Building Adaptability
We exhaust a lot of time, energy and distress trying to control all the variables that might affect our life. Instead, we must learn how to become adaptive in our interpretation and response to things as they change around us in real-time.
Once upon a time, being good at your job meant developing and using your expertise to complete a well understood set of tasks as part of a proven process to achieve a well-defined goal.
The world around us was consistent and stable, which provided us time to absorb and reflect upon what was happening around us.
Not anymore. Rapid, constant, and disruptive change is now the norm, and what worked in the past is no longer a guide to what will succeed in the future.
Today we are faced with larger and more imprecise targets, never far from the need to pivot in response to some unforeseen circumstance or competitive threat.
Expectations of continual growth are routinely delegated, assuming people can perform minor miracles in unfamiliar and challenging situations without the skills or training necessary for proficiency.
In the so-called VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous) world, it is no surprise that instances of professional disengagement and work-related mental illness are skyrocketing.
One of the most significant contributors to this unsavoury landscape is the technological rate of change and the extent to which it is pervasive in all areas of our lives.
Challenges at work are compounded in our personal lives by the always-on bombardment of ideas streaming from all manner of devices everywhere we go.
The problem is, unlike technology, humans don’t change at an exponential rate.
Instead, the human rate of adaptation is far closer to a linear than exponential. Thus creating a significant gap between the world we live in and our ability to integrate and operate comfortably within it.
Human adaptation is not a new concept. Everyone who goes to the gym or exercises regularly will be familiar with it in the physical sense. It’s how, when we put a muscle under stress, we experience pain and ultimately the growth of the muscle.
We can also train the Human Brain, Mind and Nervous System to be more adaptive. However, the process is more complicated than simply lifting heavy stuff. And, the number of people working on adaptation of the mind is minuscule compared to those going to the gym.
If you’d like to know more about building adaptability, please let me know in the comments.