Lyssa Adkins and Maria Matarelli discuss how Personal Agility is a powerful framework for leaders and organizations.
Listen in to the discussion and see the conversation summary below:
Maria Matarelli
What does this mean for leaders? Why would an executive want to use Personal Agility?
Lyssa Adkins
I think it’s amazing as an opportunity for executives to use Personal Agility because, for example, well, let’s just talk about the benefits they’ll get in their own lives. The same benefits we’ve been talking about, if there are any people in the world that are running around like crazy, its executives; and if there are any people in the world who need to make conscious, clear decisions, it’s executives, right. And so this framework allows for information that supports all of that. But also, many executives are working in organizations where Agile is present, they may have brought Agile in themselves, or it may have just sort of grown up and then all of a sudden, they look around and go, “Well, this thing called Agile is here”. And here’s the thing is that Agile is operating from a completely different values set and belief system than any other way of working that we’ve had before. And in order for that belief set to flourish, in order for the benefit of Agile to really occur in organization, it requires all of us, all of us to move toward living these values and principles in our own lives. Personal Agility is a way that executives can do Agile on themselves, and learn the same lessons teams learn just in their own context.”
Maria Matarelli
How do you think that that translates, because a lot of people will say, “Oh, it’s Personal Agility. This isn’t in the workplace, this isn’t for a leader or it isn’t…”
Lyssa Adkins
Oh, my gosh, well, I use it to run my business. I mean, I’m a serial entrepreneur, I use it to start businesses, I use it to make all kinds of decisions. And I use it for managing my own energy. And what’s possible, in my, in the whole sphere of my work and life, you know, just like an executive would need to decide like, how much energy am I going to put into x? What am I going to delegate over here to y? What businesses do I need to start up? How will I know when that business needs to be either funded or put off to the side like, all of those things are things that show up in my Priorities Map on a weekly basis?
Maria Matarelli
Could using Personal Agility help someone be a better team member in an Agile environment?
Lyssa Adkins
I think it could. And I think it will go a long way to work here. And one of the biggest things I see in organizations at the team level, which is that people don’t ask for what they need to do the job they’ve been asked to do. And so once people become conscious choice makers, when people value themselves in their own time more than I think that they will be more willing to, number one, have clarity about what they need. And number two, be willing to ask for it.
Maria Matarelli
At one point you made the statement that you believe that Personal Agility could shake the foundations of the industry at its core in the Agile community. Could you expand a little bit more on that? What did you mean by that?
Lyssa Adkins
So here’s what I was imagining when I said that, I was imagining a bunch of people at all levels in an organization that have used Personal Agility that they have used it for all the things we’ve talked about to achieve more in their working life, to be conscious choice makers to celebrate what they what they actually accomplish, on and on and on. If they’ve done that, then when Agile comes into the organization, they will have already learned and grokked at a really deep level, the main mindset shifts that agile needs in order to really flourish in an organization. So if Agile comes in the door later, they’re going to be in a much better position to use agile in a way that fulfills Agile’s full promise.
Maria Matarelli
Is there anything else you’d like to share about your thoughts or experience with Personal Agility?
Lyssa Adkins
Personal Agility is continuing to be a really important force in my life 111 weeks later. And I can tell when things in my work life, in my entrepreneurial life, in my life-life, I can tell when I need to shift because I can no longer operate my Priorities Map as well as I did a month ago. The things I’ve said that matter don’t seem to fit as well anymore. And I have to go to the next fine grain level to find out Hmm, what is the flavor of that now. And so I love how it’s a sub source of information and even wisdom that informs me.