Comfort in the Discomfort: Using Agile and Edge Theory to Metabolize Change

We Agilists have long held that we are in an age of VUCA — volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity. Given what we have been through in 2020, and are still going through, even that feels a bit outdated. Harvard Business Review “ups the ante” on VUCA and tells us we are living in a time of 3-dimensional change. It’s perpetual — occurring all the time, it never lets up. It’s pervasive — unfolding in multiple areas of life at once, you can’t escape it. And it’s exponential — accelerating at an increasingly rapid rate, and humans aren’t built for exponential. In other words, it is not likely that you will be getting off the change bus anytime soon and it’s almost impossible for you to see what is coming next. Feeling any discomfort yet?

In such conditions, how can we best survive, and possibly even thrive? This is the territory Lyssa Adkins, Agile & Leadership Coach, will help us navigate. She will lead us through a process using the Edge Theory of Change so that each of us can consider what “edge” we are currently on, and how we can find comfort in the middle of discomforting change. We will also explore how we can count on Agile to create stability. This will be a hands-on keynote and you will leave with insights for yourself and ways of working with others as we make the best of our ride on the “change bus.”