When people ask me what agility means, they often expect a polished definition or a set of “best practices.” But the truth is simple: agility is not a concept we learned in a classroom. It’s a muscle we build by living through uncertainty, over and over again. As human beings, we are wired to seek certainty. It’s a survival instinct. Uncertainty creates fear, which can lead to paralysis, panic, or overreaction.
However, there are many moments throughout our careers (especially in the energy industry), when we are rarely given the gift of perfect clarity. We are often asked to make decisions with incomplete information, changing regulations, shifting political environments, and new technologies moving faster than traditional planning cycles.
So, the question is not whether uncertainty will exist. The question is: What do you do when it does?
Agility isn’t speed. It’s discipline.
One of the most important capabilities we should strengthen is agility. It isn't about “moving fast” all the time, but how we have learned to move forward even when the fundamentals aren’t crystal clear. We don’t need perfect conditions to act. We don’t wait for the “right future” to appear. Because doing nothing is also a decision.
Sometimes people confuse agility with speed. Speed matters, of course. But agility is not “reacting quickly” just to react. Agility is the discipline to do the right things in changing environments:
- to focus on fundamentals
- to reduce noise
- to recognize patterns
- to execute with intention
Reactive decisions may help occasionally, but when you’re only reacting, you lose control. When you’re disciplined, you make better decisions faster because you’re not starting from zero every time.
Over time, you learn to recognize patterns that repeat. Across countries, cultures, administrations, regulatory frameworks, and market cycles. The details change, but the dynamics often rhyme. That’s when agility becomes real: pattern recognition + disciplined execution.
“Perfect is the enemy of the good”
There’s a phrase you may have heard: perfect is the enemy of the good. I’ve learned that waiting for perfection often comes from fear: fear of being wrong, fear of taking responsibility, fear of consequences. But uncertainty doesn’t disappear just because you delay. And sometimes, when you delay, you lose the opportunity entirely.
I’ve seen it firsthand. In Mexico, we were negotiating a PPA for two years. We knew there was a major risk: an incoming administration with a clear view of changing the energy sector. We saw the pattern and we understood the risk, but negotiations dragged. The counterparty continued asking for more “improvements,” more terms, more perfection. Then the election happened, the administration changed and the deal fell apart. That experience reinforced something important: It’s not enough to recognize the pattern. You have to execute on it on time.
Timing and “Gut Feeling”
People ask me: How do you know when it’s too early to decide or when it’s already too late?
It’s an art. I can’t tell you “do it at exactly 6:00 PM, exactly two months before.” But I can tell you how I think about it. I look at:
- the size of the risk
- the clarity of the pattern
- and whether the reward justifies the exposure
When the risk is large and the pattern is clear, especially with strong political shifts, my bias is simple: the sooner, the better. If you’re too close to the event, you’re flipping a coin.
In some situations, you can’t prove everything with data. But your “gut feeling” is rarely magic. It’s often experience speaking faster than your analysis. The more exposure you have, the sharper that instinct becomes.
Risk-Reward: When to push, when to pause
A useful way to think about decision-making is a basic risk-reward exercise. If the downside is small and the upside is meaningful, you move. You don’t obsess over the last detail.
The hard cases are the 50/50 ones. That’s where our teams can waste enormous amounts of time gathering information only to arrive back at the same uncertainty. In those cases, I set a deadline. I ask: What information would materially change the ratio? If the answer is “nothing,” then there’s no reason to keep spending time. If you can’t improve the ratio, you should kill it.
Optionality matters and so does acting on it
When you’re making decisions with incomplete information, optionality becomes powerful. If you can keep options open, you should. Plan B, Plan C, Plan D - those matter. But here’s what matters just as much: having options is not the same as using them. Many people focus on the problem but fewer focus on the solution.
The environment is the environment. You will not change the mindset of a president. You will not eliminate volatility. You can disagree with it, but it remains true. What you can control is how your organization adapts.
Agility is not challenging reality; it is adjusting yourself to succeed in it.
