In executive coaching, you hear a lot of singular techniques — one framework, one mindset, one magic fix that’s supposed to solve everything. In reality, even the best techniques only work when they adapt to the terrain. The central lesson is simple: knowing not just what to do, but when and why to do it. It’s the difference between approach and technique, strategy and tactic. When I run in the mountains, I shorten my stride whether I’m going uphill or downhill, but for entirely different reasons.
The Skills You Need to be AGILE
There is a difference between being an agile HR department and being an AGILE HR department. The ideal, of course, is being an agile AGILE HR department. This is especially true as AGILE becomes a way of doing business in more and more companies. The emphasis in AGILE is on speed and accuracy. At the Bank of Montreal, where AGILE has become popular, the Chief Transformation Officer, Lynne Rogers, says that “speed is the new business currency.”
When speed and accuracy are the currency of the day, there is another critical factor that makes it all work – communication. The truth is that AGILE is fragile and will fail without effective communication. No matter how well-intentioned or well-funded, AGILE teams will not succeed in their tasks unless team members and the company’s HR department are well versed and practiced in these five critical communication skills:
Meaning that the traditional means of delivering HR services to the company must move from the Waterfall mentality to a much more fluid and flexible process. HR professionals who must help to train, coach, and resolve processing problems for their constituents must polish their communication skills and techniques for assisting AGILE teams to complete their missions. Empathetic listening and passive problem solving, which still work in those Waterfall companies, will no longer serve their AGILE clients. New ways to critique and guide others who are living by the rules and principles of AGILE must be developed. For sure, as humans, members of the AGILE teams will face the normal interpersonal communication challenges inherent in the five essential communication skills.
The Speech Improvement Company, the nation’s oldest communication coaching firm, has pioneered this precise kind of learning that contemporary HR departments and professionals must develop. They offer a variety of fast-paced and specific learning experiences designed exclusively for HR departments and professionals. Learners can choose to learn new ways to adapt their capabilities in the five essential communication skills of AGILE by isolating the particular skill set or by reviewing all five. Training sessions, much like the actual AGILE experience itself, are short, pointed, and conducted with the guidance of The Speech Improvement Company’s certified AGILE trainer.
Because the truth is AGILE, all of this is fragile and will fail without effective communication.
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