Adaptability

Understanding Adaptability

Dictionary definitions (see box) generally agree that adaptability is about changing to fit the circumstances or conditions.

Defining adaptability

adapt, v.t. to make fit or suitable. — n. adaptability

Chambers English Dictionary, 1988 edition.

adaptability, n. an ability or willingness to change in order to suit different conditions

Cambridge Dictionary, online version.

In other words, adaptability goes beyond the ability to simply accept change around you (which is discussed in our page on Managing Personal Change). Instead, adaptable people are able to change themselves and their behaviours to fit into and with their new environment or circumstances. They are confident and comfortable about changing to fit with new priorities, new managers or colleagues, and new requirements or responsibilities.

In other words, they are proactively able to develop new skills, and respond to new demands on them.

How do they do this?

The answer is that adaptability is not really just one single skill.

Instead, adaptable people combine various skills, attributes and attitudes to enable them to accept, change and deliver in changing and evolving environments and circumstances.

Adaptability in context

Adaptability is not just a useful skill (or set of skills) in itself.

It is also an important element of self-regulation or self-management. This, in turn, is a key part of emotional intelligence. Daniel Goleman, who developed the idea of emotional intelligence, coupled adaptability with four other skills under self-regulation. These skills are:

Self-control, or recognising and managing your emotions appropriately;
Trustworthiness, or behaving in a way that is consistent with your personal values;
Conscientiousness, or taking responsibility for your performance and making sure it matches your ability and values;
Innovation, or being open to new ideas and approaches.

Skills within Adaptability

There are perhaps five or six skills that are most crucial in building adaptability.

Some of these are personal, and some are interpersonal, especially requiring the ability to communicate effectively with others.

A growth mindset

Having a growth mindset means believing that you can develop your ability through hard work and effort.

People with a growth mindset are prepared to work on their skills. They understand that they may have a natural talent for something—but they also know that this talent will need to be developed and nurtured.

They also look for ways in which they can improve, rather than looking at how far they have come. When faced with challenges, they try to develop themselves to address them, rather than giving up because they don’t (yet) have the skills to manage.

Finally, people with a growth mindset accept failure as an inevitable part of life—and an opportunity to learn. A setback usually makes them try even harder, rather than give up.

There is more about mindsets in our page on The Importance of Mindset.
Resilience

Resilience is the ability to ‘bounce back’ following setbacks.

Resilient people do not just passively accept setbacks or problems. Instead, they learn from them, and come back stronger than ever.

Resilient people generally draw on skills and abilities in four areas:
- Awareness of what is going on around them, and inside their heads;
- Thinking and interpreting events in a rational way;
- Asking for help from others when they need it; and
- Fitness, or the mental and physical ability to cope.
Our page on Developing Resilience explains more about these four areas, and how you can develop your skills in each one. For example, it discusses how you can avoid ‘thinking traps’, or the assumptions that we can easily fall into if we don’t stop to examine events more rationally.
Critical thinking skills

This ability to think rationally, and examine situations logically—or critical thinking—is an element of resilience.

However, it is important enough to discuss as a separate skill within adaptability.

Critical thinking is defined as the ability to think rationally and use reason to understand situations. Those who are good at critical thinking can generally spot links between ideas and arguments. They can also pick out the logical flaws in arguments, and identify inconsistencies.

Critical thinking enables you to be more proactive in your responses to any given situation, and particularly to a changing situation. It also allows you to identify the most important elements of the situation, and the most appropriate response or action to take. It is therefore a crucial part of responding appropriately to change.

There is more about this in our page on Critical Thinking Skills.
Ability to work with others

Few, if any, of us can achieve very much alone, and especially at work.

No man is an island, entire of itself…

John Donne, English poet (1572–1631)

It is almost always necessary to work with other people in some way. What’s more, those people are very seldom exactly like us, and they also very seldom have exactly the same priorities.

Being able to collaborate effectively—and that means with a wide range of different people—is therefore a crucial part of adaptability.

There is more about this in our pages on Working in Teams and Groups, starting with An Introduction to Teams and Groups.
Being able to hear and respond to feedback

One important aspect of working with others is being able to hear and respond to feedback.

We tend to think of feedback as information provided by a supervisor or manager to enable you to do your job or task better. This is certainly the most likely, and the most common, form of feedback.

It is also perhaps the most essential form in terms of adapting and developing new skills.

However, feedback can also be provided less rationally. To take an extreme example, someone bursting into tears during a conversation with you could be a form of feedback on what you just said or how you said it. They might also just be having a bad day—but you should not rule out the former. In less extreme forms, body language and other non-verbal communication may provide immediate feedback about words or actions, and you should certainly notice and act upon this.

There is more about feedback, including informal feedback, and how to receive and act upon it, in our page on Giving and Receiving Feedback.
Problem-solving skills

The final key area of skills that make up adaptability is problem-solving.

Being able to solve problems enables you to respond appropriately to changing circumstances. Instead of seeing problems as insurmountable, adaptable people see them as ‘issues to be overcome and addressed’.

Like mindset, this is something of a question of attitude—but there is also no doubt that building stronger problem-solving skills will help to make it easier to adapt to change.

There is more about this in our pages on Problem-Solving.

Adaptability vs flexibility

What is the difference between adaptability and flexibility? Indeed, is there any?

The answer is yes, but it is partly a question of perception.

It is generally agreed that adaptability is about being able to make long-term changes in response to environmental changes, such as taking on new responsibilities or a new role at work.

Flexibility, by contrast, is about short-term changes, such as stepping in as a one-off when a colleague is away and something needs doing.

A Final Thought

Adaptability is a key part of emotional intelligence.

Given what we know about the importance of emotional intelligence in delivering success in life, it is perhaps not surprising that adaptability is so valued—and so crucial to success in a rapidly-changing world.

Continue to:
Positive Thinking
Social Skills in Emotional Intelligence