Helping Companies Foster Agility

About this episode

Charles Snow discusses key qualities for fostering agility in organizations based on his research and writings.

Born and raised in San Diego, Charles Snow held a variety of jobs early in life, including: paperboy, grocery store cashier, accounting clerk, chauffeur, and sports director at a private school; each of which taught him important lessons about how organizations worked and were managed. Chuck earned his PhD in Business Administration from the University of California, Berkeley, and spent his entire academic career as a professor and researcher at Penn State. While there, Chuck taught management subjects to MBA students and executives in more than 35 countries. In this episode, we focus on the core essay that Chuck and co-editor Oystein D. Fjelstad wrote for their book, “Actor-Oriented Organizing,” which is part of Cambridge University’s Companions to Management series. In conversation, Chuck discusses three key qualities essential to flattening hierarchical bureaucracies so that teams of employees can respond to emerging customer needs with greater speed and spontaneity. First, there’s a great (often unmet) value in openness to change and transparency. The second is a “commons” area, a space where team members feel they’re on equal, shared ground. And third is having the resources…

People in this episode

Guest: Charles Snow

Topics covered

• organizational management
• agility
• team dynamics
• business administration
• leadership

Keywords

• agility
• organizational change
• team collaboration
• business management
• leadership qualities

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: University of California, Berkeley, Penn State, Cambridge University

Books & works: Actor-Oriented Organizing, Companions to Management

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