Mindset is the attitude of thinking. A static view of ourselves is widespread and leaves us stuck when it comes to change. What does the right mindset of employees and managers have to do with digitalization and agile companies?

In the Middle Ages, the individual, educated person could still absorb all the knowledge of the world. The universal scholar, in the spirit of the times almost 100% male, studied the seven liberal arts of grammar, rhetoric, dialectics, arithmetic, music, geometry and astronomy, before one could upgrade to law, medicine or theology at the higher faculties. With completion of these studies one had the complete knowledge of the time. In industrialization, knowledge was already much more complex, but still controllable, especially through planning and subject specification. In digitization, that also stops. This is where interdisciplinarity, teamwork, communication and discussion culture come into play, characteristics of the agile way of working.

In the old world of work, one was supposed to adapt, optimize processes and avoid mistakes. The cult of the individual demanded maximum self-expression and elbows. In the digital, agile world, on the other hand, experimentation, courage and fault tolerance are called for. Cooperation is supposed to replace ego thinking. But if companies push the new with the old way of thinking, they can only fail.

In the agile enterprise, the associated mindset plays an important role in addition to the methods. In order to be able to adapt more quickly and flexibly to the changes in the course of digitization, a general rethinking must take place and be supported in the minds of all team members.

Just because a team uses Kanban as a method and meets in the morning for Daily Scrum, the change process from classic to agile action is not yet complete. Rather, the agile values and principles must first be internalized. Then the agile mindset comes into play. It is considered the core of agile work. Agile work is only efficient in the long term when agile behavior can be created and developed on the basis of the mindset. Then all available opportunities are also exploited.

Agile Mindset means appreciative cooperation at eye level. People in teams, organizational units and companies are the culture bearers and at the same time the culture creators. This link in the individual enables the agile development process, in which personal mindset and agile mindset flow together. This is a process because it takes place in each individual, in the team as team development, in the organization as organizational development or corporate development. In this context, it leads to agile digital transformation.

So it's all about mindset change. Agile management and the associated mindset mean: I enable and promote self-organization. I help and support others - this is an understanding of leadership as a service. Many people cling to methods and best practices as if they were lifelines.

The process "from method to attitude" can only succeed if all areas of the company, from human resources to management to each individual department, live "agility" - adapted to the respective needs - and are open to change.