Hardcore Agility or Collective Nonaccountability?

The VUCA world not only brings many changes and challenges for business organisations but also various trend-like phenomena. But not every aspect of the corporate world is upside down. Many principles and structures from past decades remain relevant. Being able to recognise this and distinguish effectively is a skill that is becoming increasingly important, especially in the VUCA world. Entrepreneurs and managers should be able to identify and assess which developments will drive sustainable changes in organisations and working environments, as opposed to those that may resemble the swinging of a pendulum on a clock -temporary and prone to reverting again.

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Now and then, business trends have a lot in common with fads: they usually arise out of specific contexts and situations, garner widespread attention, are eventually adapted by companies in a way that is far less application-specific and, in many cases, rapidly lose their enchantment and fade away.

Agility, Self-Organisation & Collective Nonaccountability

One of these trends is the transformation to an agile corporate organisation, which, in recent years, has been forcibly implemented in many places.

Countless commentaries, articles and publications emphasised that the implementation of agile structures was a must for today’s modern corporate organisations. This led to the initiation of comprehensive transformation processes in many companies. Consultants stormed the open-plan offices of these companies, proclaiming the virtues of such methods as Scrum, Design Thinking and Kanban. New roles and terminologies were forged: Agile Coach, Scrum Master, Impediment, Bar Camp, etc. reinforced by the concurrent effects of demographic development and digitalisation. The result was that a collaboration approach originally defined for comparatively small, decentralised development units made its way into the central organising principle of larger, more complex companies. There are, or have been, entrepreneurs and executives who are particularly proud to point to a company-wide dyed-in-the-wool agile organisation.

In some of these situations, people’s views have presumably become considerably more moderate and have yielded to one sobering – likely also logical – realisation or another. Agility and its inherent underlying principle of extensive self-organisation have their limitations. These limitations quickly become apparent in crisis-ridden or economically critical times. During such times, deviations from goals, demotivation, frustration or disorientation can be seen.

The limitations to the applicability of agile organisational and leadership approaches are marked by systemic or human behaviour patterns and reinforced by crisis-related factors. The implementation of instructions, graphics, training or motivational events can overcome them only to a limited extent, if at all. These patterns include such things as the heterogeneity, tasks and roles of organisational units, the personalities and lifestyles of the different people within the organisation, differing value systems within the organisation, evolutionary-oriented patterns in hierarchies and, ultimately, defined responsibilities. In mature corporate structures, converting or changing all these patterns to conform to agile principles can result in a lengthy, costly and possibly even futile transformation process.

Symptoms of Management and Leadership at the Frontier

The following phenomena can be observed when agile organisational forms are not implemented in a manner specific to existing structures and applications but are instead imposed in an ideal-typical, method-dominant, area-wide approach.

Profile gap and performance gap
While some people’s personalities and dispositions enable them to thrive in agile and self-organised structures, allowing them to become more creative and more efficient, for other people, this situation leads to blockages, disorientation and sometimes even mental health issues. People also tend to gravitate to like-minded groups, which quickly leads to mutual blocking and distancing. In larger companies with complex processes, however, these different types of personality profiles are all needed for the various operational activities. In other words, this functional or structural divide is baked into the business. The results are: different perceived performance levels, decreased mutual understanding in interpersonal interactions, distancing, demotivation, etc.

Uncontrolled momentum
Self-organised and highly dynamic teams tend to manoeuvre themselves to or beyond the limits of their capacities. If the desired self-organisation leads to an unintentional overestimating of capabilities, and if there is insufficient monitoring, this can quickly result in signs of exhaustion, overheating or negative cluster effects.

The need to belong
Many agile approaches are based on the principle of rotating projects, tasks and roles. This principle and the consequent fluctuation of team structures result in fewer opportunities for individuals to satisfy their basic needs for belonging and identity. Depending on individual personalities, this can lead people in the organisation to feel cheated of their role – and thereby also of a part of their identity – and to react with uncertainty, fear and resistance.

Lack of maturity
Self-organisation does not mean a lack of structure. Quite the opposite, because a well-functioning decentralised, flexible organisation follows specific principles and has a basic structure and fixed roles. Implementing agile organisational patterns therefore requires development time and know-how. It is important to recognise and accept that this specialised know-how does not replace the traditional core elements of business administration and corporate management. In fact, it extends and modifies them, making them more flexible.

When companies impose self-accountability and autonomous working on their employees while continuing to maintain conventional hierarchical and behavioural patterns, the result is a mode of work that is far removed from agility and empowerment. These traits, however, are exactly what are desired by those people who are particularly well-suited to an agile work mode – and who may even have been hired for that very reason. And because these people have the qualities that make them perfectly suited for this, they quickly become frustrated and are likely to remain so. Depending on their personal situations, they may react with antipathy, show decreased performance or even leave the company.

Self-preservation and preferences
Due to our evolutionary development, when it comes to decisions surrounding our range of activities or our existence, we humans are all highly similar in one regard: we essentially tend to seek out things and environments with which, and in which, we feel comfortable. But how do agile teams deal with necessary changes of direction, or downsising? How does a team behave when the beloved technology or favoured solution is no longer viable or simply no longer desirable from a business perspective? What happens when it is no longer possible to fund all topics, teams or people?

Does the agile team recognise when it is no longer economically viable and needs to be dissolved? During phases of growth or dynamic reorganisation, these skills are not necessary. But during downturns, realignments or in times of crisis, they are precisely what is required. Suddenly, asking these questions becomes the typical task of the leadership, who must set priorities and take unpleasant decisions.

Potential emotional conflict
In striving to equip agile organisations with especially open-minded, flexible and innovative personalities and allow these individuals to act in a self-organised manner within as broad an autonomous sphere of action as possible, there is a simple yet explosive potential for conflict. Such teams, or individual members of these teams, usually have an intense connection to their activities. They have a lower inhibition threshold and a greater drive when it comes to asserting their points of view and fighting for their causes. These qualities, which are invaluable in many situations, can then become a challenge when business decisions are difficult or impossible to communicate, unpleasant decisions must be taken and implemented, or simply when expectations of certain business qualities and skills are not met. When this happens, it can result in openly voiced differences and internal rejection, or even in attitudes that become disruptive to operations.

Collective nonaccountability
A specific shortcoming in self-organised and autonomously operating organisations, similar to what is seen in grassroots democracies, is the lack of a true assumption of accountability for results, with corresponding personal consequences. If an agile organisation is not sufficiently embedded in an adapted corporate management, and if competencies and decision paths are not consistently integrated, cases of collective nonaccountability quickly begin to arise. Autonomous teams can sometimes also take on a kind of life of their own and take decisions for themselves that are detached from the corporate structure. At this point, entrepreneurs, executives, management culture and governance are all equally challenged and may become overwhelmed.

So, what is the golden rule, the right means, the best way? In the VUCA world, there cannot be a single ‘golden rule’. And there has obviously not been one so far. In keeping with the remarks mentioned earlier in this section, mindfulness, flexibility and a healthy dose of self-reflection are always a solid basis when approaching trend-like phenomena. The essential core element of any company is, and remains, the human beings who work there – with their differing abilities, preferences and experiences. As unlikely as it is that everyone in a large organisation will be equally comfortable with agile approaches, it is probably even more unlikely that the willingness and maturity level within the leadership team or at the top of the organisation will be ideally suited for this.

Agility is not a concrete method, recipe or tool.

Rather than being driven by external events and trends, or by idealists and methodologists, business leaders should understand that agility is not a concrete method, recipe or tool. It is actually an organisation’s ability to deal appropriately with change. This ability must be developed and expanded within the framework of a continuous corporate development process.

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