One of the most fundamental assets a company needs to survive and thrive is agility. While you might have heard the word being bandied around by corporate influencers and leadership experts, you might not have thought all that deeply about it.
However, agility could mean the difference between success and failure, so you need to understand it fully.
Essentially, agility is how easy it is for your business to adapt and overcome challenges quickly in order to take advantage of opportunities that occur or to combat any issues that are thrown at it.
While agility has always been important, it is particularly vital in the modern world because business is now incredibly fast-paced. Changes happen seemingly on a daily basis, and your company needs to be able to react to them on the spot.
What makes agility particularly fascinating is that it is the biggest companies that tend to struggle with it because of their vast size. Trying to turn an oil tanker around is harder than steering a speedboat, so if your business is on the smaller size, then you could be at an advantage.
To help you to increase your levels of business agility, here is a quick guide.
Improve the functionality of your facilities
Arguably the best way to become more agile in business is to make sure your facilities are as functional and efficient as they can possibly be.
If you were to think of agility from a human perspective, you would be better able to jump over hurdles and change direction if you were fit and healthy rather than overweight and out of shape.
Therefore, train your business like an athlete trains their body, making sure that every department is as honed as it can be at all times.
This includes investing in infrastructure. If you were an industrial company, for example, you might need to replace your Centrifugal blower or conveyor belts, depending on your particular sector.
Make it easier for team members to collaborate
Another fantastic way to increase your levels of agility is to ensure your team can collaborate quickly and easily.
There is no bigger killer of productivity in modern business than your team members waiting on each other to reply to messages, green light ideas, or work together on a project.
This has been made worse by the rise of remote working, which makes it harder to communicate like you could in an office.
However, it is still possible, so long as you use cloud-based platforms and set up a singular communication channel.
Reduce the number of goals you are trying to hit
A further way to make your business more agile is to reduce the total number of targets you are trying to achieve at any one time.
If your energy and focus levels are being directed in a million different places, you are hardly going to be able to adapt quickly to change. In contrast, if you were to be focused on one task, then you could rapidly adjust your behavior or strategy to overcome the problem.
