Building a Culture of Adaptability

There has never been greater focus on the need to be adaptable – both as individuals and as organizations – given that the rate of change and disruption has only accelerated.

When we talk about building a sustainable culture, we have to move beyond tactics and address the fundamentals. A lot of companies think of adaptability through short term measures like overhauling organization structure, changing the product strategy, putting new processes in place or bringing new talent. However, if the foundation of the culture (prevalent behaviors, conversations, beliefs and rituals) are weak, these tactics may only be able to offer some short-term outcomes.

In this context, I read a fantastic article by McKinsey titled “Future proof: Solving the ‘adaptability paradox’ for the long term” with great interest (HT to Helen Bevan for sharing it).

Authors define adaptability as:

Adaptability is the ability to learn flexibly and efficiently and to apply that knowledge across situations. It’s not so much a skill as a meta-skill—learning how to learn and being conscious of when to put that learner’s mind into action. By becoming aware of and open to change now, we can maintain control over uncertainty before pressures build to the point where altering course is much more difficult, or even futile.

I loved how the research done by authors emphasize on importance of well-being (especially in current times), learning, psychological safety, shared purpose, growth mindset and need to connect with others. These are the soft aspects that are hard to build and even harder to replicate.

Having a culture of adaptability that is based on strong foundations of well-being, shared purpose, growth mindset, connection, psychological safety and continuous learning is a strategic differentiator.

I encourage you to read the full article for insights that definitely need more attention in organizations today.

Here’s a quick sketchnote summary of some of the key insights from the article.

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