Nimble

November 27, 2017
Prasad, a management consultant, delivers a solid if familiar guide to managing change in the swiftly shifting world of business. According to the introduction, it’s a “no-brainer” that today’s executives need agility in order to succeed, and Prasad sets out to help readers get comfortable with a nimble mind-set at work and at home. He begins by describing how his consultancy work has focused on finding “the equivalent of human intelligence in organizations” and making corporate operations and strategy more responsive to evolving challenges. As a
key part of his management philosophy, he introduces five types of agility (operational, analytical, visionary, inventive, and communicative)and his MAST (map, assess, strategize, test) method for using them. The book’s strength lies not in its classification categories and acronyms but in its real-world illustrations—including NASA’s crisis management during the Apollo 13 mission and the rebuilding of an Indian dam—and emphasis on strict, honest self-evaluation. However, the topic of agility has been so thoroughly covered in other business books that it would take a truly revolutionary idea to change the conversation, and this effort comes across as merely another earnest discussion about how change is the only constant in the 21st century.

January 1, 2018
The something new in business these days almost invariably centers on one word; management consultant Prasad's is agility. He takes his swing at the definition and its applications and identifies five types: analytical, operational, inventive, communicative, and visionary. All are fairly easyily described; for instance, analytical agility focuses on awareness of all options to solve a problem. Prasad gives good and not-so-good examples for each, accompanied by the downsides of too much dependence on that particular attribute. Retailer Zara, for one, is a superb representative of operational agility, as Prasad cites the chairman's statement, In fashion, stock is like food. It goes bad quick. But companies that overcommit to operational excellence exhibit micromanagement, action for action's sake, and intimidation. All five types of agility, Prasad insists, must be present for a business to succeed. At the end, he tacks on the simple framework MAST (mapping, assessing, strategizing, testing) to guide executives in the use of the agility gene.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)