Careers Workshop

Adaptability - the life changing skill

The modern workplace is constantly changing in response to new technologies and new challenges, and never more so than during the COVID-19 pandemic. In this article, Rich Alderton (1984) explains why adaptability is crucial to success.

SEEING THE NEED FOR CHANGE

Craig Lundberg was a sniper for the 2nd Battalion of the Duke of Lancasters. In 2007, on a routine patrol in Iraq, he was hit by two rocket-propelled grenades during a roof top battle. As soon as he regained consciousness, he knew that he would be blind forever.

Craig will tell you he isn’t special; that he’s just another injured war veteran. But he’s wrong. What makes him special is his attitude to change. In that moment of realisation, Craig’s response was, ‘well, that’s it then, let’s get on with this’, and he turned his loss into something positive. He’s since climbed Kilimanjaro, cycled the length of Britain on a tandem, and carried the Olympic torch into his home city of Liverpool in 2012.

The challenge for us all is to become as adaptable as Craig, because in a world that is increasingly complex and disruptive, our ability to see what lies ahead is fading. The good news is that becoming more adaptable doesn’t just make change easier to cope with. It can be life-changing.

CHANGING HOW YOU THINK AND FEEL ABOUT CHANGE

Our species has survived because we evolved to perceive change as a threat to our security. We were born to resist. Paradoxically though, the reason that people truly are an organisation’s most valuable asset is because nothing is more adaptable or creative than the human mind. The rewards of overcoming our primal instincts and becoming more adaptable are significant:

1. Value

Embracing change gives us the opportunity to make a difference – to ourselves and others – in ways that the status quo can only dream of. In the wake of the Suez crisis in the 1950s, Alec Issigonis took up the challenge of designing a car that was big enough to have four seats, but small enough to be low-cost and fuel-efficient. And it had to have good handling too. The result was the Mini. To tick all those boxes at once was extraordinary, but Issigonis delivered something else as well. He turned small into cool.

2. Belonging

A change challenge can bind a team more tightly than one that’s operating in maintenance mode. People are united by the common cause of achieving something difficult that matters. It gives the individual a powerful sense of belonging. The ‘All Blacks’ are the most successful team of any sport. That gives them a major challenge, given that it’s harder to stay at number 1 than it is to get there. They work for each other to continually improve and adapt through the mantra of ‘leave the jersey in a better place’.

3. Freedom

Change mandates the freedom to think, speak, and act differently. In other words, any organisation that wants to achieve results beyond its current reach needs to let its people go beyond their existing boundaries to seize those opportunities. In 1974, the SR-71 Blackbird flew from New York to London in under two hours – a record it still holds today. Lockheed Martin’s ground-breaking design was directly attributable to the high degree of autonomy given to its ‘Skunkworks’ team.

MASTERING CHANGE

At best, change is usually perceived as a necessary evil; something that you just need to get through in order to keep up. At worst, it is something be avoided or resisted at all costs. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is this:

Develop the trust (in yourselves and your team), the ambition (to move forward), and the curiosity (to explore the road less travelled). You will then be able to generate enough drive to overcome your primal knee-jerk resistance to change. It’s a journey worth taking, and here’s why:

Change is the best chance you will ever have to add value, to feel that you belong, and to have freedom. These are precious experiences that will enable you to enjoy rather than endure a life of change that surely lies ahead.

Rich Alderton (1984) is a High Performance Change Specialist. Check out www.highperformancechange.com for more information.