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Adaptability, Fixed · Humanity Working

• 0:11
  SPEAKER_01: I'm excited for this one.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_01: Today's uh quick fix is adaptability.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: Uh this is the one I wanted to go after early, uh, because it seems most important.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_01: How are you defining it?
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: So we think of adaptability as the ability to adjust as the world around you changes.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_01: Hmm.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: And and is that the the most important?
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: The most important durable skill.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, yeah.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: We we're almost certain actually that it is.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: We we used to think a bit differently, actually, about this.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: When we first started our research on this, we had like three or four different skills that seemed equally important, um, particularly when we talked to leaders inside organizations.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um then um as we kind of honed in on the real capabilities that the most successful people were bringing to the workplace, but then also the most impact that they had, we ended up with two uh capabilities, um, adaptability and resilience.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: But over time, we've realized that really this is the adaptability is the North Star.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um and everything else is is almost like a supporting character.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so what's different to resist uh to resilience then?
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, you mean how do adaptability quite a bit, don't you?
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: You hear you you tend to hear somebody talk about adaptability.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: Or coupled.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: Coupled together closely, but yeah.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um, which again, as I say, not there's anything necessarily hugely wrong with that.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: We used to we used to do that ourselves, but but we do think that it's um that it is different.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um adaptability, as I say, the ability to adjust as the world around you changes.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: Resilience really is the is just sort of like a tiny level below it, because if you think about it, it's really the ability to uh cope emotionally and intellectually and intellectually with change.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um so if you're going to adapt, you need to be able to cope with the uh with the change that is that is happening.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: So that's why resilience sits just a tiny level below it.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: Interesting.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so so why uh why is that such a big deal?
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: Well, adaptability is uh a huge deal in today's workplace because work isn't just changing decade by decade, which actually for the vast majority of people's working uh lives across history is exactly what work did.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um in fact, um I'm just putting the finishing touches on a uh on a book associated with this, but we had um for actually centuries, we had work not really changing at all.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: Then when you get into kind of like the Industrial Revolution, you could measure, you could look at measurable changes in work happening on like a decade-by-decade basis.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: But today, work really can change day by day.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and for many people, particularly people who are doing the most unstructured, ambiguous work, for many people, um tomorrow is different to today.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, almost the most predictable thing is that tomorrow will be different to today.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so if that is every day, every day you show up, every day is different.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: Adaptability is crucial.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: And more than anything else, it's what gets you hired, is what gets you retained, it's what gets you promoted.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: Even if it's not on a job description, it is the thing that does get you hired, retained, and promoted.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_01: So what can one do to be uh adaptable?
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, this again is partly why it took us a while to kind of get to this idea of because it was like, is this a skill?
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: Is it just something some people have or other people don't have?
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: And what we've discovered is that it it absolutely is a skill, but there's sort of kind of a bunch of layers you need to go through in order to truly get to that fundamental capability of adaptability.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um when we display it to people, sometimes they think of it as almost like I have Maslow's hierarchy of needs type things.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: You can do these, if you do all these things that are sitting underneath it, eventually you'll get to a point where you can be really, really adaptable.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: And some people have just had lives where those layers have sort of naturally built out really well, but others haven't.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so when you train this, what you want to do is you want to consciously build those layers.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we'll we'll be going through the layers in in coming weeks.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: We talked about one of them already, which is which is readiness, but we're gonna be looking at things like organization, control, balance, motivation, and resilience.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um, build out those types of capabilities, and then you can really effectively build adaptability on top.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um but uh the most important thing um is to to ensure it than anything else is just basically working on your skills daily.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: If you can do that, if you can consciously work on your durable skills daily, adaptability starts to come just from doing that.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: Is is daily so so there's one part about the daily piece, but let me poke down on on this this idea of foundational, right?
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_01: Is it that uh adaptability emerges out of successfully honing those durable skills?
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um largely, yes.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there are like I say, there are some there are some things you can do in isolation, but you will only truly be adaptable if you're building it on a strong base.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: And those other layers that I briefly went through, um, those are the those are the layers that often people miss.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: They go, oh man, it's really important I'm adaptable, but I'm not gonna worry about any of these underlying stuff.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: And then they they don't truly get there.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so that's why it is uh why it's very important to think about those other underlying skills, even if they're not your primary goal to develop them.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: And notice that daily practice in something is is useful.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's really interesting.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um so so talk more about the the daily part.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_01: How do you how do you build this in?
