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filler@godaddy.com
Signed in as:
filler@godaddy.com
Let me become an extension of your team as a Fractional Chief Agility Officer, which is one of my favorite things to do these days, as a culmination of my own agile journey. Whether called fractional "President", "Chief of Staff", "COO", "VP of Strategy", something else or nothing at all, let me be your co-pilot (aka fractional "Chief Agility Officer") ... helping you get agile done, helping you be agile as a leader, a team and an organization and helping you increasingly have the composed confidence of enterprise agility as a competitive advantage. Indeed, the only competitive advantage you can rely upon these days as having any permanence. Everything else is increasingly temporary, increasingly quickly, probably bigger, faster and sooner than you think! Don't delay.
What does an Chief Agility Officer do? It's complicated! Which, quite likely, is why no one else on your team is doing it. Read on.
There are many moving parts to enterprise agility, to be translating agile strategy and agile execution into traction on your desired trajectory of profitability & growth, avoiding wheel$pin. Much easier said than done as there are so many different ways for wheel$pin to seep in. At the heart of it, a trajectory of traction is about triage with the agile productivity required, collectively and individually, which is beyond the current operating system of many teams and businesses. It requires an Agility Operating System.
Wheel$pin can cost you a $fortune. That is what my first book was about. My work in progress second book is about the simplicity inside of that complexity of the 5 Roles of Everyday Agile Leaders adding up to being the Chief Agility Officer (CAO).
CAOs understand how to simultaneously drive and build the vehicle of your Agility Operating System, all at the same time ... changing the tires, the shock absorbers and the engine at 90 MPH!
Building out your Agility Operating System progressively, enterprise wide and enterprise deep, simultaneously top down and bottom up, starting with the drive-shaft core process of your business (marketing, sales, product development, project management, service delivery, customer experience? etc) and building from that middle outwards, forwards to the front office of the business and backwards to the back office of the business. That's what creates extraordinary alignment, integration and attunement for the journey challenge.
Helping Your Vendors and Customers Upstream and Downstream
The worst of all worlds is taking a "Waterfall" approach to an Agile Transformation Journey. "Waterfall" is one of the ways the Agile movement refers to the traditional approach to project management of complex projects, trying to fight complexity with complexity, with complex master plan Gantt charts etc. You will be amazed how easily and unconsciously you can unpivot back to a Waterfall mindset without realizing it.
Equally bad is taking a KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) approach, as that easily ends up being stupid simple! There are 2 kinds of simple ... stupid simple which ignores complexity and elegantly simple which embeds complexity. Oliver Wendell Holmes said it so well, "I wouldn't give a fig for simplicity this side of complexity, but I would give my life for simplicity on the far side of complexity"
That is why it is wise to have a Chief Agility Officer by your side ... to not get stuck this side of complexity in stupid simple ... of course, to not get lost in complexity itself ... but to move through complexity and emerge on the other side with the elegant simplicity of an agile approach.
"Mike Richardson was engaged with my company for a total of four years, firstly for one and a half years as a consultant and then for three years as President of the Company.
I engaged Mike realizing that my business had out grown my management approach and it was time to change from vertical department management to horizontal companywide management, for which I did not have the tools. After hearing an amazing speech on Agility given by Mike, I decided to engage him as a consultant. My entire team loved the value of the assistance he provided, so much so that a year later we started to engage in a conversation about the possibility of Mike joining as President.
Mike was a tremendous asset while the company continued to experience fast growth and then when we had to navigate through many challenges like COVID, which hit our business model very hard. Through the good times and the bad, he displayed tremendous leadership focus and ability to manage many large projects in parallel, with a capacity of agile leadership and management I have never seen before. Mike has an amazing heart and my team loved following his direction and courage.
He gave me strength during the toughest of times and became a friend. The love I have for Mike and my appreciation of his contribution to the company and to me personally, will be something I will cherish for the rest of my life. Anyone considering engaging with Mike should know that I cannot find enough words to describe my feelings for him, my respect for the value he provided me and my team and my appreciation for our relationship."
(Eyal Shahar, Founder & CEO, Online Trading Academy)
If you and your team already have all the tools and are fully in traction on your desired trajectory of profitability and growth, no acceleration required, then you don't need a Chief Agility Officer and I can learn from you ... I would love to include you as a case study in my 2nd book I am working on, feature you in a podcast or webinar and spotlight you in our community. Either way, I would love for you to contact me.