Just adapt already!

Throughout the last year and a half one word that I have heard repeatedly is “adaptability.” At times, it is often used glibly. We all just need to adapt - as if it is just that simple.

The challenge many of us face when it comes to adapting, reminds me of when my husband started coming with me to visit my family cabin in Saskatchewan.

The cabin has been in my family for over 60 years. As a child traveling the 1000 km each year from the Edmonton area, we had a fairly set routine. We would leave around 7:00 in the morning, stop in Lloydminster for a mid-morning breakfast, get gas in Saskatoon, stop for a late lunch at a local diner in Humboldt, and then head to the lake. This was my routine for 25 years before meeting my husband. So, when he casually suggested we get an early lunch in North Battleford the first year he was invited to join me in this sacred journey, he was confused at my curt response that there was a specific route we needed to adhere to.

I had never questioned the route before, assuming this was the way the trip was always done. It made me startlingly uncomfortable to consider picking up a coffee somewhere other than the predetermined stops I had been going to for nearly three decades. I felt, with deep certainty, that my entire lake experience rested on a very clear process without variation.

Over the years I have given in to some of his suggestions. Strapping two young children in the car for 12 straight hours has also completely deviated any semblance of familiarity from my childhood experience.

Reflecting on experiences like this, I have become increasingly interested in understanding my own adaptability, both personally and in the workplace. In the article, Leadership for Organization Adaptability - A theoretical synthesis and integrative framework, the authors identify that “one of the biggest challenges facing leaders today is the need to position and enable organizations and people for adaptability in the face of increasingly dynamic and demanding environments (Uhl-Bien and Arena, 89).[1]” 

With this in mind, I started looking for ways to explore and support adaptability and came across a tool to help individuals, teams, and organizations take a deeper look at their adaptability - the AQai assessment. It measures the workplace abilities, characteristics, and environmental factors that influence the behaviors and actions of individuals and organizations to effectively respond to uncertainty, new information, or changed circumstances.[2]

Like any skill, assessing and strengthening our adaptability requires regular practice. It takes commitment and reflection look introspectively at how one might approach the world and what to pay attention to. AQai has helped me explore my resilience, mental flexibility, motivations, and thinking style as well as how these are influenced by, and impact, my work environment.[3]

By assessing my own adaptability, I have been able to better recognize skills or knowledge that once served me, but no longer do. It’s helped me increase awareness of how my emotional range may impact how I respond to situations. It has also helped me to identify approaches to support me in bouncing back from setbacks.[4]

I have been fortunate to work with teams to explore their individual and collective adaptability. These conversations have been rich and revealed opportunities to increase individual mindfulness about the adaptability journey and how their abilities could influence and support their colleagues.

Like me, you or your teams may also have some entrenched ideas about how work should be done, how a project must roll out, or what success fundamentally looks like; however, in a time where uncertainty is the order of the day, considering how we adapt could help us find new and valuable stops along our journey.

[1] Uhl-Bien, Mary and Arena, Michael. (2018). Leadership for organizational adaptability: A theoretical synthesis and integrative framework. The Leadership Quarterly, 29, 89-104.

[2] Thornely, Ross. (2020). Decoding AQ: Your greatest superpower.

[3]AQai (2020). The AQ Model. https://www.aqai.io/platform/the-aq-model

[4] AQai (2020). The AQ Model. https://www.aqai.io/platform/the-aq-model