I am, to be precise, 1 meter and 94 centimeters tall. And I weigh 93 kilos.
Quite a confession with which to start a book . . . But it’s not my goal to confess to you something about my physical fitness. Or to see how quickly you can calculate my BMI (24.7). So, you might ask, why do I share this with you.
To give a little air to one of my small frustrations. And this is not about a too-short bed in a holiday cottage, impossible postures in an airplane seat, or the fact that there are still very few beautiful clothes available in my size. What then?
It has to do with sport. For example, squash, which I find immensely enjoyable—not to watch but to play. Only, I’m not so good at it, and that makes it a lot less fun. Losing all the time gets boring after a while. That’s why I stopped. Was it my technique? Tactical insight? Fitness? Sadly not. To put it clinically, it had everything to do with the inertia of mass.
For some reason, it seemed that all my opponents had the opposite physique to me. If we use a boxing analogy, they were clearly more “super flyweight” and I was more “heavyweight.” And that led to a pretty unequal struggle because strength is not so important in squash. It is mainly about tactics, technique, and mobility. With regard to tactics and technique, my opponents were not really superior to me, but in mobility . . . enough said. Because of their smaller bodies and lower weight, they were simply much faster and more agile. Their nimble turning and sprinting meant they responded much easier and faster to unexpected shots. They adapted directly to my strokes while I crashed into the walls feeling like a hippopotamus or simply fell over. After a while, in addition to a bad mood, I also developed chronic pain in my lower back.
I experience something similar in other sports. If I join my talented son in a game of father–son football, I clearly don’t look like Messi, to put it mildly. And along the rugged mountain-bike trail here in the dunes, I am always overtaken by men with small, light bodies. I thought may be boxing would suit me, but my opponents seemed to be faster than their shadows; often I felt like the punch bag.
Initially, I thought it was me: I was just too slow. But friends with similar physiques to mine seem to have exactly the same exasperation. They also avoid sports that require agility, maneuverability, and quick adjustments. Like them, I focus now on sports in which these factors play a negligible role, such as golf, rowing, swimming, running, and cycling—sports with predictable movements. And I stick with those (sports such as bowling, curling, and darts I leave to others, no matter how beautiful the shirts they wear).
What struck me about the sports that are better suited for my physique is that smaller, lighter men often are incredibly good at these too. And, naturally, that got me thinking: it seems like properties such as speed, agility, and maneuverability make the difference in sports characterized by frequent dynamic movements. That triggered my curiosity in my work as a consultant and in my PhD research. Could it be that the qualities of speed, agility, and maneuverability might also be important for organizations? So that organizations operating in dynamic environments, that have these characteristics, are more successful than organizations that lack them, or have them to a lesser extent?
So, a decade or so ago, I came across the path of agility and dived deeply and completely into it. There was a kind of snowball effect. While reading and interviewing, I was inspired by Darwin’s discoveries, by Juran’s rediscovery of Pareto’s 80/20 rule, and by Deming’s Plan–Do–Check–Act approach to continuous improvement. By Toyota’s success and Boyd’s OODA cycle. By the possibilities Scrum offers and the incredible results achieved in English cycling. And in recent years, also, by the Lean Start-up methodology. Fantastic; a whole new world opened up for me.
What immediately struck me in my consulting practice was that very few organizations are really agile. Most were able to adjust to competitor or customer changes in the market, but only very slowly, while they just complained that change kept happening and that it kept happening faster and faster. They lacked adaptability and, moreover, they were totally unaware of the phenomenon of agility.
Therefore, I decided to translate my insights into a process suited to those organizations, by combining proven methodologies and, where necessary, supplementing them with my own solutions. Through experimentation, I finely honed the concepts into an “agile management” approach which, in principle, can be applied to almost any organization.
The insights I gained during my fascinating journey, I would like to share with you, in the form of this book. It combines theoretical knowledge with a practical approach and practical tools. I hope this can inspire you as I too was inspired by the many books, articles, videos, studies, lectures, conversations, projects, and case studies that I have used.
I wish you lots of fun and success with your own agile voyage of discovery!
Mike Hoogveld