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the daily element.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, so first off, I mean why it's why it's so important to have this idea of like daily practice of durable skills.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um you might have seen various diagrams.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: I'll see if we can throw one in the in the in the show notes, but various diagrams that talk about this idea of being 1% better.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um and it's um these things are really centered around the idea that for these types of skills, and particularly for adaptability, um you can't just attend a workshop and figure out how to be adaptable.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: I hate to say it, Matt.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: You can't even just listen to this podcast and then become more adaptable.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: You can't it helps, though.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: It helps it helps, yes, of course, yeah.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um but you have to you you have to start building a discipline.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: And and so because adaptability sits on these underlying layers, the one benefit is that almost any practice of any durable skill, as long as you are repeatedly doing your practice, will help with uh with adaptability.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: But the key thing is getting into that that mode of uh of daily practice.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: Just as you, if you want to get good at piano, practice piano daily.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to get good at a language, practice it daily.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's those types of of uh of that that regular practice is a critical, critical piece of this.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's almost as you say it, any daily practice.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, any daily practice contributes to the big picture of adaptability because by nature of having a daily practice of anything, you learn more about it, learn more about yourself doing it, and adapt it as you go.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: Well, think about like like that is right in such a deep way that it's almost it kind of blows your mind once you really start to think about it.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: Because here's the here's the one reason why that is right more than anything else is what are you doing when you practice anything daily?
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: You are changing.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: You are you are a you are a different person tomorrow than you were today.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so by definition, you are practicing the skill of of adaptability.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: You are adapting in some way, you're adapting towards the the goal that you have, right?
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: You are changing and becoming a better piano player, you are changing and learning uh and learning a new language.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so is it directly related to the activity that you that you need to perform at work?
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: Not necessarily in the case that I'm that I'm describing, but what it is doing is it's reminding, it's keeping your brain plastic, which is very important for adaptability, and it's reminding your subconscious that you can be a different person to the person that you were yesterday.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: And that means that you're gonna be able to take on other challenges in ways that you thought were not possible before.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: So absolutely, you're right in a in like a really meaningful way.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: Very interesting.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: So you institutionalize this in the programs that you run, right?
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and we didn't used to actually.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: We just used to like like we we broke down our our big programs into much smaller elements.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: We did uh we broke them down into 10 minutes uh of learning and practice combined.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: So in other words, it was uh about two or three minutes of learning followed by six or seven minutes of practice.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so we thought, okay, if we make these nice and short, then people will like revisit them daily.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: But of course, we found out that that wasn't really what happened.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: People would stack them up and they would do a bunch in a go uh in a go and they would uh they would cram as they kind of got towards the end of their week and stuff like that.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so we changed it now so that like our lesson delivery and our programs are literally you're getting a lesson delivered to you um uh to you on a daily basis.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so that um helps ensure that you're going back in on a regular uh on a regular basis and you're not doing too much in one go, which in this case really doesn't help.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: Interesting.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: So what is the best first step?
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: So funnily enough, I think the best first step is exactly what we've been talking about.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um it is that it is that idea of embedding daily practice.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: And what I would say is you might come out of this podcast going, that's really cool.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna spend an hour a day working on my durable skills.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: And to that, I would say, I would suggest to you humbly, you do not don't make it, do not make it an hour.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, if you make it an hour, you're much less likely to keep uh to keep it up.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: So let's pull that down to a much smaller bunch.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: 10 minutes, 15 minutes, something like that.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: Find a 10 minute or 15 minute uh chunk and schedule it on your calendar.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe if you start work at 9 a.m., maybe it's your 8.45 to 9 a.m.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: practice or something along those lines, or maybe it's your nine to your 9.15 practice.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: But before you do anything else, you spend uh 10 to 15 minutes working on honing a skill, then you're done for the day, and then you return the next day and the day after that.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: Get that on your calendar and do it on a regular basis.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: And if you do that, you will continuously get better at your work, you will become more adaptable as a result.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: Along the line, in addition to building all those fundamental skills that we'll be going through over some of the next uh ones of these podcasts.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_01: All right, well, adaptability fixed.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_01: Perfect.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_01: Nice.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_01: Kind of.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we'll see you next Tuesday for the next durable skill.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks, Paul.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_01: All right, see you next Tuesday.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: Humanity Working is produced and edited for Billion Minds by Matnium.
• 13:24
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• 13:28
  SPEAKER_01: It helps us reach more people.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: If you want to learn more about how Billion Minds gets companies ready for the future of work by building adaptable resilient employees, look for them on LinkedIn or visit their website at billionminds.com.