Personal Agility: Unlocking Purpose, Alignment, and Transformation

151 Pages·2.448 MB·English

by  Matarelli, María, Stevens, Peter B.

Praise for the Personal Agility System

“This book transcends any category of business or self-development
genre today. It encompasses the full lifecycle of actionable thought
leadership to ensure you can align personal and professional goals. I
recommend other CEOs do Personal Agility with their executive team.”
_ Ben Sever, CEO

eRemede

“Personal Agility enabled us to create transparency and alignment
among the Board members and Chief Officers. We agreed on What Really
Matters moving forward. As it became clear what we needed to do, we could
all agree both on what and why, so we could move forward without
resistance or hesitation.”
_ Michael Mrochen, Chairman of the Board

Vivior AG

“The true genius of Personal Agility is how simple it is to implement.
Personal Agility gives you the compass that can help you get things done that
matter. The tools and techniques made me a better coach. Personal Agility is
the hidden gem of the Agile world!!”
_ Jim Hannon EdD, Founder

Boston University Agile Innovation Lab

“Thanks to Personal Agility, I can finish each week with satisfaction
and start each week with confidence.”
_ Walter Stulzer, Executive Director

Futureworks AG

“While Personal Agility gives you the nuts and bolts of applying Agile to
organize your personal work priorities, it more importantly helps you to
focus on what matters most. This system gives you the means to create clarity
and focus in your life.”
_ Michael K Sahota

Leading Beyond Change
“The Personal Agility System will help you to cut through all the noise.
It will guide you to identify What Really Matters, then to focus on making
progress every day on the most important things. You’ll be shocked by how
much more you achieve, with more free time, and far less stress.
_ Karim Harbott

The 6 Enablers of Business Agility

“Maria Matarelli and Peter Stevens have connected the Agile principles
and values that help teams wildly succeed to something far more personal,
more human.”
_ Howard Sublett, CEO

Scrum Alliance

“The Personal Agility System has not only helped me focus on building
my business but has played a vast role in shaping my life, drive, and
inspiration as a striving entrepreneur. It has become a way of life and has
brought tremendous transformations that are clearly measurable!”
_ Dhanushka Arjuna, Founder

ZeroBelow, Germany

“Personal Agility is something we all may think we don't need, but it’s
the most important thing missing in our lives.”
_ Satyajit Nath, Director

Hyderabad, India

“The Personal Agility Questions were a healthy reminder and a helpful
refactor in my own reflective practice. Personal Agility is about diagnosing
the multitude of choices and intentionally choosing and acting on the most
important areas to make the biggest impact with the most rewarding return.”
_ Pete Behrens, Founder

Agile Leadership Journey

“As the world continues to change at a rapid pace and uncertainty
abounds, Personal Agility equips professionals with the tools, thinking and
practical examples necessary to know how to thrive. This highly enjoyable
book is your guide from chaos to clarity.
_ Jorgen Hesselberg, Co-Founder

Comparative Agility
“Personal Agility made me feel more in control of my life, enabling me
to choose my actions to learn and grow, and move in the right direction. It
made everything else easier. My long-term goals became more achievable,
and I found purpose and happiness”
_ Adelina Stefan, ICF Professional Certified Coach

Switzerland
Personal Agility
Unlocking Purpose, Alignment and Transformation
PETER B. STEVENS and MARIA MATARELLI
Copyright © 2022 Peter B. Stevens and Maria Matarelli
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in
any manner without the prior written permission of the copyright owner,
except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
To request permissions, contact the publisher
at [email protected]
First paperback edition September 2022. Version 9.13.
Edited by Christopher Ruz
Book design by Sinisa Poznanovic
Layout by SNTIO press
ISBN: 978-1-957600-19-2 (Hardcover)
ISBN: 978-1-957600-15-4 (Paperback)
ISBN: 978-1-957600-18-5 (Digital)
Reprinted by permission.
Published by Business Agility Institute, LLC
https://businessagility.institute
To contact the authors, visit:
Personal Agility Institute LLC
https://personalagilityinstitute.org
Acknowledgements

