Adaptability is your organization’s golden ticket to future-proofing your people and company. One needs only to look at navigating the Covid-19 pandemic. Our current levels of adaptability are being tested in real time as we design life and work, post-pandemic. In today’s rapidly changing business landscape, adaptability has become a critical factor in success.

The history of business is littered with the tombstones of companies that failed to recognize and respond effectively to disruption and change. Kodak confidently kept all its bets on its existing photographic film, and turned down the opportunity to transition into digital photography, despite one of its own engineers discovering the technology behind digital photography. It filed for bankruptcy in 2012.

Blockbuster Video stayed committed to its brick and mortar video stores, turning down an opportunity to purchase a fledgling Netflix in 2000. Shortly thereafter Netflix began to build its subscriber base and launched the streaming service that many of us became a little too familiar with over the course of the pandemic. Blockbuster filed for bankruptcy in 2010 and a single Blockbuster store in Bend, OR is all that remains of this once ubiquitous brand.

Going beyond just the financial bottom line of company performance, there is a real human impact of a failure to be able to adapt to change. Consider the following:

• 40% of the jobs that exist today will not exist in 10 years time. (World Economic Forum)
• Up to 375 million people may need to switch occupations and learn new skills because of automation by 2030. (McKinsey & Company)
• Depression and anxiety cost the global economy $1 trillion in productivity, annually. (World Health Organization)

The term “adaptability” is defined as “the capacity to adjust one’s thoughts and behaviours in order to effectively respond to uncertainty, new information or changed circumstances” (Martin, Nejad, Colmar & Liem, 2013). In fact, studies from the World Economic Forum, McKinsey, and LinkedIn consistently rank adaptability as a top-needed skill for the future of work.

When I was a varsity level volleyball player, my coaches always urged us to “be on our toes.” In my high school days, that didn’t seem to be a big deal, but at elite level of play it absolutely was. The split second it took to shift your weight from your heels to your toes so you could move could mean the difference between saving the ball or losing the point.

A similar dynamic holds true in business. Companies are continually being caught flat-footed, not recognizing new opportunities and threats soon enough, and not able to rally their employees quickly enough to respond. In the scramble to put out the latest fire caused by disruption and change, employees get stressed, burned out and engagement and retention plummet.

If you want to increase your team’s ability to adapt and be more effective and less stressed when going through change, here are 3 perspectives to keep in mind:

Adaptability is more than a new mindset

Adaptability isn’t just a mindset, a skillset or a performance standard that can be issued by the C-level.  In the Adaptability Quotient (AQ) framework I use to help assess the adaptive capacity of teams, there are actually 15 different dimensions that go into measuring adaptability. From mental flexibility and grit, to thinking style and emotional range, to company support and work stress, these individual dimensions help provide a more nuanced and powerful understanding of adaptability, and how to build it.

Every Individual as a Unique Adaptability Blueprint

You can’t just flip the “on” switch for adaptability within each team member, because each individual is different. Booking a team mindfulness lunch-and-learn or a “How to Be More Resilient” training isn’t going to be the magic bullet. Supporting people’s ability to be innovative and even thrive during change is not a one-size-fits-all solution. Understanding the different skills, perspectives, innate preferences and perceptions will give you a much more clear picture of how to tailor the different approaches that different groups of employees may need.

Assess the Work Ecosystem

Just like a bed of rocks won’t support the growth of a beautiful garden of flowers, the work environment and organizational culture provides the foundation to either support, or hinder, adaptive capacity. The AQ assessment looks specifically at the environment to determine when does someone adapt, and to what degree. The AQ framework takes a systemic and holistic approach, recognizing that individuals alone can’t move the needle if work stress is too high or if company or team support is too low.

While the future may NOT be predictable, we do know with a high level of certainty that a decision to not prepare your people to be able to adapt and respond effectively to change is a sure path to failure.

If you’d like to build the adaptive capacity of your team or organization, or learn more about the AQ assessment tool I use, let’s talk!