image: Official logo of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology
Agility and Agile: An Introduction for People, Teams, and Organizations is the latest in the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP) white paper series. Written by Ben Baran, assistant professor of management at Cleveland State University and co-founder and principal of the consulting firm Indigo Anchor, and Scott Bible, assistant professor of practice at The University of Akron, this paper provides an overview of the increasingly common terms "agility" and "agile" along with practical implications for leaders who are operating in complex, changing environments.
"This topic is both timely and important," said Baran. "Executives, their teams, and other leaders within organizations are increasingly looking for new ways to deal with the turbulence they're facing. They want to be nimble to succeed amid shifting market conditions, and the concepts of agility and agile describe a mindset and a set of practices and principles that can help."
"Additionally, the field of industrial and organizational psychology has much to offer with regard to how organizations can build their agility," he added. "In particular, what we know about how people make sense of complex environments, how they can build and sustain high-performance teams, and how all of that can fit together within an organization can be of great benefit to any executive who is trying to make his or her organization increasingly adaptive and proactive."
In addition to providing an overview and background on the topic, Baran and Bible discuss eight specific implications for executives and other organizational leaders. Each implication stems from a combination of the research literature on these topics, the authors' experience working with companies, and emerging practices from a wide range of sectors and industries including the military and Silicon Valley.