Education agility may also be called empathetic agility according to our opinion because it is distinctly different from emotions in many ways. Some examples are given below:
- Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. Emotions are a natural instinctive state of mind deriving from one’s circumstances, disposition, or relationships with others.
- Empathy occurs and leaves with no room for emotion, meaning when empathy takes place it happens at that moment, leaving no emotional room between the individual and the one who is empathized. It is not cognitive in nature. There is a sense of self-awareness that provides some necessary space between the two. The empathizer experiences the same suffering with the other. As a result, it allows the individual to be more helpful, understanding, and comprehending than the individual who cannot empathize another.
- Empathy is cultivated emotional reactions of an individual to the observed experiences of another.
- Empathy moves us to be more understanding and helps us to be better managers/leaders. Emotions do not.
- Empathy rides along with motivation. Emotions ride along with feelings.
Emotional agility is explained in depth in Chapter 5 of this book.
To be a success individually or organizationally, Jeff Sussna, founder and principal of Ingineering.IT says: “The DevOps Equation: Agility + Empathy = Quality.”2 This sums up pretty much the whole concept of antifragile.
Being antifragile warrants one to develop this agility and feel others’ perspectives. Feeling the pain points of the person sitting in a different chair and doing the roles that do not necessarily fall into your daily routine make you loftier at performing all sorts of work and be better as a team player. This will put you in a worthy position when you need to be able to stand in for your peers. But your daily routine is your main competency.
We decided to include Education Agility in our model in order to highlight the need of improving our education. Education in this model in our minds is to highlight the need for new competencies, which can help us to perform different roles and easily adapt to changes. This then answers the question: “how ably can the individual communicate and work with others at all levels?”
We want to specifically distinguish Education Agility from Learning Agility. Education Agility helps us to master new competencies, helps us to see trends and changes around us. Learning Agility is how we validate hypothesis,3 how fast we learn or fail. In order to learn and be more antifragile we need to be educated. We need to continuously master new competencies.
While keeping your competency at a constantly moving speed, the following gives an opportunity for diverse knowledge to develop into a superior focused experience:
- studying,
- communicating,
- learning,
- training.
This can lead to intelligent growth skills for the team and a challenging commitment in a passionate direction. These steer the course toward learning more about the varied needs and wants of multiple stakeholders to enhance the team performance of the project as well as the organization.
Here we need to mention the concept behind an antifragile person. The concept is called T-shaped skills or T-shaped persons,4 as shown below in the diagram. “The concept of T-shaped skills, or T-shaped persons is a metaphor used in job recruitment to describe the abilities of persons in the workforce. The vertical bar on the letter T represents the depth of related skills and expertise in a single field, whereas the horizontal bar is the ability to collaborate across disciplines with experts in other areas and to apply knowledge in areas of expertise other than one’s own.”
Companies big and small, for example, Nike and Airbnb, are drawing on design thinking frameworks to jolt innovative ideas. In Design Thinking we use personas that are fictional characters, which you create based upon your research in order to represent the different user types that might use your service or product. Creating personas5 helps us to understand our users’ needs, experiences, behaviors, and goals. Creating personas can help us step out of ourselves and step into the other person’s shoes. It can help us to recognize that different people have different needs and expectations, and it can also help us to identify with the user we’re designing for.
Another example: Scrum Study6 says that one of the core dimensions of collaborative work is: Awareness—Individuals working together need to be aware of each other’s work. That weaves right into the Agile Manifesto value “Customer Collaboration Over Contract Negotiation.” In the sales arena, once the customers’ needs, where they come from, as in gauging their mindsets, ethos, psyche, etc., and the customers’ budgets are perceived and registered, a number of insights can then be steered into the lead generation dynamics. This is when customers can be turned into clients. Most often, the customers become one-time consumers, buyers, purchasers, etc., and do not evolve into clients. All of these can only be achieved and the performance of the projects and ultimately the organization reaches its zenith if this conversion passion is instilled throughout the entire team, which in turn will permeate to the entire organization. All the verticals must strive to be the best they can withering the darkest and wildest storms of the business nature, thus mandating education agility.
