Linda Holbeche, Kogan Page, £29.99/£20.89 e-book
Agility is the HR buzzword du jour, but pinning down what it actually means can be fiendishly tricky. In this captivating book, Holbeche nails exactly why we should all be thinking agile. And she does it all without an agenda or a management model to sell.
“In a VUCA [volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity] world, no company consistently beats the market,” says Holbeche, as she runs through a list of the driving forces that suggest the smug loafer-wearers of today’s dot-com boom won’t keep their smiles for long. Company life span is shortening all the time, technology is outpacing our ability to change and most interestingly, she adds, the shift appears to be permanent: neo-liberal capitalism, Holbeche theorises, has triumphed and created a market society where everything is literally for sale.
Being agile, then, is the answer and most of The Agile Organization is given over to a deconstruction of how to get there, taking in the ability to strategise beyond the top team and apply the principles of project-based work even when you’re not working on a project.
Holbeche has fine HR credentials, and she has some specific advice on making learning, reward and performance management in particular integral to better business, pointing out the folly of our focus on individual performance when “in most contexts today… business success is not based on individual brilliance alone.” Agile, she adds, means age-diverse too, and businesses must reflect careers in the way they plan succession and recruit.
If it all sounds daunting, it needn’t be. Holbeche believes that with a new psychological contract and a renewed focus on distributed leadership, we can be optimistic about the future. She doesn’t entirely tell us how to get there – that would probably take another book – but in this thought-provoking, deep and admirably objective view of the topic, she takes us comfortably beyond the superficial.