Neuro-agility is a new neuroscience innovation that forms the underlying foundation for learning future skills people need to safeguard themselves against future job losses, as it focuses on the neurological components of learning, thinking and cognitive processes – components that enable people to improve their competitive advantage to out-think, out-learn, out-create and out-perform their competition. How mentally agile people are, is now of primary importance in talent selection, talent development and performance improvement, as the concept of neuro-agility foregrounds both the ease and speed of learning quickly and the flexibility to move across various ideas or new understandings and situations swiftly.
Although the term agility” is excessively used world-wide, the construct of neuro-agility is not a catch-all phrase for anything relating to “learning” or the term “agility”. There are several constructs that are different, but conceptually related to neuro agility. It is therefore not a standalone concept, but is situated within the broader domain of learning. It is an essential component of the “ability to learn” because it focuses on the neurophysiological attributes of learning, thinking and cognitive processes. Although the concept of neuro-agility offers a multi-dimensional, neuroscience framework that compliments and strengthens constructs like ability to learn, learning agility, emotional agility, thinking agility, leadership agility and organizational agility, it is neither exhaustive nor exclusive to any of these concepts.
Before people can be agile at learning, thinking, emotions, leadership and how they perform in teams, they need to optimize the drivers that influence their brain performance and integrate the neurophysiological elements that impact their learning agility and learning ability. Neuro-agility enables people with the mental flexibility to up-skill easily, unlearn old behavior fast, be flexible in multi-skilling and relearn old information swiftly. It enhances the degree to which people engage in agile learning, thinking and leadership.
Written By: Dr. André Vermeulen