Management Competence for the Fourth Industrial Revolution—Demonstrates Agile Governance and Adaptability to Make Change Work Effectively

In each of the industrial revolutions, organisations were forced to adapt their structures, systems and processes to achieve competitive advantage. And throughout, the ability of the organisations’ managers to deal with such disruption was a critical factor to success. Hence ‘the ability to respond to change in a dynamic and flexible way; aligning change methodologies to the needs of the unit; whilst identifying the ramifications of change for areas outside of the unit and influencing or shaping the organisation and its processes accordingly’ was a core competence. The knowledge and skills to do so ranged from the ability to define and prioritise what is crucial to do or that of maintaining course and manoeuvrability, through to handling situations and problems through conflict solving, creativity and decision-making. The attitudes and behaviours associated with this competence included a focus on outcomes and a sense-and-respond mindset. The competence of agile governance will help the modern manager to be adept at change management, whether this is through n-step models or not, and at the same time have agility in the way they make the transitions as the environment or situation develops.