Nowadays, agility is often seen as a key concept for successful business management. However, being able to respond flexibly and reactively to market demands requires more than just a theoretical concept.
Netstream began its journey toward becoming an agile learning organization back in 2018. True to the motto, "The best way to predict the future is to shape it," Netstream Board of Directors has given the company a new direction Netstream its newly developed vision, mission, and aspirations.
But what does "agility" mean in this context?
When we talk about "agility," we are referring to a mindset, i.e., a certain attitude and way of thinking among employees, rather than well-known methodological or process approaches (such as Scrum). The agile mindset requires us to abandon our usual pursuit of perfection from the outset and focus instead on the benefits and goals of our actions. We achieve this in small steps. In this way, dependencies are gradually eliminated and we allow ourselves to make mistakes and learn from them along the way. Together, we can achieve perfection on a path that is probably not perfect. Agility enables us to respond to new market requirements within a short period of time and thus work reactively, flexibly, and adaptably.
Adjustment of the management structure
In order to achieve agility within a company, individual leadership is replaced by shared leadership. The Board of Directors implemented this at the beginning of 2019 with the decision to form the operational management team, internally referred to as the "leadership group," as an independent management circle. This circle consists of seven members who can make decisions on an equal footing. Since then, we have been accompanied by Me&Me, the coaching duo specializing in agile organizational development.
In the first phase, the committee established a new type of collaboration and decision-making in so-called decision-making meetings. Decisions are now made jointly with the integration of objections instead of majority voting, documented with the help of a tool, and moderated by external coaches. Depending on the context, the group decides directly on the content (what?) or empowers one or more people (who?) to make the decision on the content. This approach also promotes the development of individual employees' skills. More than 200 decisions have now been made and implemented quickly and successfully by transferring responsibility to the respective experts/specialists. "Making decisions is important, but implementing the decisions made is crucial. By shifting from consensus to consent and consciously reducing power imbalances within operational management, we have created a tool that allows us to actively shape our future," says Alexis Caceda, CEO Netstream , enthusiastically about the concept.
Extension of the concept to the entire organization
But agility requires more than just a committee. Now that the leadership group has successfully established the new way of working, the next step is to extend this mindset and the associated working and thinking methods to the entire organization. We are achieving this in many individual steps, in which employees are introduced to the methods and leadership is gradually handed over to the organization. With intensive coaching from various sides and the principle of "learning by doing," we are gradually transitioning to an agile learning organization with a collegial leadership principle.
