In today's fast paced and constantly changing world, disruption is happening at all times. The digital driven work environment needs a different mindset to traditional management thinking. Often, our fallback to "best practices", "return on investment" and past achievements are holding us back from truly being innovative in fulfilling the needs of today's Customers.

1. 4 MBA-type
thinking you
should avoid
to develop
Agility
Or how to be
competitive in
the digital world
A presentation by
elisanpartners.com

2. Don't:
If everyone follows a “best practice”, wouldn’t it mean
everyone is doing the same thing as everyone else? How
does this make you stand out among the competition?
Ask for "best practices"
Do:
Start small and lean. Experiment and find out if something
works for your Customers and your organisation.
Test it with Customers
Best practices are predictable and boring. And there's no
guarantee that something that works for your competitors
will work for you.
Let your Customers guide the work that you do. Let them
help you find the right practice or approach that will
deliver value for their needs (not yours). More importantly,
don't be afraid to try something new.
Boring.

3. Don't:
We're obssessed with Return-on-Investment. We measure
every activity with an eye on ROI.
Be "ROI" crazy
Do:
Instead of obsessing over ROI, focus on delivering
differentiated yet quality Customer Value in all activities.
Focus on quality Customer Value
Sadly, ROI is an innovation killer and discourages risk-
taking. If an organisation continues to focus on
predictability and efficient use of capital, it will never
create something different and exciting for its Customer.
Do this by encouraging experimentation and learning from
mistakes. Inkjet printers, Post-It, potato chips and the
microwave oven would never exist if mistakes were not
tolerated and a business manager had insisted on ROI.
Boring.

4. Don't:
There is a tendency to hire people based on their past
achievements and a hope that success will be replicated.
“When I worked for X, I did Y
and it worked very well…”
Do:
Develop people to be creative, with a keeness to embrace
constant change in the Customer world and willingness to
explore new Customer-driven ideas.
Develop creativity and agility
As technology is easily acquired and has levelled the playing
fields for everyone, the only true competitive advantage you
can have is your agile and creative people.
Boring.
Alas, bringing "past glories" to a new set of Customers
rarely guarantees success in a fast-changing digital world.

5. Don't:
Or a "model". The digital world moves too fast for
templates. The more Customers are empowered with
deep information and digital tools, the harder it is to
predict, track and pigeonhole their behaviour and
preferences. Disruption is a daily occurrence.
Ask for "templates"
Do:
Start small with what you already know and create reflection
points in your workflow to consider new information or
feedback from current efforts. Make reflections mandatory.
Establish feedback loops
With continuous feedback loops, you will have an
opportunity to make improvements to your Customer
engagements regularly. Evolve with your Customers daily.
Boring.
Boring.

6. Customer
Centricity
Agile
Mindset
Agile
OS
Digital
Capabilities =
Organisational Agility
Tools Processes People
++

7. Conceived and iteratively produced
by Isman Tanuri, MBA (hah!)
Isman frequently speaks and writes on Organisational Agility
and is a trainer-coach in the Agile Ways of Working &
Thinking. He is an ICAgile Authorised Instructor (Agile
Marketing), a Certified ScrumMaster (Scrum Alliance), Agile
Certified Coach (ICAgile) and Certified Kanban Coach (IBQMI).
Read full profile If you would like me to speak on Agile & agility for your multi-
functional organisation or large team in an interactive seminar
format (60 minutes, pro bono), send your request to
hello@elisanpartners.com for further discussion.

8. A presentation by
elisanpartners.com
hello@elisanpartners.com
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