In this video, Distinguished VP Analyst Mary Mesaglio explores how a robust organizational culture can drive agility and enable teams to adapt effectively to change. She introduces the Values-to-Action Pyramid, emphasizing that while agility is crucial, it must be supported by clear starting points and actionable strategies. Discover how small, impactful “hacks” can seamlessly integrate core values into daily operations, fostering an environment where decision making is empowered and agility thrives. Learn how to align your organizational culture with actionable steps to enhance responsiveness and innovation.
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Use Strong Organizational Culture to Drive Agility
Video Transcript
The Pursuit of Agility
I’ve never met a CEO who said to me, “You know what, Mary, I just wish we didn’t have so much agility. I wish my people weren’t as good at responding to change.” All CEOs, all business leaders, and for that matter, all government leaders, seem to want more agility. And no wonder! The external world is changing really fast, and we need to be able to adapt. But if you take agility as a value at the top of this pyramid, that’s not enough to drive coherent action. I don’t know if I'm being agile right now. It’s hard for me to apply that to my day-to-day.
Default Starting Points Matter
So you need greater and greater levels of detail. Underneath the top layer, which is the value, is the second layer, which is the default starting point. Anyone who wants their team or their department or their enterprise to espouse a value needs to also provide a default starting point. The default is not a rule; it’s not something that you apply no matter what, blindly. The default is a starting point that says, if you have no reason not to, here’s where I want you to start. It interprets the value. It says, if I want agility, a default starting point is if you’re in front of a decision, I want you to take it when you have only 70% of the information, if you can reverse it.
If you don’t have to live with the consequences forever, take the decision when you have 70% of the information, not 100%. Because we don't want to lose that agility. We want to preserve it. There’s no reason to get to 100% if you can undo the decision. Another default starting point to support the value of agility might be that we default to pushing decisions down the organizational hierarchy to the lowest viable level. That doesn’t mean everybody pushes every decision down to the intern. If you’re a nuclear power plant, don’t give the plutonium to the intern.
Hacks for Daily Impact
And if you have information that only HR should have that you can’t legally share, don’t share it. But if you have no reason not to, try to push the decision making down, so that senior management doesn't become a bottleneck, and you don't lose that agility.
The Values-to-Action Pyramid starts with the value at the top. It has this middle section which says, "What is the default starting point that interprets that value?" But even if you have that, you still have theoretical ideas. How do you insert the values into actual day-to-day life? It's called the Values-to-Action Pyramid because you want people to act differently, behave differently, decide differently.
To do that, you need the bottom layer. The bottom layer is hacks. Hacks are small, immediate, low-effort, emotional changes that you insert into day-to-day work life—in meetings, emails, interviews, ops reviews, strategy discussions, training, and onboarding. Whatever else you're doing in your day-to-day, hacks are small actions that have an immediate effect, inserting that value in some meaningful way.