Agility is the sense of being able to rapidly respond and adapt to changing situations and circumstances. For people, organizations and communities, new challenges and opportunities can be a requirement for remaining relevant. Different forms of executive, corporate, board and network or supply chain agility can be required for a variety of reasons. Agility may not be easy to achieve and may or may not be desirable, depending upon its purpose and the situation and circumstances. Agility has its technology and human enablers, can have costs and consequences, and may also have limits. Crises and existential threats in the contemporary business environment may require new forms of agility and relationships. They present challenges and create opportunities for individuals, organizations, communities and societies and give rise to aligned and shared interests, a requirement for collaboration and collective responses, and a need to consider agility from different perspectives and rethink what is possible. Our understanding and expectations of agility may need to change. Being quick, clever, adroit and dexterous at an individual or organizational level in navigating a succession of incidents and events may no longer be enough to cope with current and interrelated challenges. We may need to take a wider and more balanced, collective and inclusive view of agility and move on from agility to adaptation, and the systemic thinking, shared purpose, collaboration and collective transition and transformation journeys over a longer time horizon that are required to address an existential threat such as climate change.

This paper examines the extent to which the 'Agile' project management methodology can be considered as a 'management fad'. Whilst this methodology has several characteristics reflective of a management fad, the intensity and rigor of the approach offers more durable and far-reaching implications than could be expected from that of a 'passing fad'. The potential for facilitating profound organizational change is significant, with implications both for executive behavior and the evolution of an organization's operational structure. The mindset expected from an 'Agile Executive' in particular places puts a strong emphasis on cross-functional, open-minded and collaborative working. Such behavioral expectations, combined with an ethical responsibility for identifying and resolving project-management as well as workplace issues, place considerable demands on the professionalism and experience of agile executives. The strong customer-centric focus emphasizes innovation, urgency, transparency, integrity, and commitment to excellence, which sets it apart from many other business-wide initiatives and 'management fads' of recent decades.

This study seeks to evaluate how interventions exposing leaders to ego development models and personality coaching could cultivate leadership maturity. The intervention targeted two levels of adult and leadership development. The first level involved basic understanding of differences in individual and other personalities and preferences. The aim here was to open up an individual's perspective, fine-tune their behavioral repertoire and help them deal with people and situations more successfully. The second level aimed to provoke the individual to see the world through multiple sets of lenses and change their interpretations and meaning of experience. The research revealed that maturity interventions were the first stage in sparking the process of maturity development for leaders. The intervention created a level of tension and disharmony that was necessary for participants to question their beliefs and assumptions about both the inner and outer worlds. The study highlights that the program had been successful on the first level; however, success on the second level was contingent on individuals taking the initiative and embracing their development needs. Only then could transition to post-conventional maturity be realized.

The Industrial Revolution that started in the late 18th century dramatically increased our standard of living by making high quality, low-cost manufactured goods available to the masses. Today, the global economy faces a similar turning point, but now in the service sector. Technologies have rapidly become smarter and more powerful, and at the same time, they are getting smaller, lighter, and cheaper. This service revolution has important implications for service organizations and consumers alike. This paper identifies the opportunities and challenges.