The three agilities of change are one of the Six Big Ideas of Adaptive Organisations. Without attempting a full review of the excellent book by Ken Rickard and Jason Little, I want to reflect on my experience as a senior change leader in a small government organisation.
Without knowing it at the time, I attempted to commit the organisation to becoming more agile in its leadership, delivery, and change. I called this effort modernisation. It was not successful—due in large part to the cultural and capability constraints of the organisation, as well as my own overestimation of my capacity to develop the three agilities of change. This reflection highlights how critical it is to assess these domains before attempting any significant transformation.
Leadership Agility
Leadership agility is the “ability of people (regardless of position or function) to develop themselves, both consciously and competently, in ways that make information widely available” and to distribute decision-making in dynamic environments.
While I may have demonstrated some leadership agility myself—as an Assistant Director and lifelong learner—it was not evident across the agency.
The organisation operated within a deeply hierarchical structure where control of decision-making and leadership development was tightly held. Development was linked more to tenure and passive observation of senior leaders than to any formal process. Early in my tenure, I proposed a leadership development course through Human Resources. This was interpreted by peers as a critique of their leadership style. They successfully lobbied my manager to ask me to drop the proposal.
Over five years, my efforts to build leadership agility were limited. The most tangible result was engaging an external provider to deliver training on critical reflection and supervision. The sessions were met with scepticism, poorly attended, and undermined by influential senior leaders.
Ultimately, the organisation was unable to exercise effective leadership in the face of existential threats brought on by changes in government policy. With static leadership capabilities, the agency struggled to manage its increasing workload—resulting in declining employee engagement and well-being, and lower quality outcomes for stakeholders.
Change Agility
The absence of leadership agility directly impacted the organisation’s change agility. The strain of an unmanageable workload became a growing risk to the organisation’s health. Strategies were developed to address the problem, particularly through work practice optimisation.
This included attempts to slow the inflow of work using available resources and internal knowledge. Dedicated teams were funded to take on this task. Although these teams were initially effective, they soon encountered resistance. Senior managers pressured them to revert to old patterns of work.
What began as an opportunity to explore new ways of working was eventually absorbed back into the dominant culture. Although the teams still exist, they function largely within the same mindset. Change agility remained limited. Efforts to adapt to a rapidly evolving context were routinely met with resistance—first by management, and then by staff.
Change itself was viewed as a threat to the hierarchy and the decision-making power it protected. As a result, the only ‘solutions’ to increasing workload were requests for more funding to continue doing more of the same.
Delivery Agility
Some of the tangible elements of modernisation included:
- the rollout of laptops,
- support for remote and flexible work,
- a new client database,
- a project to map and capture legacy data, and
- the consolidation of IT into the broader agency structure.
Each initiative faced resistance—initially from management, then from employees who had originally welcomed the changes. I was told, both directly and indirectly, that staff had been pressured by managers not to participate. This made setting up change champion networks very difficult, and momentum stalled.
Attempts to re-engage staff through executive sponsorship—especially through directive leadership—had the opposite effect. It deepened disengagement and reinforced a pattern of compliance over collaboration.
Conclusion
This organisation lacked maturity across the three critical domains: leadership, change, and delivery agility. The result was an organisation locked into outdated patterns, unable to generate sustainable or innovative responses to pressing challenges.
This affected everyone—employees, clients, and service partners. My key failing was in misjudging the readiness of the organisation. I did not adequately assess whether the conditions were right for the type of transformation I was driving. Without this understanding, I committed far too many personal resources to change that, in the end, only partially stuck.
