Back in April I was asked to speak with a progressive group of senior technologists about Mental and Emotional agility, and I shared thirteen factors that need to be considered as you develop greater agility in your performance (see Mental Agility and Emotional Agility).
Here it is worth sharing some of the causes of reasons why you may lack this ability. With greater awareness, you may be able to head some of these off at the pass!
- You don’t need it: 100% agility is nonsensical. Once the problem has been analysed, decisions made and a clear path forward agreed, Mental rigidity is required to keep to the path, come what may. If you keep rethinking things all the time, being agile and coming up with new ideas, traction and progress will be lost.
- You don’t think you need it: If you don’t think you need to be agile, you probably won’t be agile. After all, why change something that has been working so well for so long?
- Unshakable beliefs: Rigidity relies on firm beliefs about the problem in hand. When you become agile, you start to question, challenge and change your beliefs. Until beliefs start to flex, new solutions will remain illusive.
- Inhospitable environment: Your mental agility may (and perhaps rightly) be muted because of the unshakeable beliefs of those around you. To express a wild idea only for it to get shot down is a risk not everyone is prepared to take – especially if the negative consequences could be big.
- Inhospitable emotions: Mental agility can also be muted by your own emotional responses to the wild ideas that you have. Unless you can combine emotional agility with mental agility, your ideas may never see the light of day.
Now, with this checklist (and it’s not exhaustive) comes awareness. With awareness comes more choice. I wonder, what will you choose to do differently, how will up shift up your agility in a changing world?
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