Article
If you would like to receive monthly newsletter articles on current trends in the Human Resources and Organizational Development fields, please click here to sign up. You can click here to unsubscribe at any time.
Article No.: 14-10, October 1, 2014
Article Title: Learning Agility: The Competitive Advantage
Author: Linda Gravett, Ph.D., SPHR, QEQC
In today’s fast-paced, competitive environment, HR professionals
must leverage every advantage to ensure that each new hire counts
and that each excellent employee develops the skills and
competencies required to keep the company ahead of the game.
Many organizational leaders have recently said to me, “We need
employees who ‘get it’…and ‘get it fast’”. They don’t know
that what they’re actually referring to is learning agility.
Learning agility is related to at both current performance and
longer term potential, and is an important ingredient in hiring
decisions.
The concept of “learning agility” has been used to describe
individuals who possess skills such as openness, willingness to
learn, and flexibility. In addition, a learning agile person is
curious about the world, has a high tolerance for ambiguity, good
people skills, vision, and innovation. In general, learning
agility relates to adaptability and willingness to explore the
unknown. More specifically, learning agility can predict an
individual's potential performance in new tasks.
There are four types of Learning Agility:
- Mental
- People
- Change
- Results
Mental agility refers to individuals who are comfortable with
complexity, examine problems carefully, and make connections between
different things. People agility refers to individuals who know
themselves well and can readily deal with a diversity of people and
tough situations. Change agility refers to individuals who like to
experiment and can cope effectively with the discomfort of rapid
change. Finally, results agility refers to those individuals who can
deliver results in first-time situations by inspiring teams and
having significant impact. We believe this suggests that learning
agility may have considerable value in staff selection.
So if we have a way to help predict job performance and job
promotability, why is it that only nine percent of respondents to a
recent survey (Gravett and Associates, 2013) agree that their
companies had enough talented managers, and only five percent agree
with the statement: "We develop people effectively"? It’s no
wonder talent management and retention have become prime focal
points of many organizations, regardless of level.
I’m discovering that C-suite executives are realizing that a
distinguishing characteristic of successful organizations is the
ability to identify, develop and deploy exceptional leadership
talent.
In other words, if organizations knew how to hire for and develop
learning agility, they would gain an advantage over the competition.
The problem is that figuring out exactly how to do this is more of
an art, not a science. There is not a magic formula, so
gaining a better understanding of what it is may help you realize it
better when you see it. And that’s the key…distinguishing high
performing organizations and/or high performing individuals from
those that are missing this exceptional leadership talent.
I’ve worked as an organizational development and human resource
management consultant for 25 years and have witnessed many examples
of success related to the leadership’s learning agility. One
of my client companies is a 175-employee software development
company that develops software for the car salvage industry.
The company just celebrated its 17th year in business, and the now
50-year-old CEO is still amazed at the company’s growth and success.
I’m not - because I’ve witnessed his ability to adapt his
software development skills to a highly specialized industry and
customer base. Before taking the CEO position at this company,
he was Chief Technology Officer for a high-tech software development
company and he led a small development team of a few self-professed
computer geeks. He had to learn how to transfer those
leadership skills to collaboration with an executive team with all
types of experience and expertise, from Marketing to Manufacturing
to Finance. Had he stayed in the development area and not
learned about all phases of a business, he – and likely the
family-owned company – would have failed within the first five
years.
I’m also working with the CEO of a small sales consulting company
who is a former sales representative. Being good at sales does
not automatically translate to helping Sales leaders select and
develop excellent sales people, however. This CEO had to adapt
her firsthand experience and talent as a sales professional to
positioning herself as someone who could recognize the potential in
others and coach them to be successful. She has been very
successful because her high level of learning agility helped her
transition from being a sales person to a sales consultant to high
level sales executives.
With our tough economy and a plethora of competition in the
marketplace, it’s not surprising that two-thirds of startup
companies fail. So, what is it that makes some companies last?
While there are a myriad of reasons, such as financial strength,
technical competence, imagination and innovation, or even customer
service, competitive pricing, as well as emotional intelligence,
there’s one underlying factor that is behind every successful
organization, and that’s employing a learning agile staff.
In my consulting work over the years, I’ve discovered that many
managers who produced positive results based on their technical
skills did not perform well when they were promoted. One
unfortunate case is of a highly skilled Information Technology
technician who was promoted in a small publishing company to the
position of VP of Information Services. His need to
micromanage every small detail that his team needed to deliver
caused him to lose sight of the strategic decisions he needed to
make and communicate. The result was that his vision was never
fully formed or executed and he alienated his staff because he was
trying to do their jobs for them. He lasted less than a year
in the executive position because he couldn’t adapt to managing
strategies rather than a day-by-day work flow.
If you'd like to receive a complementary copy of our Learning Agility Assessment or if you have any questions or need more information about this article, please complete our Contact Form, or contact Dr. Gravett by telephone at 513-753-8870.