People, Customer & Ecosystem
This is the why and the who of business agility. Customers are the reason the organization exists, people are the powerhouse that makes everything possible, and the ecosystem is the wider world the organization operates in and contributes to. These are the dimensions that everything else works to serve.
Who business agility is for
Agility is never an end in itself. It exists to deliver value to the people who matter most. Customers define the value the organization sets out to create. People are the talent and energy that bring it to life. And the ecosystem, from suppliers and partners to communities and the environment, shapes the context the organization works within. Together, these three lenses help you understand who your organization creates value for, and how well it serves them.
People
People are the powerhouse of every successful agile organization – one that is able to survive and thrive in a world characterized volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity.
Trusting people, allowing them to develop and show their talents in the organization, and engaging them through purpose, is critical to ensuring the sustainable success of an organization.
Collaborating talents, happy with their work, focused on delivering value, and supported, but not constrained, by processes and technology, are the core of a resilient, responsive, agile and thus successful organization.
People learn and adapt faster than systems. They:
- Learn and adapt most easily when they feel safe
- Are more creative when powered by diversity
- Grow naturally when learning from each other
Customer
The primary focus for the delivery of value for most organizations should be their customers.
The most successful organizations will be those that sustain delivery of value in a VUCA world (characterized by Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity).
To survive and thrive in this regard it is important to organize in a way that enables the business to constantly deliver value to customers, in a changing world, with changing customer needs.
Everyone in the organization needs to:
- Know the customer and the value they deserve so that all decisions are focused on adding to that value.
- Understand the customer’s “why”, to help anticipate their needs. In public sector organizations, the citizen is the valued customer.
Sustainable shareholder / stakeholder value can only be achieved as a result of knowing, understanding, championing and serving the customer. That is critical to the success of the organization and must be the primary driver.
Ecosystem
No organization exists in isolation. It lives in:
- An organizational ecosystem of regulators, suppliers, competitors, partners, innovators and innovations.
- A social ecosystem of individuals, communities, rules and customs.
- An ecological ecosystem of resources, energy, and nature.
To survive and thrive requires an organization to understand its role in its ecosystem with success defined by how it delivers customer value while contributing positively to the ecosystem in which it lives.
