Agility is a Baldrige core value, described in the Criteria booklet as “a capacity for rapid change and flexibility.” In “Competing through organizational agility” (McKinsey Quarterly, December 2009), Don Sull, professor of management practices at the London Business School, identifies three types of agility: strategic, portfolio, and operational. He found these types in the companies he studied in the world’s most turbulent geographical and product markets including China, Brazil, European fast fashion, and financial services. “In turbulent markets,” he writes, “overreliance on a single type of agility can be dangerous.”

Strategic agility means spotting and seizing game-changing opportunities. It requires an effective combination of patience (waiting for the right time to strike) and boldness (acting when that time arises). From a Baldrige perspective, it also requires a focus on the future to anticipate changes that require a new direction and a strategic planning process that makes rapid change possible.

Portfolio agility is the capacity to shift resources quickly and effectively out of less promising areas and into more attractive ones. It requires processes to reallocate management talent and cash across units to take advantage of emerging opportunities. From a Baldrige perspective, the ability to shift resources begins with performance review processes that help leaders identify changing needs and challenges and action planning processes to establish and modify plans to meet them.

Operational agility involves exploiting opportunities within a focused business model. According to Sull, it can be developed by (1) deploying systems to gather and share the information required to spot opportunities; and (2) building processes to translate the organization’s priorities into focused action. Organizational agility is embedded in the Baldrige management model. As an organization integrates Baldrige, it builds the capacity for agility.

The Baldrige Criteria ask key questions about organizational agility including how senior leaders create an environment for it, how you manage and organize your workforce to achieve the agility to address changing needs, and how you incorporate the potential need for agility into the design of your key work processes. Effective, systematic approaches that answer these questions and encompass the three types of agility Sull identifies will help an organization be prepared for whatever twists and turns the future brings.

To read more about agility, click on these articles:

• Making Your Organization Adaptable
• Moving Faster

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