Consider the following scenario: Mira a millennial was an Operations Manager with Hertz based in the Bay area who decided to take a sabbatical to go for a 4-year backpacking tour deep in the Amazon Forest to aid some conservation and restoration efforts in early 2020 only to return in April 2024. Upon her return, she found her 100+-year-old employer had filed for Bankruptcy, her closest friend passed away due to Covid, her home loan interest rate has doubled and she has been served a notice for default of payments as the bank (SVB) where she had saved most of her money has collapsed. Mira is probably experiencing a BANI world reality (Brittle, Anxious, Nonlinear, and Incomprehensible) and is unsure what to do to bring her life back on track on this new uncharted path that lies ahead. Hope she draws some inspiration from Erik Erikson, a prominent psychologist who says “I am what survives me.”

Hopefully not be a situation as challenging as Mira but I am certain that most of us reading this article would have experienced some similar unpleasant change in the last couple of years. Like it or not such changes are going to be even more common and the rate of such changes coming our way will only be increasing As someone said “Change has never been this fast. It will never be this slow again”. So how do we survive this change or better still thrive in the face of these complex changes? The answer may lie in understanding more about Learning Agility and leveraging Learning Agility to your advantage.

What is learning agility?

While there are many definitions of Learning Agility, the one that resonated most with me was the one inspired by the work of Korn/Ferry Lominger after their extensive research: Learning agility is a set of complex skills that enable us to learn something g new in one place and then apply what we learned elsewhere, in a wholly different situation. Learning agility is our ability to learn, adapt, unlearn, and relearn to keep up with constantly changing conditions in the workplace.

They also articulated the Five Dimensions of Learning Agility. In their words, Learning agility isn’t a single skill but a broad area that includes at least five aspects of learning. Each person is likely to have relative skills and shortcomings in different categories, so it’s critical to determine how one can be aware of all categories and build on their natural strengths while not letting their weaker areas become a reason for concern.

1. Mental Agility Mental agility, despite common misinterpretation, doesn’t mean intelligence and book smarts but is closer in meaning to street smarts. People with high mental agility seem to be able to cut through extraneous information, quickly find the most relevant insights, and use that data to improve business practices and perform their duties at the highest level.

2. People Agility People agility consists of people skills and leadership qualities. Those with people agility connect with others on an emotional level and display true empathy while building lasting relationships with people around them. Others look to them when changes occur, or a crisis develops. These individuals work through conflict, value diversity, obtain actionable insights from different perspectives, and are able to take people along and all the way to a better place.

3. Change Agility People with change agility thrive on new challenges and first-time endeavors. Unlike people who prefer highly structured and predictable work situations, these workers prefer to challenge the status quo, try new methods, and improve business operations and/or their work environments. These individuals aren’t afraid to fail because they learn something even when they don’t succeed the first time and they keep failing fast and learning more all the time.

4. Results Agility Results agility is similar to change agility, but those with strong results agility strive to succeed the first time. These people consistently deliver the best results when undertaking new challenges despite the wide variety of complexity and challenges they face. These are people who will get you the results no matter what the problem.

5. Self-Awareness Self-awareness is a critical element of career success which was added more recently to the original study on Learning Agility. People who know their own strengths and weaknesses perform better on average than those with any of the other skills. A Cornell study found that accurate self-awareness was the greatest factor in predicting leadership qualities and career success.

So how do you shore up your Learning Agility Muscle

Learning Agility helps build confidence in your competence and consensus with teams, builds rapport and establishes trust and almost always delivers the results in full (or more) and ahead of time. It also can introduce a fresh perspective as solutions are identified and implemented in novel ways. Further, Learning Agility is a competency that can be cultivated and developed like any other. Below are a few ideas to get you started on this journey.

1. Embrace the unknown Agility is all about becoming comfortable with the unknown. Every once in a while, it can be helpful to consciously enter a conversation not knowing how it will turn out. Leaders should ask questions they don’t know the answers to. Embracing the unknown means not guiding others toward the “right” answers already in your mind. It frequently means that a leader is following someone else’s conversational lead rather than his or her own in finding a better way for the team as a whole and getting the team closer to the goal.

