Adaptability

We understand resilience to be the ability to “bounce back” when troubles come or trauma keeps us down. But few are talking about the power of adaptability.

“Adaptability means you’ve gone beyond simply enduring a challenge to thrive beyond it.” --- Jacqueline Brassey, chief scientist at McKinsey & Company’s People & Organisational Performance Practice.

This picture was taken in my basement workshop, shortly after having moved for the ninth time in five years. In that stretch, my office/work space has been all over the place from a church backroom to a living room, then to a guest bedroom, then a basement, then another living room, then a copier room, then a nursing home storage hallway, then another living room, and then ANOTHER living room.

The basement “workshop” (furnace room with a work table nailed to the wall) you see before you is my current home workspace. Thankfully, I also have office space available elsewhere. I have always needed to be adaptable, and adjust well to change, or else I wouldn’t have any progress.

Resilience is your capacity to return yourself to homeostasis, whereas adaptability is your capacity to adjust yourself to changes in order to go beyond your previous baseline.

Adaptability is taking rejection and turning it into feedback for improvement. Adaptability is seeing the opportunity in a loss and taking action to gain the benefit. Adaptability is resourcefulness in action when a setback comes.

It is the measure of your strength in the face of change.

Resilience is nice, it’s catchy. It’s almost a buzzword at this point, nearing the line of cliché. Adaptability deserves to get more attention at this point.

You may not need another therapist, you need a coach. You need to look around at the resources around you and proactively make a change on purpose. You need to sit in the hurt of the rejection, breathe, and then learn from it to grow.

That’s not to say we don’t need to be resilient---we do.

But in today’s world, with change rushing us at 100 miles per hour, we need that and more.

You need adaptability.

This morning as I was finishing my prep for the day in the early morning, two of my sons (about 50% of the brood) got into a tussle. One of the brawlers smashed the others’ head into a glass door. Nothing was shattered and no blood was spilled, but the smasher was sent promptly to time out.

After a short time, I headed upstairs to have a little dad-son moment with my creative warrior boy to see if the fight could become a teaching moment. What’s going on under the surface is a struggle with anger, shame, and feeling like a “bad kid,” repeatedly arising over the last couple of days. Now is the prime opportunity to reframe this for good.

After breaking through the residual seething rage, I was able to start a heart-to-heart. “You are growing up to become…” I paused. He knows how to fill in the blank on this one.

“A great man?” “Yes! And great men are…?” “Kind.” “Right… and?” “Uuhhhhh.” “Wise! Great men are kind and wise. And the thing with men who are kind and wise is that they learn to make good choices when they are angry.”

I was able to convince my son that his anger wasn’t bad, and that he isn’t bad. When guys get stressed or angry or hurt or tired or hungry or even sad, it comes out as anger. In fact, even his desire to “fight back when something is wrong” isn’t bad. We’re made to be warriors, after all.

“God made men with strength,” I told him, “so they could offer it to help others and, even, fight back against what’s wrong.” His eyes relaxed a bit at this point, and his whole-body clench softened. “But it’s our job to control our body and not let anger make our decisions for us. It’s up to us to breathe, calm ourselves down, and make good choices. There’s nothing wrong with being angry, but it’s not an excuse to make bad choices.”

At this point, I had him. It’s like I could feel the shame and tension leave his eyes and body. “So, let’s learn to take a deep breath, look around, and make a good choice.”

At this point, it was prime time to teach him some breathwork, citing my own need to practice this in times of great anger or stress. “When I do this, I try to make the sound of the wind to make sure my breath is nice and long.” After demonstrating, it was his turn. An honest attempt, met, of course, with a crisp high five, followed by another attempt. I’m coaching him now, complete with a quick “Wow, you really had it that time!”

Finally, it was time to conclude. “Now, when we get angry, and make a bad choice, we still need to do something. Now you know, when I make a mistake, even with you kids, I go and do what?” A sheepish grin arrived on his face as he let out a whispered, “Say you’re sorry?”

“Yes, that’s right, exactly,” I continued. “We go and make it right. And when we say sorry, we do that being very serious that we are going to work very hard not to do that bad thing again.”

And with that, he already knew what to do, but I got him up and sent him down to make things right with his brother. Don’t be deceived—I have fallen prey to the emotion-filled moments and given way to mismanaged anger and yelling. Parenting moments don’t always go this way. But this moment was a win. He went on his way, and the joy that came from making the most of this opportunity washed over me. There was peace.

Our already somewhat calm home environment was disrupted by a rage-filled conflict followed by raised voices, quickly uttered excuses for bad behaviour, and appropriate consequences. What could have been a stressful moment, rife with hurt feelings and misunderstanding and shame, turned into a home that felt more integrated, more kind.

The offender made things right and was released from shame, another kid confessed to other wrongs, and forgiveness was offered all around the breakfast table. We were more joyful for having dealt with the fight than we would have been had the fight not occurred (or not been caught).

And that is adaptability. Making the most of the opportnity, no matter how brutal the circumstance. Whether we’re dealing with a middle manager at his wits’ end or dealing with our own hurts, we need to model adaptability.

What are you dealing with today? How could your leadership mishap, or parenting situation possibly lead to better culture, advanced vision, and more productivity? You may do yourself some good by breathing deep, making some wind sounds, and seeing with fresh eyes how to make a good call right now.

Why not try a little breath now? It’s probably exactly what you need.

BLG means growth