Nimble
Make Yourself and Your Company Resilient in the Age of Constant Change
Baba Prasad
“Today’s world is best described by one word: turbulence. Every leader today knows they need to be nimble, agile and resilient–but how? In this engaging and insightful new book, management strategist and Wharton Fellow Baba Prasad sheds new light on the subject, and offers practical advice for executives, entrepreneurs, and anyone else who’ll need the skills to face the unpredictability, risk, and deep uncertainty that lies ahead. Filled with vivid examples and insights from around the world and throughout history – from the Brazilian rainforest and the “frugal innovation” of 19th century Indian engineers to Ericsson, Lego, Burt’s Bees, and Zara–Nimble reveals what sets the most nimble leaders and organizations apart from the competition, presenting five types of agility that help individuals and companies not just survive but thrive in times of great change”
This book gives readers a guide to becoming more agile in today’s fast-paced business environment. The 5 agilities discussed in the book are:
- Analytical agility – allows a company to change the means and methods of analysis.
- Operational agility – helps the company gain dynamism through its operational resources.
- Inventive agility – enables the generation of new ideas, creative solutions, and alternate uses of resources to solve problems the company has not seen before or to take advantage of new opportunities the company faces.
- Communicative agility – is the skill a company has to persuade its audiences and to convey the value of its ideas through words and speech.
- Visionary agility – allows the company to recognize the long-term impact of the decisions it is making.
Each chapter of the book focuses on one of these agilities, offering a detailed explanation of what it is and why it matters, as well as real-world examples of companies that have successfully developed and leveraged that agility. The author’s use of business examples helps bring these concepts to life, making them more tangible and easier to understand.
The author also includes exercises and activities that readers can use to help them develop their own agility in each of the five areas. These practical exercises help readers apply the concepts to their own lives and businesses.
I recommend this book to anyone looking to succeed in a world that is constantly changing, this book is sure to be a valuable resource for leaders and professionals across all industries. If anything, it’s a great reminder to be agile in business. 3.5 stars
You just have to laugh at the puns in the blurb. Go on, I’ll wait while you go look. On this occasion, the blurb doesn’t give too much away! Phew. I remembered how much I enjoyed
That twist! At the end! Woah! Not what I was expecting (even if I harboured a little hope in my head). I can’t say anything about it otherwise it’ll all be ruined. Is it creepy to want to know more about the Heralds? Now I vaguely want to reread the original (
Mandie is such a sympathetic character. She has low self-esteem and her list of things that she is good at does at least get a little longer during the course of the book. Unfortunately, I didn’t really feel like she had made real progress. She’s definitely just fallen for a person too quickly. Being trapped with someone during COVID lockdowns in Melbourne forces quick relationships (a great example is 
This is a pretty good book but not as riveting as his others. Like Lencioni’s other books, the majority of the book is told as a fable. You get invested in the characters and it’s realistic and relatable. For this particular book we see two CEOs at competing firms. You can’t help but feel sorry for them both and want them both to succeed despite them being direct competitors.
Aw, how cute! I liked this novel because the main character was fat, and didn’t care, and was a lesbian, and didn’t care. She even had the freedom to do that! But she definitely fell into the category that she still wanted to hide some of her identity. The author didn’t harp on about her being queer or anything, which was quite refreshing. I did however feel frustrated with how stupid Cass was sometimes. I’m really not sure how you can get from being a B student to a D in the space of a term without twigging that there’s something wrong…
I liked Sean! Poor guy. Honestly the title and the cover made me feel a bit worried about hating it, but I empathised with Sean quite well. I was the same as Sean when Australia decided to waste money on whether we should let gay people marry or not. There’s plenty of perspectives to choose from here, and the author has done a great job of illuminating just some of the problematic attitudes in Australia. I hope we’ve come a lot further than 2017, but I’m honestly not sure.
I found the illnesses that weren’t the fever particularly interesting. It seems like the moonflowers were good for the fever – but that was it! So Tessa’s experience as an apothecary was useful in more than one regard. I find it so hard to believe that people are still buying solutions that are useless – but I guess some people need to buy hope (COVID19 quacks anyone?)
What was good about this novel was the internal anguish of Milo trying to reconcile his homosexuality and his religious beliefs. It’s impressive how much internalised homophobia Milo had even after a single summer of feeling feelings for the wrong gender. Milo is very distressed, but also an idiot.
I was so invested in Georgina, and she felt like a real character with some interesting flaws. Most of the time I found myself genuinely laughing, rather than thking ‘what an idiot’. Let me say though that perhaps the reason I understood how Georgina treated her friends is because I viewed her through a lens of trauma. Georgina just doesn’t seem to have processed her own father’s death. Thus, her relationships and the horrible way she treats her family and friends is, if not justified, certainly understandable.