Adaptability: Cultivating Resilience in and Beyond 2020

“Do not judge me by my success,” said Nelson Mandela, “judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again.”

In the words of Winston Churchill: “If you're going through hell, keep going.”

What these men are talking about is resilience—a term found everywhere right now in studies, articles, and courses across social justice, psychology, community health, and the entire sphere of leadership development.

No surprise really. 

In 2017, the World Health Organization cited resilience as a top priority—crucial to the wellbeing of individuals, communities and systems. Between early December and late March of 2020—in the first weeks of the COVID pandemic—Google searches for the term more than doubled. 

Clearly, the world is looking for strategies to cope with change. After all, almost every admirable figure in history has demonstrated resilience. Their words bring us hope. Their stories tell us that it’s possible to survive through upheaval and the unknown.

But I wonder: now that resilience has become a buzzword, how many people have mistaken it as a single skill? What does it take to recover quickly from setbacks? What are the conditions of rolling with the tide?

In Daniel Goleman’s framework of Emotional Intelligence, ADAPTABILITY is one of the competencies associated with resilience. One of four self-management competencies, it refers to how well we manage complexity and how skillfully we respond to change. 

When we are adaptable, we are able to:

• Meet challenges as they arise
• Greet new situations with new and innovative ideas 
• Juggle multiple demands 
• And keep a laser-focus on our goals while staying open to how they are achieved

Adaptable leaders don’t dwell on how difficult or complicated a problem is. Instead, they look for efficient and creative ways to solve it. 

Adaptability In Action

The COVID era has been replete with examples of adaptability. From grocery stores redesigning their check out process in the early weeks of the pandemic to alcohol companies transforming their distilleries in order to produce hand sanitizer — 2020 has shown that the quicker a company can meet the emerging needs of the market, the more likely they are to survive.

From the outside, adapting seems fairly straightforward: stop what you’re doing, assess the situation, identify the needs, evaluate your capacity, crowdsource ideas, crosscheck your values, switch the business model, and reposition yourself.

Pretty simple, right? 

But per usual, what appears as linear is actually quite nuanced. 

But human beings don’t cultivate adaptability through an analysis of the market. They cultivate it, first and foremost, through Emotional Self-Awareness and Emotional Self-Control. Being adaptable begins by recognizing our feelings, the emotions that impact our behaviors, and by managing our response to stress. 

How can we tolerate ambiguity and generate new ideas if we get too bogged down by rigid thinking and a fear of change? 

According to recent research from the Drucker Institute and Korn Ferry, “tolerance of ambiguity” correlated most positively with the companies ranking the highest in innovation, social responsibility and financial strength. In short, during Covid,  corporate effectiveness has depended the most on a leader's ability to adapt. 

May this serve as a wake-up call for the leaders and organizational cultures attached to a singular way of doing things.

Of the companies listed on the Fortune 500 in 1955, 88% were gone by 2014 because they either went bankrupt, merged, or fell from the list due to a decline in revenue.

“One of the reasons companies plummet isn't because they fail to strive for better,” reports Forbes, “but because they don't ask themselves the right questions and/or are unwilling to implement the solution. As a result, they don't evolve.”

I don’t agree with the idea that humans are  — by nature — averse to change. Like everything in the natural world, we are changing, recycling, and transforming all the time.  We’re wired for it.

We don’t struggle with change, we struggle with the loss that comes with it.

This is an important distinction. Because losing things—especially things related to our sense of safety or belonging—can be painful. In cultivating adaptability or emotional intelligence, it’s not the change we are trying to manage, it’s our relationship to it. 

Aging is one example. When we grow old, our bodies and our faces change. Aging itself is not a problem. Because we associate youth with beauty, and beauty with power, we make it one.

In the same way that companies risk losing profit or market share when they pivot, many individuals, when faced with change, risk losing something very personal. 

When I am coaching clients through a big change, my first question is: “What are you leaving behind?”

People usually begin by listing things like changes to their schedule, their plans, or their routines. But when we start to dig deeper, this question ignites a rich conversation. Stories, beliefs, biases, identities, roles, status, safety, and/or power are just some of the things change asks us to evaluate and redefine. 

Even when we have ostensibly supported or initiated a change, we still face a very real fear of loss.

For example, I had a client who wanted to leave his job to be a stay-at-home parent. He realized that, in order to adapt to this new reality, he had to let go of being the “breadwinner”—a role that underpinned his sense of worth as a man. All of a sudden being a full-time parent felt like rejecting a part of his identity. Would he still fit in with other men? If he wasn’t afforded the privileges that come with being seen as a man, what would the ripple effect be across his life?

Another client faced a company reorg. While she trusted this change was the best path forward for her organization, she realized that she feared losing power and influence in her new position. This insight led to a rich conversation about influence. Out of that realization, she was able to release fear and begin developing strategies for establishing trust and rapport with her new team. 

When we are locked in rigid thinking—unable to adapt to what is before us—it can be helpful to ask: Where are we afraid of losing control? 

After all, who hasn’t lost some sense of control during COVID? Millions of us have watched our social lives, our schedules, and the small routines that make our lives feel like ours become dictated by the parameters of lockdown.

On a systemic level, a fear of losing control undermines centuries of political and racial division.

The Black Lives Matter movement is a prime example: while plenty of people would fundamentally argue in favor of a more equitable world when people with power are faced with a new paradigm, conscious and unconscious fears rise to the surface. Will people with privilege still be seen as powerful? Will racial justice take away something white culture has built its reality around? 

Things To Consider

When it comes to adaptability, I have heard many people say that done wrong, it can feel like they are abandoning their authentic self. 

In the words of Carla Harris, Vice Chairman of Wealth Management and Senior Client Advisor at Morgan Stanley, “No one can be you as well as you can be you. Never submerge what is uniquely you.”

Being adaptable doesn’t mean abandoning your boundaries, denying your feelings, and contorting yourself to meet the moment. It means staying clear-headed, emotionally present, and curious, even when your best-laid plans are interrupted. It means orienting around your purpose and your values to chart a new path ahead. 

When circumstances shift, you might ask yourself: “What is a better way to approach my goals? OR “What does the moment call for?” and “What do I need from the moment?”

I tend to resent the idea that adaptability is about being impervious to stress or worse, about “pulling yourself up by the bootstraps.” 

This competency is far more honest than that.

It isn’t so much an act of will as it is an opportunity to open your heart — to define your purpose and your values, and to tap into your own well of creativity.

The simple definition of resilience is “the ability to recover quickly from set back.”

Sometimes this definition can feel to be incomplete. 

It can make resilience sound like a big, courageous, singular act... when really… for so many millions of people, it’s a part of the fabric of being denied—sometimes consistently—the conditions to thrive.

Resilience isn’t often a one-time thing, it’s a perpetual state of being. 

I don’t know about you, but I think “recovery” is a poor end goal. These moments of change and upheaval are a time to question our baseline. Why bounce back to the routines and beliefs of 2019 when, collectively, those are the circumstances that got us here?

In fact, change can present a gift: the opportunity to name our attachments; process our fears; practice adaptability; and transform the beliefs getting in the way of something better.

If you experience challenges in the area of adaptability, I can help. Reach out to discover how I can support you!