What Does It Mean to Have Agility at Work?

Hiring leaders love buzzwords. Years ago when I worked in HR, “strategic thinking” was all the rage. Suddenly it caught on, and it became a key qualification in every job description. 

 

But what actually defines strategic thinking? And how do you know when someone’s doing it? Turns out these were the million-dollar questions. 

 

Years later strategic thinking is passé, but agility is hot stuff. If you can demonstrate agility, then leaders are looking to hire or promote you.

 

But what actually is agility, and how do you know if you’re doing it?

 

Luckily for many of us, it has nothing to do with physical agility—no one is expecting you to be able to run a mile in under eight minutes.

 

In a work context, agility is described in various ways.  Personally, I like Gallup’s framing, which describes agility as an “employees' capacity to gather and disseminate information about changes in the environment and respond to that information quickly and expediently.”

 

It’s about keeping up, taking quick action, and being comfortable shifting direction on a moment’s notice. And given that normalcy and stability are on short supply, this feels pretty important right now.

 

So let’s walk through a simple agility framework I like to use—it’ll keep you moving, changing direction, and achieving in increments.

 

I’ve even got an example for you: Years ago when I worked in corporate HR, I was asked to refresh our employee onboarding program. It was a big undertaking with major stakes. I wanted to get it right. So, I decided to take a fresh approach. Rather than diving deeply into research and planning months and years ahead, I leaned into agility and it served me well.

 

Here are the steps I took.

1. Scan

To deliver impact, you don’t need mounds of data, research, and leading practices as defined by external experts. You just need a sense of whose voice matters and what they’re chatting about in the moment.

 

For me, I was serving new employees and needed to know how they were thinking—and speaking—about their experience of onboarding.

 

I popped into a few new-hire training sessions, checked out a few forums on our intranet, and grabbed a few coffees with some new hires. And I just paid attention to what they were paying attention to.

 

I was hearing things like…...

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