Your hand will almost immediately jerk away.
The brain, the central nervous system, immediately reacts to the intensity of stove's heat and sends a signal to the hand's muscle to pull away from the stove. The speed at which this is done is so fast that it almost seems instantaneous.
Now, imagine what would have happened if the brain was slow in detecting the heat, and even slower in responding to the burning flesh? The hand will be burnt for sure. But one would have to seriously doubt the ability of that person to survive in the real world. Dangers still abound in the real world even if some look as innocuous as a 3-month old baby. Freezing december winter, oncoming traffic, druken drivers... all these are events in our life and the brain is constantly aware of the danger and responds accordingly for the safety of the person.
An Agile Enterprise is like this person with her ENS (Enterprise Nervous System) constantly observing the critical events and responds accordingly for the safety (or the survival) of its core existance. In other words, just as the survival of man is contingent of the coordinated effort of his brain and body, the survival of today's organizations are becoming just as much contingent on their ability to observe and respond with agility.
And this jerking movement of your hand, is your mind-body's OODA in action.
It has been developed, shaped, and refined for over a billion years to protect your hand from unexpected injuries.
OODA, an acronym for Observe - Orient - Decide - Act, is a decision cycle that gives strategic advantage for anyone operating in a fast moving environment such as sports, war, and business.
In the words of John Boyd, the creator of OODA Cycle:
In a world that is ever-changing, uncertain, unpredictable,
we must constantly remodel our view of the reality
... through a continuous process of destruction and re-creation of
our Orientation of reality.
The ability to do this faster than the competition,
a key determinant of success or failure,
is known as AGILITY
A fast ITERATION of OODA Cycle