This article is interesting “Beware the Pitfalls of Agility”. Not because I agree with it – I don’t – but for what it reveals.
Agility is a multidimensional concept that comprises three sequential and interrelated processes: alertness to the need for change, the decision to make the change, and the mobilization of the organizational resources required to execute the change. Our agility research and observations regarding the behavior of companies, especially during the pandemic, revealed that each process contains a pitfall that can subvert its outcomes: Alertness harbors the pitfall of hubris, decision-making harbors the pitfall of impulsiveness, and mobilization harbors the pitfall of resource fatigue.
The thinking is still firmly trapped in 20th Century Scientific Management.
The hubris is the hubris of a central management elite making all the decisions.
The impetuousness is the same.
The fatigue is addressed by the same elite deploying a “stockpile” of people.
You can’t be agile when you manage like that.