For quite a while now, many in the Agile community have discussed the need for an agile culture? But what about the need for Cultural Agility? An agile culture and cultural agility, though related, are two very different things. Cultural agility topics of diversity and inclusiveness have become more prevalent in boardroom discussions in both public and private organizations of all sizes. As part of The Agility Series of books, Larry Cooper, Sylvie Leduc, Claude Emond, Charlotte Goudreault and their global wisdom council wanted to find out both what may hold people and their organizations back from addressing these topics, as well as what might propel them forward. During this bilingual workshop, Larry and Sylvie will share the core of what the research has provided so far. From there, they will lead an interactive session with participants to draw on their past experiences with some of their cultural agility challenges, opportunities, and successes in enterprises within Canada and elsewhere. They will close with some concrete deliverables for an action plan that can be collaboratively implemented afterward, to bring cultural agility into a company's mission statement and vision. Tools will be put in place to continue to monitor progress and showcase tangible results over time. The output from the session in an appendix to Larry’s book to help advance the cause so that we can contribute to each other’s cultural agility, and by extension to that of our organizations.

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The Richness of our Differences
Larry Cooper
Sylvie Leduc
Spark the Change Montreal
May 11-12, 2017
Achieving Cultural Agility in our Organizations

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Share your Insights
@cooperlk99
theagilityseries channel: culturalagility
#TheAgilitySeries

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Agenda
• The Book Series
• The Book Structure
• What we found
• Our Stories Define Us
• Time to share

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The Book Series
1. Organizational Agility: Values, Principles, and Traits
2. Leadership Agility: Enabling Sustainable Organizations
3. Cultural Agility: Changing our Stories
4. Series: Business Agility 2017!
5. Innovation Agility
6. Strategic Agility
7. Value Agility
8. Delivery Agility
9. Client/Customer Agility
10. Learning Agility

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Sample of our Wisdom Council Members
Rod Collins
Former COO, BlueCross-
BlueShield FEIP
Author: Leadership in a
Wiki World and
Wiki Management
Jen Hunter
GreatWork!
Claude Emond
TransformAgility
Charlotte Goudreault
TransformAgility
Evan Leybourn
Author: The Agile Director
www.BussinessAgilitty2017.com
Tom Cagley
Vice President, DCG Software Value
President of the International Function Point Users Group
https://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/software-process-
measurement/id213024387?mt=2
http://spamcast.libsyn.com/spamcast-418-larry-cooper-the-
agility-series
Pat Reed
Adjunct Professor , UC Berkley
Former: CIO GameWorks,
Sr. Director, NBC Universal,
Executive Director, Walt Disney Company
ICAgile
Boulder, CO
Leadership Learning Path
IFPUG Conference
Ottawa
GTEC Ottawa
Evan Leybourn
LinkedIn Post
Claude Emond
Sylvie Leduc
Project Management
Consultant
Claude Emond
ICAgile
Boulder, CO
Leadership Learning Path
Niel Nicholaisen
CTO at OC Tanner
Author: The Agile Culture: Leading
through Trust and Ownership

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The Adaptability Code
Re-coding the Stories holding back People and Organizations

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The Book Structure
Cultural Agility: Changing our Stories
• Our Stories Define Us
• Guest Chapter by Niel Nicholaisen, author of “The Agile Culture: Leading
through Trust and Ownership”
• Interview(s) on Cultural Agility
• Our Findings
• Changing our Stories
• Appendix A: Results of today’s session
• Appendix B: Lived Stories

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Agile Culture versus Cultural Agility
• Agile Culture:
– An "agile" culture (with a lower-case "a" one that has adopted a
style, approach, and community that is tolerant of failure,
willing to test hypotheses, and able to adjust to changing
market conditions as deemed necessary
• Cultural Agility:
– The mega-competency which enables professionals to perform
successfully in cross-cultural situations. Culturally agile
professionals succeed in contexts where the successful
outcome of their jobs, roles, positions, or tasks depends on
dealing with an unfamiliar set of cultural norms—or multiple
sets of them

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Book Hypothesis
It’s not an either, or – you need both

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Inhibiting Behaviours
Egotism and self-centered behaviours (lack of openness and
transparency)
Diversity rejection attitudes (non-inclusive behaviours)
Clinging to idea that we need to have “plan certainty” before we
can start
Political, religious, ideological or other biases
Assuming everyone is the same (assimilation is the goal)

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A Question for You – 5 minutes or less
• Which do you believe are the primary challenges to
achieving cultural agility within an organization?
– Lack of connection between personal values and principles and
organizational ones
– Current culture does not support it
– Inability to overcome our personal and organizational stories
– Lack of openness to the culture of others
– Lack of knowledge/understanding of the culture of others
http://bit.ly/2q73PYt

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Benefits of having an existing Agile Culture
Already recognizes the benefits of human-centered relationships
Has a values focus
Cross-functional collaboration is premised on the inclusiveness of
different perspectives (though it is focused on the functional and not on
cultural)
Favours collective introspection
Focused on making small changes

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Personal Cultural Agility Traits
Is open, trusting and transparent
Exhibits cultural empathy and curiosity
Has a growth mindset in themselves and in their approach to others
Has a possibilities mindset
Has the ability to synchronize behavior and posture with that of others (in a
positive way)

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Importance to Organization of having Cultural Agility
Cultural Agility is being leveraged as a strength in leading
organizations
Need to cultivate multiple perspectives to decrease uncertainty
Business is becoming more relational and less transactional
We have less time to make a difference
Globalization and the gig economy

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What Leaders can do to enable and sustain Cultural Agility
Recognizes their own biases and be willing to change themselves
Facilitates cross-cultural not just cross-functional teams
Able to both have and lead the right conversations
Trusts and serves the team
Encourages and actively supports hiring practices that represent the
cultural diversity in their communities

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Our Stories Define Us
• More Hurry. Less Speed.
• Good stories. Bad stories. Both lead to choices.
• The exposure (“Hidden Gems”) of Lanier W. Phillips
• What’s your story?

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Want to be recognized in the book?
• E-mail Larry@TheAgilitySeries.com with subject line
Spark The Change

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Stay in Touch
@cooperllk99
#theagilityseries channel: culturalagility
#TheAgilitySeries
https://www.linkedin.com/groups/8539263
www.TheAgilitySeries.com
Larry@TheAgilitySeries.com

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