Learn to Adapt

Sunday, January 19 2025
learn to adapt

In business, if we are not moving forward, we are going backward: there is no status quo. Change is constant, so we must learn to adapt. Supporting the team through change takes a lot of strategic focus by leaders.

No strategy is forever. Blue Ocean Strategy, celebrated for its organizational wisdom posits that paradigm-shifting strategies do not remain differentiated forever because eventually someone comes along and displaces them with a better idea. Thus smart companies must shift their thinking, and in so doing, create a business that looks and acts differently.

Unfortunately, in the go-forward model not everyone may be a fit. You may need to rebuild your team. However, because employee churn is costly the question becomes: How do we get better at building a strong and adaptable team that can thrive on change? It costs an organization nothing to build adaptability as an important trait in its corporate coaching culture. It does require commitment.

Employee attrition is a risk for every organization. The fear of change and unwillingness to change adds to that risk. Increasing opportunities for innovation insulates us from the fallout of resistance to change and subsequent employee attrition.

Harvard Business Review published an article titled, “In Uncertain Times, the Best Strategy Is Adaptability.” The author demonstrated the fallacy when “forecasters assumed that an approximate specification of initial conditions would yield an approximate prediction of future outcomes.” Instead, when leaders are operating under extreme uncertainty, they need “to make sure that their strategy-making is characterized by a willingness to adapt, inbuilt flexibility, and dynamic planning.”

Learn to Adapt

What else should we, as leaders, do to encourage this?

  • Accept the need to make changes. It’s hard to let go of old ideas but sometimes they just stop working.
  • Measure what’s important. Once you’ve set a course, monitor it closely and be willing to shift as required.
  • Ask for feedback and accept it with openness.

Leadership author Jim Collins says, “first who, then what?” Recognize that as strategy shifts, organizational needs shift, which may impact who is best suited, culturally and technically, to fill the ‘seats on the bus.’  It is as important to strategy as the plan itself.  If you are not sure you have the ‘who’ figured out, TAC has engagement surveys that can help. Good luck with your people planning.