First Be Nimble

Graham Winter, author of the best-selling Think One Team, brings you First Be Nimble: A Story about How to Adapt, Innovate and Perform in a Volatile Business World. This book addresses the challenge of how to equip businesses to adapt and thrive in an unpredictable and demanding economy. Told in the form of a fable and illustrated with case studies and powerful tools, the book is designed to engage, inspire, and inform readers from all walks of business life.

Helping leaders, teams, and whole organisations to bring their values to the frontline of the battle to be adaptive and productive, First Be Nimble shows readers how to align people and teams, collaborate and co-create with others, reduce resistance to change, boost trust, personal resilience, and performance, and prepare for the unique challenges of adaptive change.

• Helps businesses adapt to today's environment, learn to innovate, and build a "one team'" mentality
• Gives leaders the practical tools to facilitate change and foster the conversations that help people to learn and grow together
• Uses a unique, fable-style format, with inspirational examples, to bring key concepts to life

While many business leaders are well versed in the importance of company values, they are often ignorant of how to bring them to life, and how to build an adaptive, high performing business. First Be Nimble is here to help.

acknowledgements xi

introduction xv

part I: the story of 'even chocolate frogs adapt' 1

1 turbulence: the imperative to adapt 3

2 complacency: the danger of success 13

3 change resistance: cracking the code 35

4 disruption: do it to yourself before someone does it to you 51

5 five principles: the game changers 67

6 lessons learned: first be nimbleTM insights 111

7 sustaining: making nimble a way of life 133

part II: the first be nimble system 137

the first be nimble model 139

understanding the five principles 141

implementing the first be nimble™ system 149

summary 153

Graham Winter is the best-selling author of Think One Team, founder of consultancy Think One Team International and a three-time Australian Olympic team chief psychologist. Graham is passionate about developing leaders and teams with the resilience and skills to seize opportunities.

For more information visit www.thinkoneteam.com.

Imagine if you had the blueprint to create an agile and intelligent organisation that could handle anything that an unpredictable business world threw at it?

First Be Nimble is that blueprint, presented by best-selling author Graham Winter in an enthralling business story packed with easy-to-apply ideas and powerful tools linked to online resources.

The story: Fledgling international company McCrae’s Fine Chocolates has lost its innovative edge and become a reactive bureaucracy. Through a mix of courage, collaboration and digital-age strategies, McCrae’s confronts its challenges, breaks through the inevitable resistance to change, and transforms itself into a nimble and adaptive market leader.

This is your personal guidebook to gearing up for fast and frequent change. Learn how to:

• move, learn and adapt—fast!
• replace change resistance with change resilience
• thrive in ambiguity and uncertainty
• break through business bottlenecks
• build a network of nimble, connected teams.

First Be Nimble is a must read for everyone who wants their organisation to thrive in this constantly changing business world.