Releasing Business Agility: A Sensemaking Tool
Releasing Agility is not a framework — it’s a sense-making lens for leaders. Learn how meaning, reality, and people connect to execution through Idea → Value.
Editor’s Note: Releasing Agility is not a delivery framework or transformation methodology. It is a sense-making lens for leaders who want to understand what meaningful change actually requires — before optimising how work flows. This page explains the layers of the Releasing Agility philosophy and how it connects to the Idea → Value system.
Releasing Business Agility
A Sense-Making Lens for Meaningful Change (and How It Connects to Idea → Value)
A CIO once leaned across the table, shook her head, and said:
“We’ve spent £20 million on agile training, frameworks, tooling — the whole circus. And do you know what? We’re no more agile than before. Honestly, I think we’ve gone backwards.”
She wasn’t angry.
She was weary — the kind of tired that comes from fighting the same battle for years.
She was right.
Agility isn’t installed.
It isn’t bought.
It isn’t rolled out in branded playbooks.
Agility is released.
When I Got It Wrong
I wasn’t immune to the same mistake.
I believed that if I installed the right framework — ceremonies, boards, dashboards—the system would change.
So I tried it. Hard. In HR.
What followed wasn’t momentum.
It was friction, awkwardness, and six months of quiet resistance.
Until something shifted.
The framework wasn’t the answer.
The team was. And what energy, attention and focus they brought to building a bright future.
Their ideas. Their judgement. Their understanding of the work.
That’s when it landed:
Agility is a management problem, not a framework problem.
When I shared this with the CIO, she nodded.
“Exactly. We were never short on smart people. We were short on leaders willing to change how they managed.”
Agility Starts With Meaning
Most organisations begin with process.
They optimise routines before direction.
They install ceremonies before purpose.
They train teams before naming the real problems.
The result is predictable:
teams get very good at moving quickly in the wrong direction.
Real agility begins elsewhere.
It begins with meaning.
Meaning emerges when leaders can articulate:
- what the organisation is becoming
- how it serves society
- why the problems ahead are worth solving
When the future is compelling, exciting and interesting, people care.
Care fuels creativity.
Creativity solves hard problems.
Without meaning, improvement becomes a grind.
With meaning, change becomes a collective project.
What “Releasing Agility” Means
To release is to set free — to unlock what is already present.
Agility is the ability to adapt and move toward meaningful goals as reality changes.
Releasing Agility means creating the conditions where agility can emerge from inside the organisation — from the people who already understand the work, customers, and constraints.
Agility is not agile.
It is clarity, alignment, learning, and behaviour — expressed through real work.
Frameworks are packaging.
Agility is leadership.
The Releasing Agility Lens
Releasing Agility is not a step-by-step transformation method.
It is a sense-making stack — a way to see before you act.
Over time, the same movements appeared across transformations, turnarounds, and leadership journeys.
1. Meaning: A Picture of the Future
Everything starts with a future people care about.
Where are we going?
Why does it matter?
What is the point of our work?
What is all this effort in service of?
Not a slide deck.
A story people can feel.
If people cannot tell the story in their own words, leadership work is unfinished.
Meaning creates clarity.
👉 Explore how to create a painted picture of the future
2. Reality: Obstacles Between Today and Tomorrow
Once the future is compelling, the real question appears:
If this future matters so much, why aren’t we there already?
This surfaces the real work:
- constraints
- systemic blockers
- cultural friction
- structural limits
- problems and challenges
Not noise.
The actual forces preventing progress.
From the problems and challenges identified, it's prudent to create a plan.
A compelling future + named obstacles + a plan – is strategy in its most honest form.
Meaning + Reality creates clarity.
3. People: Alignment and Capability
Then comes the hardest question:
Is this the team to get it done?
Do we have:
- the right skills
- the right behaviours
- the right trust and accountability
- the right leadership posture
This is where culture stops being a slogan and becomes behaviour under pressure.
Reality + People creates alignment.
4. Routines: Shaping How Work Flows
Only now do routines and processes matter.
Processes, policies, ceremonies, governance, tooling — these are downstream.
There is no point optimising these things if:
- you are solving the wrong problems
- heading in the wrong direction
- misaligned as a team
Good routines reduce friction and decision fatigue.
They free attention for value creation.
Alignment + Routines creates momentum.
5. Learning: The Thread Beneath Everything
Learning is not a phase.
It is the substrate.
Learning means:
- reflecting without blame
- improving ability through doing
- adjusting plans as reality teaches you
- optimising how we go from idea to value
If you are not learning faster than the market changes, you are already behind.
The Three Sense-Making Layers (Before Idea → Value)
Before execution systems start to matter, leaders must make sense of three things:
- Meaning — What future are we moving toward?
- Reality — What stands in the way?
- People — Who will carry the work, and how will they behave under pressure?
Only after these are coherent does execution architecture matter.
How Releasing Agility Connects to Idea → Value
Releasing Agility is the orientation layer.
Idea → Value is the execution layer.
Releasing Agility answers:
- Why change?
- What matters?
- What obstacles exist?
- Who must change how they work?
Idea → Value answers:
- How do ideas move through the organisation?
- Where does cost accumulate?
- Where does work stall?
- How is value realised?
Releasing Agility is the compass.
Idea → Value is the operating system.
The Idea → Value system serves the Painted Picture.
Without meaning, improving flow becomes optimisation waste.
With meaning, improvement becomes purposeful.
The Cultivated View
Releasing Business Agility is not a transformation programme.
It is leadership expressed through systems.
Frameworks are scaffolding.
Clarity, alignment, and learning are the structure.
What Leaders Should Take From This
That CIO didn’t need another framework.
She needed:
- a compelling future
- honesty about obstacles
- leaders willing to change how they manage
- teams who felt meaning in the work
- systems aligned to reality, not ideology
Agility is not something you buy.
It is something you release.
Releasing Agility is not a framework.
It is a lens for unlocking what is already in the building.
This piece forms part of Cultivated’s wider body of work on how ideas become valuable, and how better work is built.
To explore further:
→ Library — a curated collection of long-form essays
→ Ideas — developing thoughts and shorter writing
→ Learn — practical guides and tools from across the work
→ Work with us — thoughtful partnership for teams and organisations