The idea that employees at Estee Lauder7 have not only the training for one area but also the knowledge of a larger picture also allows them to succeed in areas that many may overlook. If an employee in Macy’s is aware of how everything on a corporate level works they are more able to answer questions that in most instances would be sent to a customer service hotline. Allowing employees to have access to all sides of the company also helps with how they serve their customers. If they know the what, when, why, where, and how of the products and the company, they will be able to assist customers in all the situations much better.
To have the education agility honed, some of the remedies that can be employed are:
- Be curious of other roles in their area of work. Seek out others with different perspectives.
- Continuously strive and improve competencies through readings, trainings, mentoring, and coaching.
- Find and follow people around you who inspire you, and use social media to follow them.
- Expose yourself to new and challenging situations.
- Know what you need and disrupt yourself. Give up what may have worked in the past.
Industry Applications by International Practitioners and Academia for Education Agility
Observation, empathy, understanding team values and synergy are crucial. Being able to put myself in the shoes of others helps me to cooperate more efficiently and to create a better, more satisfying relationship. I have learned that even if I seem to value direct feedback, not everyone can handle it, interpret it correctly and not take it personally. In our company, it is easy to see if you are empathetic to the client’s needs or if you are treating the client as a necessary evil. Do you concentrate on being “right” or solving the problem, thus releasing the tension? These qualities are extremely important in employees dealing with clients directly. I have been educating and training my employees to fight for the client’s interest rather than against it.
Joanna Staniszewska CEO, You’ll Ltd.,
POLAND
Being flexible in dealing with others goes hand in hand with being flexible in developing educational skills that help you to excel in your work.
Makheni Zonneveld, Future Readiness Coach,
NETHERLANDS
Making sure that everybody understands, has the required intelligence and knowledge to then be able to recite and remember what portfolio management means for their business so that those who are educated can then do the educating.
Paul Hodgkins, Executive Director, Paul Hodgkins Project Consultancy,
UNITED KINGDOM
I always tell my students not be afraid to fail, be open to feedback, discover your strengths and build upon your weakness. Education should be a safe place where you can practice and improve your skills. Educating and being open to feedback builds character and competencies where you think you are lacking.
Professor Linh Luong, Program Director of Master of Science in Project Management, University of SEATTLE
We are all aware that without education, without respect for others, we will never be able to work as a team. Education and respect within the organization and its diversity of cultures, is the basis and foundation of understanding and collaboration to join efforts in pursuit of the objectives set at the personal, group and organization level. Education Agility helps us to assess the needs of each of us, and also identify who within the group can supply that knowledge and help to the needed person to close the gap to further develop, execute and achieve the highest quality outcomes.
Rafael De La Rosa, Project-Portfolio Management Consultant,
PT. SMART tbk,
INDONESIA / SPAIN
New skills are required to take advantage of the data being generated. Increasingly, organizations are becoming less concerned with the volume of data and are (wisely) focusing on the context and relevance of data. Mastering education agility requires leaders to unlock those skills, analytical capabilities, and create multi-disciplinary and cross-functional skill-sets and insights to truly unlock the power of data.
Patrick N Connally, Director, Teradata, Philadelphia,
USA
Education Agility encompasses the adaptability to develop new competencies for future markets and the ability to foster T-shaped skills. It also helps in realizing the unrealized value as a result of exploring new possibilities of growth and outcomes. For improving the performance in the existing state-of-affairs, it requires continuous training and brilliance. When developing a cross-functional Scrum team having the capability to address different type of problems and identifying opportunities to build a business case, the agility demands the ability to solve the problems within the group working towards a common goal. It may require educating and motivating the peers to acquire new technical, professional or behavioral skills so that it builds a culture of constant evolution.
Gaurav Dhooper (PAL-I®, PMI-ACP®, SAFe4®, CSM®, LSS-GB)
Program Manager, RPA & Agile Practitioner at Genpact
INDIA