towards adaptive
Too slow to adapt? Current business literature abounds with case studies dealing with change, disruption and threat of survival. Businesses are investing heavily in becoming more “agile”, but in many cases, teams are quick to slip back into old routines. Adaptability is hard because it means we need to challenge our own processes, the rules that we’ve crafted that have led to successful outcomes in the past. And when we challenge our own rules, we challenge our thinking and our beliefs. Discarding a belief that no longer serves us is like kicking a bad habit.
No matter whether we focus on individuals, teams or organisations, it’s through our habits that we form our identity and changing that identity is hard. All the evidence is often not enough to incite change. It’s like debating issues of climate change with a politician that supports coal, or discussing health risks of cigarettes with a smoker. There needs to be a willingness to be open to a new world view.
In his book Reinventing organisations, Author Frederic Laloux claims that the trigger for adopting a new worldview comes from a major challenge that cannot be resolved from the current worldview. Laloux argues that we’ll respond in one of two ways: we can grow into a more complex perspective that offers a solution to our problem, or we can ignore the problem, sometimes clinging more strongly to our existing world view.
Adaptability is all about the ability to grow into a more complex perspective. And to grow means we need to let go of things that have served us in the past. To do this, we need to put our current beliefs into question. James Clear, the author of Atomic Habits, argues that when we build identity-based habits, it's not about focussing on what we want to achieve, but rather on who we want to become. The metaphor he uses is that of a smoker who’s decided to quit. When offered a cigarette, the smoker might respond with, “No thanks, I’m trying to quit” or “I am not a smoker”. Unlike the first response, the second response is much more powerful. It signals a shift in identity.
Rather than focus on outcomes, the first step to becoming more adaptive is about having clarity on who you want to be. Whether you are an individual, a team or an organisation, it is about being clear on what you stand for. The second step is about building the habits and routines that help you reinforce that identity. It's about the small steps, done consistently over time that allow you to shift from who you are, to who you want to become.