2. Embrace inclusivity How many words do people speak before we make judgments about why they are, what they’re like or what they’re trying to communicate? There’s an epidemic of judgment and scepticism in the workplace for many reasons such as time pressures and lack of confidence, but agility and judgment cannot coexist whereas inclusion and agility can. The most successful and agile leaders develop the ability to suspend judgment and provide a psychologically safe platform for all ideas and people to grow and thrive. This allows the agile leader to get multiple versions of whole story & diverse perspectives before making any decision.

3. Embrace Change To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often. -Winston Churchill If you always do what you have always done, you will always get what you always got. -Anonymous When we are no longer able to change a situation – we are challenged to change ourselves -Viktor E. Frankl These 3 quotes help amplify the need to be the agent of change. As they say: People who change after change will survive; People who change with the change will succeed, but people who cause the change will lead. Agile leaders should keep asking the 3 questions shared by Eli Goldratt in his Book The Goal What to change What to change to How to cause the change

4. Embrace ignorance. It takes a smart person to acknowledge that he or she doesn’t know something and will never know everything. Learning agility demands a fundamental belief that there’s no shame in admitting a lack of understanding. Agile leaders benefit from leading with ignorance (Wanting to know/wanting to learn) rather than ego (I know/ I have done this in the past). Agile leaders acknowledge the ideas of others (are intellectually honest) and give credit freely to people around them so that more ideas can flow in from all directions.

5. Embrace Life long learning तत्कर्म यन्न बन्धाय सा विद्या या विमुक्तये। आयासायापरं कर्म विद्यान्या शिल्पनैपुणम् ॥ Loose translation: That is action, which does not promote attachment; That is knowledge which liberates [one from bondage]. All other action is mere [pointless] effort/hardship; all other knowledge is merely another skill/craftsmanship. This quote from the Vishnu Puran signifies the importance of not mistaking craftsmanship of skilfulness in one’s work with being knowledgeable. True knowledge is the one that liberates (you from the bondage of ego/ being proud of your knowledge). True knowledge makes you humble (makes you realize that you will never know everything) and makes you curious to learn even more and every time. Being a lifelong learner means you approach every situation with the mindset of “What do I learn from here “or ask yourself the question like many Japanese Kaizen practitioners “How do I get better every day at what I am doing”.

6. Embrace Bias for action Do or do not, there is not try – Yoda Often the biggest regret in life is the thought of not having done something at a certain time. Think Big Start Small – Act Fast & Learn Always is a mantra that I heard recently and stayed with me. The greatest of ideas can only be of value if put to execution, everything else is wishful thinking. Being agile needs a leader to be open to taking risks and learning by not just doing more but doing what matters by not just failing but by failing fast & learning from failures by not only falling but also by getting up fast and learning from the fall There is no substitute for action for action alone can transform your dreams into reality.

So what next?

Mira heard this talk on Antifragile mindset by Nassim Nicholas Taleb and has now become a successful YouTube content creator and earning herself a handsome 6 figure monthly income by working on her terms and with the people she likes. She also spends close to 10 hours every week with Bay Nature to nurture her passion for a greener world and work with Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy.

For now, Mira seems to have navigated her BANI world challenges with reasonable success, what do you plan to do next? Maybe taking this Learning Agility Test could be a good starting point to get you started on this journey to become an Agile Leader who Thinks Big-starts small – acts fast and learns always.

Author: Arun Kaimal

About the Author:

Arun is a seasoned and certified HR professional who leads the people strategy and priorities
for Danaher in Middle East Africa and Turkey region. With close to 2 decades of experience in
human resources, Arun loves coaching and mentoring HR professionals and has been actively
contributing his time to volunteer for various initiatives that look at nurturing young leaders in
Singapore, India and now Middle East and Africa region.