Agility means turning a smashed tart into a best-selling dessert

Build these skills so you can better respond to situations and crises.

To illustrate what it means to be agile in your thinking, Francesca Gino told participants of Knowledge & Networking November the story of a chef and sous-chef at a top restaurant in Italy.

Simply put, the sous-chef was assembling the last dessert of the evening—a lemon tart—when he dropped it, said Gino, Tandon Family professor of business administration and head of the Negotiation, Organizations and Markets Unit at Harvard Business School. Just then, the chef entered and saw what had happened. Instead of yelling, he said he thought the sous-chef had just discovered the restaurant’s newest dessert.

Born of curiosity, responsiveness and open-mindedness, the “deconstructed” tart, which is listed on the menu as “Oops! I dropped the lemon tart,” has become the restaurant’s most popular item, she said.

During Gino’s presentation at Knowledge & Networking November, which concludes on Nov. 19, Gino said that agility is built on four key skills:

 

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