The essence of Agility includes collaboration and learning from each
other. This has enabled both the Personal Agility System (PAS) and this book
to become what they are today. Along our journey, we have worked with
many individuals and organizations whom we would like to thank here:
- The early contributors, especially Kamila Duniec and
John Socha, who helped unearth the What Really Mat-
ters question.
- Lyssa Adkins, Alistair Cockburn, and Joe Justice for
giving us encouragement and validating our under
standing of agility and professional coaching.
- The Personal Agility Recognized Ambassador (PARA)
community: Amogh Sukhatankar, Fadly Arisandy
Rasyad, Ilham N Musayev, Ipsita Mishra, Jan Farkas,
Jatin Sanghavi, Johanna Hurtado Morales, Katrina
Snow, Nagini Chandramouli, Pete Blum, Pierre Neis,
Sakthi Chandrasekar, Satyajit Nath, Senela Jayasuriya,
Sharon Geurin, Shikha Kathuria, Sriram Rajagopalan,
Susannah Chambers, Tobias Glaser, and Yaara Kainer.
- Within the PARA community, a special thanks to
Shweta Jaiswal, Piyali Karmakar, Janani Liyanage,
Adelina Stefan, Jyoti Dandona, Liviu Mesesan, Jim
Hannon, Hugo Lourenco, and Gail Ferreira, who, as
passionate early adopters, helped advance and define
Personal Agility, both as movement and a school of
thought.
- Our clients who volunteered to share their stories as
case studies, including Michael Mrochen, Ben Sever,
Walter Stulzer, Jörg Ewald, Larry Pakeiser, Andreas
Kelch, Katrina Snow, Pete Blum, Sara A., Gabriel
Chiriac, Adriana Carrano, José Albuquerque, Karina
Schneider, Cory Schroeder, Tuhan Sapumange, and
most especially, Sharon Geurin who inspired us with
her story to document the success of PAS with case
studies.People around the world who have chosen to
become Personal Agility Recognized Practitioners
(PARPs). As early adopters, you have trusted us and
helped us to develop both PAS as a framework and our
approach to teaching and sharing Personal Agility.
We’d like to express a special thank-you to the those who sponsored our
work and by doing so supported us above and beyond the call of duty: Alex
Sidorecs, Ash Tiwari, Bernard Boodeea Herbert Segura, Jane Noesgaard
Larsen, Johanna Hurtado Morales, John Farrow, Kiro Harada, Magdalena
Gałaj, Marcus Ward, Nancy Endrizzi, Raymond Cheong, and Sebastian
Sussmann.
Table of Contents

Foreword by Alistair Cockburn
Foreword by Lyssa Adkins
Foreword by Stephen Denning
Introduction
Part One: Leading Yourself
Chapter 1: Six Questions to Change Your Life
I.Navigation Metaphor: Life is the Ocean
II.Six Powerful Questions
III. From Leading Yourself to Leading Others
IV.What Makes Personal Agility Different from Pesonal
Productivity?
V.What Makes Personal Agility a Scalable Leadership Framework?
VI. How to Use This Book
Chapter 2: The Promise of Personal Agility
I.Going from Struggling to Thriving with PAS
II. From Unemployement to a Meaningful Career
III. Transitioning from Military Service to Civilian Life
with PAS
IV.Summary
Chapter 3: Maximize Your Impact
I.Case Study: Clearing out Chaos
II. The Challenge of Getting the Right Things Done
III. What is the Right Thing to be Doing Now?
IV. Using the Six Questions of Personal Agility
V. Core Tools of the Personal Agility System
VI. How to Use the PAS Priorities Map
VII. How to Use the PAS Forces Map
VIII. Getting Started
Chapter 4: The Fastest Path
I. Case Study: Performing with Precision
II.Staying on Track with Your Goals
III.Dealing With Interruptions and Distractions
IV. The Myth of Multitasking
V. Achieve Focus through Cadence
VI. Beating Procrastination
VII.Staying in Flow
VIII. Weathering the Storm
Part Two: Leading Others
Chapter 5: Business Coaching
I.Case Study: My Own Agile Transformation
II. How Is Coaching Different from Other Forms of
Leadership?
III. Powerful Coaching Tools for Everyday Use
IV.How to Apply the Coaching Approach to Daily Life
V. Coaching Questions to Get You Started
VI.Being the Change You Want to See
VII.Problem Solving with Business Coaching
Chapter 6: The Art of Aligning with People
I.Case Study: Finding Work/Life Balance
II.What is Alignment and Why Does it Matter?
III.How to be Trustworthy
IV. How do You Achieve and Maintain Alignment?
V. Trust and Empathy as the Foundation of Alignment
VI.Creating Trust and Alignment in a Sales Process
VII.From Building Rapport to Closing the Sale
Chapter 7: The Path to Leadership
I. Case Study: Aligning The Board of Directors
II. Achieving Decisiveness and Holding Focus
III. Alternatives to Command and Control
IV. The Importance of Alignment
V. Clarity of Purpose
VI. Guide Behavior to Harness Emergence
VII. Achieving Autonomy and Alignment
VIII. Aligning with Stakeholders