O dear Augustin. Business Agility in the Age of COVID-19

The story of dear Augustin is one of the most popular legends in Vienna. It allegedly goes back to the historical figure of Marx Augustin, who was known throughout the city as a popular musician and a heavy drinker in the middle of the 17th century. His drinking was almost fatal in 1679, at the height of the plague epidemic at the time. Finally, while only sleeping off his hangover he was declared dead, cleared from the street with all other victims of the epidemic and thrown into a mass grave. To reduce the risk of infection, the grave was even showered with lime. However, according to legend, Augustin did a double trick on his destiny: he was neither dead nor was he infected with the plague. Instead, when he woke up, he played on the bagpipe until he was rescued from the grave pit - and his story made him famous for centuries.

And the moral of the story? Well, one possible conclusion could be: especially in threatening times, it obviously pays off if you keep moving, adjust to the respective situation and remain creative even when you are in great danger. You may be wondering what all of this has to do with agility and business. The historical connection between COVID-19 and the mother of all pandemics may be obvious. But what is the relationship to the socio-economic lockdown in recent weeks?

What parallels can be drawn between personal and corporate crisis management? And what are the consequences of this management for an approach that has promised entrepreneurial fitness for over 20 years?

It is surely too early to answer these questions with due care. In a way, we are still too deep in our current plague pit. Nevertheless, I would like to share some of the experiences that we have had at LOOP in the past few weeks. My focus is on how companies deal with Corona and what role agility plays in this. What typical morals have we discovered in this regard?

1. Of course, what caught our eye the most was the companies that had to fight for survival as a result of the pandemic — as is the case, for example, in the aviation or event management industry. Considered with Augustinian gallows humor, the following applies to these companies: "Everything's down the drain!" With these business, agility is also doomed. External rescue is needed, which often means that the companies concerned become a toy for political forces.

2. At the other end of the spectrum are  companies that do not belong to the losers but to the winners of the crisis — such as the pharmaceutical industry, the medical trade or the food industry. They celebrate, so to speak, the funeral party that is the heart piece of the Augustin song. Strategically, this means “more of the same”: more products, more services, more output, more profit. Agile approaches are very welcome here: after all, they have proven themselves as helpful  in many areas. However, entrepreneurial efficiency is much more important, i.e. the ability to bring the existing portfolio to the customer as quickly and smoothly as possible.

3. Then of course we see companies that are also badly affected by the crisis but do not fall into either of the two extremes mentioned — which applies to the majority of all industries from A for automotive to Z for zoos. Some companies that claim to be agile have returned to traditional forms of management during the crisis. All of a sudden, decision-making skills are concentrated at the top again, strategies are developed behind closed doors and communication is primarily focused top down. This inevitably means that central agile values such as transparency, openness or empowerment are undermined or at least weakened in many places: leadership is again a matter for the boss, self-organization is only important at team level. The fact that large corporations are leaning towards the idea of a strong hand makes you doubt their understanding of agile. The doubts intensify when managers come to the fore who had kept themselves covered for a long time during the agile hype. Suddenly, these managers not only stand up for the old hierarchy, but actively block any further investments in entrepreneurial agility (as one of these managers puts it: "We have neither time nor money for this now.“)

4. In the past few weeks, we have, of course, also encountered companies for whom agile action was an important resource in crisis management. Occasionally these companies were even enthusiastic about how little drastic measures such as short-time work or home office restricted performance: Scrum teams continue to sprint well, Kanban teams now simply manage their workflows virtually, design thinking teams discover new forms of collaboration, etc. Once again, these experiences show the capability of agile methods. At the same time, however, we found that the majority of these companies were happy with maintaining the agile status quo. Investments in continuous improvement have been cut back significantly, if not completely suspended — which, speaking of processes that tend to regress if they are not maintained, does not resonate with the agile approach.

5. Finally, we were dealing with companies in which the agile culture had reached a certain level of maturity before the crisis and was an integral part of their DNA. Accordingly, it was obvious for these companies to manage the crisis with agile means: they more-or-less could not help it. This led to two well observable phenomena: First, agility was used to remain innovative despite all the viral restrictions with which these companies also had to struggle — as it was shown by companies that switched from the production of luxury goods to pharmaceutical supplies as well as by companies that quickly developed new apps to improve delivery service or medical care. On the other hand, these companies also consciously invested in the ongoing optimization of all business processes.In some cases we even had the impression that the market was scanned even more intensively for new opportunities. As part of its weekly management updates, the employees of an online marketplace asked to stay in touch with their customers "now more than ever". A medium-sized production company did not let itself be frustrated by the lack of orders, but despite short-time working, started an innovation forum that was open to all employees, across all departments and hierarchies, in which new business ideas were discussed, prioritized and sprinted every two weeks until they were implemented by the next forum. A large infrastructure company reacted to the lockdown by carrying out retrospectives in various areas of the business and also across regions. And a telecom group increasingly focused on professional learning through pairing or communities of practice, which were even expanded in virtual space. It would certainly be presumptuous to say that these companies are per se more successful than all those who rely on traditional approaches — but they are always more responsive and more experimental than traditionally run organizations.

As always, when you try to sort typical phenomena, the untypical is already lurking around the next corner. Of course, in reality my five categories rarely appear in their pure form; there are various mixed forms and contradictory phenomena. With all due caution, I would still like to risk a few preliminary conclusions, speaking of Business Agility and COVID-19:

1. If nobody knows exactly what to expect, driving on sight doesn't seem like the stupidest strategy — otherwise you run the risk of overlooking various potholes, if not real plague pits. The lack of foresight is not caused by COVID-19, but only multiplied  by it. In the much-cited VUCA world, people know to plan only manageable steps. So the chances of successfully implementing what was planned are all the higher. Accordingly, the iterative approach, driven by mutual learning from each stage completed, can be seen as the elixir of life for an organizational development that does not bypass the market or the employees.

2. However, such organizational development is not only a challenge due to poor visibility. Especially in infected times, it also leads you through unknown territory. It remains unclear which political boundaries are set and how this affects your company's performance.“

3. The word has now got around that a good radar system is helpful. In our experience, however, such a system depends on the management philosophy. To put it in a simple formula: The more employees who can be won over, to stretch out their feelers and become seismographs of what is going on, the better — especially if they stay in contact with their customers and do not retreat to “business as usual”.

4. However, a culture is needed for this, which relies on many Augustins and equips them with adequate bagpipes. It is not enough for managers to use the frequently used term of empowerment. Rather, clear boundaries are required to clarify what it actually means and — what is often forgotten — the ability to deal with this power professionally. The latter does not just fall into your lap, but sometimes calls for tailor-made training and coaching measures. In our opinion, such measures are particularly important in difficult times, but are often the first to get cancelled during traditional crisis management.

5. Dear Augustin emphasises that agility is not an esoteric mindset; it stands and falls with solid knowledge (What is agility about? And why do we need it?), personal understanding (What exactly does that mean for me? And what's in it for me?), and disciplined practice. Many heavy drinkers have just fallen into the pit, but only a few agile masters have fallen from the sky.

Thanks to my dear agile friend Peter Hundermark for his feedback & support