10 Ways to Build a High-Impact Organization

Getting started with business agility is hard. We’ve got actionable tips to help your company move in the right direction.

You’ve heard that business agility can help remove bureaucracy, improve collaboration, streamline workflows, and lead to more customer-centric outcomes. While the benefits are all inspiring, knowing how to transform an organization into this new way of working can feel daunting.

We’ve compiled a Top 10 list of actions you can take as a leader to prepare your company to move from a traditional management style to business agility.

#1) Clarify the “Why” for Change

With process or culture change, it always comes back to the “why?” People are naturally apprehensive of change, or may have change fatigue from previous initiatives. However, if employees understand the problems this change solves, they’re much more willing to join you on the journey.

Define and communicate the drivers for agility, such as market volatility, customer demands, and innovation goals. Wherever possible, drill down to how these challenges make an individual’s job more difficult and how the company’s vision of business agility will improve their day-to-day challenges.

#2) Align Leadership & Sponsorship

Transformation starts at the top, so as a leader, you need to model the behaviors you want your team members to adhere to. If more collaboration is part of the change you’re trying to make, think of ways to be more collaborative, such as conducting a brainstorming session with the team for new ideas rather than telling them your idea.

High-performing teams don’t just align on goals—they build a shared mental model where every member shares an understanding of goals, roles, and strategies.

#3) Assess Organizational Readiness

Everyone likes the benefits of business agility, but is the organization ready to do what it takes to change? Before embarking on changing a company, evaluate its current culture.

Is the company highly bureaucratic with a traditional command and control leadership style?

If so, understand that you may have a longer road ahead and that changes will need to be made more incrementally than in an organization that’s highly collaborative and less hierarchical.

Organizational change doesn’t begin with action—it begins with readiness. Survey and interview company leaders to see what behaviors they’d be willing to modify, versus the ones that may be sticking points. Once you have this information, you can create a roadmap for change that works for your unique situation.

#4) Create a Shared Vision for Agility

To get to your goal of business agility, leaders from across the organization need to come together to create a shared vision. When everyone’s aligned on what success looks like and how it supports strategy, culture, and customer outcomes, you’ll make a real impact.

A shared vision is more than just a corporate goal—it’s a collective sense of purpose that ignites intrinsic motivation across a team or organization. When a shared vision is present, it acts as a unifying North Star. Teams become more resilient, adaptive, and focused because they’re driven by a common ‘why.’ It sets the foundation for collaboration and empowers people to take initiative, innovate, and solve problems in ways aligned with that vision. Without it, teams may work hard, but not necessarily in the same direction.

#5) Invest in Culture & Mindset Shifts

Business agility is more about a culture and mindset change than a new process. Promote psychological safety and emotional sobriety by listening to ideas from team members at all levels and creating a safe space for your team to share feedback without retaliation.

While psychological safety focuses on creating an environment where individuals feel safe to speak up without fear of retribution, emotional sobriety complements this by emphasizing personal responsibility and self-regulation.

#6) Redesign Governance & Decision-Making Structures

Business agility requires the ability to quickly pivot to meet rapidly changing customer and business objectives. Old funding models may be too rigid, so look for ways to fund products instead of projects.

Companies that rely on top-heavy approval processes need to find ways to give up control and push decision-making closer to the teams doing the work. This shift in governance isn’t just procedural—it’s cultural. Rather than relying on slow, hierarchical decision chains, they cultivate transparency and trust, enabling frontline teams to act autonomously within a clear strategic intent.

#7) Identify & Empower Change Agents

Build a network of internal champions across all levels—people who can lead by example, mentor others, and accelerate adoption within their areas. These change agents are not just supporters of transformation—they’re catalysts who influence culture and behaviors through their credibility, relationships, and example.

To identify effective change agents, look beyond job titles and focus on individuals who are:

• Respected by peers and teams (regardless of hierarchy)
• Influencers with strong informal networks
• Early adopters of new ways of working
• Willing to challenge the status quo constructively
• Trusted communicators who can bridge strategy and execution
• Ultimately, change accelerates when these leaders model the behaviors and mindsets the rest of the organization is expected to adopt.

#8) Pilot and Iterate, Don’t Boil the Ocean

It took your company years—sometimes decades—to build its existing culture and operating model. Meaningful change won’t happen overnight. Instead of trying to overhaul everything at once, start small and learn fast.

Use targeted pilot teams to explore new ways of working in a low-risk environment. These teams become your proof points—showing quick wins, uncovering obstacles, and creating momentum that inspires other parts of the organization. Approach each pilot as a learning cycle: test, observe, adapt, and refine.

The goal isn’t perfection on the first try—it’s continuous improvement. When leaders frame pilots as learning opportunities (not pass/fail tests), they create psychological safety for experimentation, encourage honest reflection, and build the confidence needed for scaling change across the enterprise.

#9) Invest in Learning & Capability Building

It takes a village to turn a ship around, so you’ll need to invest in training, coaching, and time for teams and leaders to learn new ways of working, including agile frameworks, lean thinking, and design thinking. But too often, organizations skip this step—assuming people will “just get it” or learn on the fly.

Learning isn’t a side activity—it’s a strategic lever. To change how people work, you first have to change how they think, collaborate, and make decisions. That requires dedicated time and investment in capability building at every level of the organization. Not just workshops, but real, hands-on learning through embedded coaching, peer mentoring, and space to experiment safely

#10) Establish Feedback Loops & Adaptation Mechanisms

Business agility is a journey with a lot of twists and turns, never a straight path. To navigate it successfully, organizations must implement ongoing systems of inspection, feedback, and learning, such as OKRs, agile health checks, and customer feedback loops. These mechanisms help teams course-correct in real time rather than waiting until it’s too late. The most adaptive companies treat feedback as a continuous input, not a one-time event. When done right, feedback loops become the organization’s nervous system, enabling it to sense, learn, and respond with speed and purpose.

Next Steps Don’t wait for disruption to force your hand. Choose one action from this list and commit to it this week. Whether it’s aligning your leadership team, launching a pilot, or simply starting a conversation about the “why” behind agility, the path to transformation begins with your next step. Make the move now to future-proof your organization.

Are you ready to learn more? We recommend the Business Agility Foundations course.