Can Agility Be Taught?

Learning is more about development than tackling deficit.

- Priyanshu Singh

The need for agility in corporate learning has become a catchphrase lately. Every business wants to be agile, but only a few are successful at being so. Achieving the required level of agility will help companies adapt rapidly and better manage the costs of a fast-changing environment and customer behaviour.

Learning to be agile is an attitude. Agility is a group of practices that will help leaders continually improve, progress, and employ new tactics to face the increasingly complex situations in their organisations. Those who are agile are able to swiftly discard skills, perspectives, and ideas that are irrelevant and learn new ones.

High-performing organisations demonstrate agility in three ways:

• They deliver learning and development (L&D) programmes which boost and nurture agility

• Their L&D departments themselves are agile

• They further encourage and help develop people with deep skills

Is your leadership development crafting agile management practices? Team-based learning is providing more benefits, and investing in the entire team is becoming more critical. Analyse whether your teams are trained to work together rapidly. Have you provided the necessary business acumen to your entire organisation? Have you built a capability model which shows how each individual can improve skills? These types of initiatives are essential and L&D must take the lead in these areas.

When it comes to corporate learning programmes, agility is pertinent. It is clear that all enterprises need leaders who have the required knowledge and ability to learn rapidly and proficiently in order to get ahead of competition. The business world is a highly unstable market, and it is only the firms who are able to learn on the fly who will be able to get the most out of that volatility.