportunities, and competitive advantage. They don’t just react; they proactively seek to reshape the landscape. They view challenges not as obstacles, but as catalysts for designing better solutions and building stronger capabilities.

At its core, **change agility is profoundly human-centered**. It recognizes that people aren’t passive recipients of change; they are its essential architects. It’s about building a culture where individuals feel safe, empowered, and intrinsically motivated to navigate uncertainty and contribute meaningfully to evolving goals.

Case Study 1: The Retail Giant’s Human-Driven Digital Pivot

Phoenix Retail Group: From Legacy to Leader

Phoenix Retail Group, a once-dominant brick-and-mortar clothing retailer, faced an existential crisis as online shopping exploded. Their initial fragmented response—a small, siloed e-commerce division—was failing. Sales were plummeting, and internal friction was high.

The CEO, realizing a mere technology upgrade wouldn’t suffice, initiated a **deep cultural transformation centered on human agility.** Instead of a top-down mandate, they focused on empowering their people:

  • Sensing: They dissolved traditional departments, forming cross-functional “customer insight squads” dedicated to understanding online shopper behavior through empathy interviews, shadowing, and real-time data analysis. Every employee, from store associate to merchandiser, was trained to become a customer advocate and a market observer.
  • Adapting: They empowered small, autonomous “agile pods” focused on specific customer segments (e.g., “Sustainable Fashion,” “Home Comforts”). These pods had the authority to rapidly experiment with new digital campaigns, product lines, and even logistics solutions. Critically, failures were celebrated as valuable learning opportunities, fostering a safe environment for rapid iteration.
  • Thriving: Within two years, Phoenix Retail Group not only halted its decline but emerged as a significant online fashion player. Their physical stores transformed into dynamic experience hubs, complementing their thriving e-commerce. The workforce, once resistant, became enthusiastic innovators, co-creating solutions. Their success stemmed from giving their people the tools, safety, and autonomy to adapt.

**The Lesson:** True digital transformation isn’t just about technology; it’s about transforming your people’s capacity to sense and adapt.

Practical Steps to Ignite Change Agility in Your Team

Simply wishing for an “agile” team isn’t enough. It requires deliberate, ongoing effort and a commitment to human-centered leadership:

  1. Cultivate Psychological Safety (The Foundation): Create an environment where team members feel safe to voice audacious ideas, admit mistakes, ask “stupid” questions, and experiment without fear of judgment or retribution. This is the bedrock upon which all risk-taking and learning are built.
  2. Decentralize Decision-Making (Empowerment): Push decision-making authority down to the operational edges of your organization, closer to the problems and opportunities. Trust your teams to leverage their insights and respond swiftly. This also builds ownership and accountability.
  3. Champion a Growth Mindset & Continuous Learning: Encourage a relentless pursuit of knowledge. Provide resources, dedicated time, and collaborative platforms for skill development and knowledge sharing. Celebrate every learning, whether from success or “failed” experiments. Debrief frequently: “What did we learn? How can we apply it?”
  4. Break Down Silos (Cross-Pollination): Actively dismantle departmental walls. Encourage diverse perspectives and skills to collaborate on complex challenges. Cross-functional teams enhance sensing capabilities and foster more creative, robust adaptive strategies.
  5. Embrace “Test and Learn” (Experimentation): Shift from large, risky launches to a continuous cycle of small, rapid experiments. Encourage prototyping, minimum viable products (MVPs), and iterative development. Failure is data; learning is the outcome.
  6. Practice Radical Transparency (Shared Context): Communicate the “why” behind changes, the market realities, and the strategic direction with honesty and clarity. When teams understand the bigger picture and the stakes, they are more likely to buy in, self-organize, and adapt effectively.
  7. Lead by Example (Be the Change): As a leader, your behavior is your strongest message. Demonstrate your own adaptability, comfort with ambiguity, willingness to learn, and humility. Show, don’t just tell.

Case Study 2: InnovateNow’s Agile Product Pivot

InnovateNow: A Startup’s Survival Through Listening

InnovateNow, a promising tech startup, launched with an all-encompassing B2B project management software suite. While early adoption was promising, deep market feedback quickly revealed that users were primarily engaged with—and only willing to pay for—a very specific feature, not the entire suite. The leadership faced a make-or-break decision: persist with their grand vision or make a radical pivot.

Their agility was their lifeline:

  • Sensing: The product development team had ingrained a rigorous, direct feedback loop with beta users, going beyond surveys to conduct weekly live interviews and observed usability sessions. This enabled them to “sense” the nuanced, unarticulated user needs and identify the single feature that truly resonated, directly contradicting their initial assumptions.
  • Adapting: Instead of clinging to their extensive original roadmap, they initiated an intensive “pivot sprint.” This involved their entire core team—engineering, sales, marketing, and customer success—in a rapid ideation, prototyping, and validation process. They swiftly stripped away non-essential features, channeling all resources into refining and perfecting the one highly-valued function.
  • Thriving: Within a mere three months, InnovateNow relaunched a streamlined, hyper-focused product. This agile pivot wasn’t just a survival strategy; it allowed them to capture a dominant share in a high-value niche market. Their ability to quickly discard deeply held assumptions and adapt based on real-time, human-centered feedback was their defining strength.

**The Lesson:** Listening deeply to your customers, even when the feedback is uncomfortable, is the ultimate driver of agile adaptation.

The Human Imperative: Embracing the Dance

Ultimately, “change agility” isn’t about implementing a new framework or adopting the latest tech tool. It’s about cultivating the very essence of human resilience and creativity within your organization. It’s about building an unwavering foundation of **trust**, igniting pervasive **curiosity**, nurturing collective **courage**, and embedding a profound sense of shared **purpose** that transcends any single change initiative. When your team feels valued, empowered, and safe to navigate the unknown, they don’t just endure change—they eagerly join its dance, becoming its architects and beneficiaries.

“The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.”
– Alan Watts

Extra Extra: Because innovation is all about change, Braden Kelley’s human-centered change methodology and tools are the best way to plan and execute the changes necessary to support your innovation and transformation efforts — all while literally getting everyone all on the same page for change. Find out more about the methodology and tools, including the book Charting Change by following the link. Be sure and download the TEN FREE TOOLS while you’re here.

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