All of us, as athletes, understand what is meant by agility as one of the elements of physical fitness, but in recent years the concept of organizational agility has emerged as one of the modern administrative concepts included within the principles and values of agility, and how to apply them in different institutions to confront and absorb changes, achieve speed and quality in completing projects and providing services efficiently and effectively, and the ability to deal with rapid economic, social, and technical challenges and changes—accompanied by a massive flow of quantitative, qualitative, and real-time information used by decision-makers, along with the increase and diversity of beneficiaries’ desires and demands. It has become imperative for institutional leaders to recognize the manifestations and features of flexibility and organizational agility, to review the status of their institutions and analyze them professionally, then identify areas for improvement and set implementation plans to reach agile institutions.

There is no doubt that sports institutions face many challenges, some of them organizational, represented in overlapping tasks and authorities. In addition to that, there is organizational conflict between different administrative levels. You find rigid organizational structures and a mixing of concepts between what is supervisory and what is executive: you find boards of directors carrying out executive work, and you find executive departments interfering in the affairs of boards of directors. On the other hand, you find a display of power between this side and that side within the same institution or between different institutions. There are also many overlaps between local regulations and legislation governing sports institutions and the international federations to which they belong, and the absence of long- and medium-term plans for managing sports affairs. Consequently, sports institutions often sink into a sea of conflicts and an environment dominated by traditional management of the sports system, while globally it is a professional environment managed technologically. Therefore, it can be said that achieving sustainability and success in the new environment requires sports institutions to change from traditional institutions into agile institutions, with stable structural characteristics capable of development, supporting dynamic capabilities and able to adapt quickly to new challenges and opportunities. Organizational agility is an inevitable necessity in our current time, and it is possible to cite in this regard the words of (Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft): “Your dissatisfied customers are your greatest source of learning.”

Organizational agility expresses the ability to identify and implement initiatives that align with the strategy quickly in response to opportunities and challenges. Accordingly, sports institutions must keep pace with the opportunities and threats created by increasing beneficiary needs and changes such as big data and the Internet of Things. This means that sports institutions should not only track changes in their administrative pattern, but also change direction indirectly toward implementing new initiatives to avoid risks or achieve competitive advantages. Organizations that adopt organizational agility in their work and activities achieve many results, including: continuous improvement of organizational processes, increasing their market share, improving cost control, gaining added value as a result of investing in advanced technologies and confronting rapid changes, increasing employee satisfaction, achieving required goals quickly, providing high-quality products and services, and rapid response to customer requests.

It is worth noting here the main elements of organizational agility, which are represented in innovation, foresight vision, excellence, flexibility and adaptability, collaboration, and speed. Studies have also clarified many determinants that enable the organization to achieve its agility. These dimensions can be explained as sensing agility, which is the organizational ability to examine, monitor, and capture events resulting from environmental change (changes in customer preference, competitors’ new moves, and new technology) in a timely manner; decision-making agility, which is the ability to collect, accumulate, structure, and evaluate relevant information from diverse sources to interpret the implications of particular events on business without delay, identify opportunities and threats based on interpreting events, and develop action plans that guide how to reconfigure resources and implement new competitive actions; and acting/practicing agility, which is the ability to reconfigure organizational resources dynamically and radically, adjust processes, and restructure procedures based on actual plans, and to deliver new products and services and pricing models to the market in a timely manner.

Creativity, which is essential for the development of any organization, is achieved through creative practices. The organization should adopt an administrative model of innovations that includes organizational creativity processes based on professional competencies and managerial skills and their impact on the decision-making process, and service quality in a turbulent environment and a high level of competition among business organizations, as organizations enter global markets throughout the world. Accordingly, sports institutions must be quick to transform from traditional institutions into agile institutions capable of dealing with different changes and various new developments, if they want to grow and keep up with the needs of the sports industry.. And God guides to the right path.

Written by Dr. Hamada Al-Antabli.