Pamela Meyer

Whereas agile is the buzz word of today's software development, the real shift to agility beyond a single IT team, department or start-up, still to be embedded and practiced more. The Agility Shift by Pamela Meyer brings together experiences from very different fields, from improvisation theater, Toastmaster speakers to 3M, and UPS. Organizations nowadays are confronting volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCLA). Companies that are able to turn challenges into opportunities show more have a competitive advantage, as shown by the different reactions and outcomes of Ericsson and Nokia to a same fire at a supplier's facility.
Everyone agrees that there is real, tangible value in being more agile. No one argues the actions the pilot of US Airways 1549 took to safely land his passenger jet on the Hudson river, bypassing discussing air traffic control officials. Meyer draws from thinkers like Simon Sinek (Start with Why), J.R. Galbraith (there is no best way to organize), Claudio Ciborra (locating the dynamic present between panic and boredom), realistic optimism, and presents the 3 Cs of Agility Shift: confidence, competence and capacity. The book's a great treasure for leaders seeking Make Shift Practices to acquire the right people, empower and coach along the way. There's a lot of time spent on new ways to learn and practice. Despite most leader’s approaches, “Agility is not simply accelerated planning.” Forget the annual strategic planning. The agility shift embraces the creative tension between planning and preparing. The relational web is a great tool to identify relevant, responsive, resilient, resourceful and reflective actions to put into practice tomorrow. Meyer has lots of references, games and examples to help you out. show less

I enjoyed the author's Ted Talk more than her book. It was a tad too technical for my liking. Her research on body movement and how it correlates with truthfulness was neat to consider. The average person is lied to roughly 200 times a day!

a bit queasy about the facial/body language part (even with some scientific evidence) but other materials on patterns of lying and questioning techniques are quite sensible.

Great book. I can use this. My partner once described his job as getting lied to all day. He particularly saw a lot of truth in the authors reference to 'clusters' of indicators.