How to build adaptability?

When I interviewed people before covid, I usually focused on behavioral questions that would tell me how smart they were, and how empathetic. Past examples of having done something that defied their awareness of themselves, the one motto that they swear by, why family comes first, how do they balance health and family and such. These questions usually gave me a view into their value structure, their mental build and of course if they were relevant to the position that they had applied.?

Post covid, that changed.?

In addition to all that I was asking earlier, apart from adding in a remote context - such as how will you manage a team of 21 people who are spread across the country and you might probably never meet them in person,

I look for adaptability.?

There is always the inevitability of change and disaster striking with no notice. So adaptability is my top contender even before I look for team management, EQ, and expertise. The pandemic made me realize that we could build expertise, EQ could be manifested by telling people what were the desirable behaviors at work, and team management was a matter of growing up the rungs. But adaptability is a trait. I began to look for specific instances in their life where they had to adapt to some kind of disaster unfolding.?

One of the candidates that I interviewed last year said that she was a full-time freelancer at the time when the second wave struck. And also the sole breadwinner. Her dad came down with Covid, her mom had a massive UTI at the same time. To add to it, given the nature of the job, if she didn’t work, she didn’t earn.?

1. Her strategy was to quickly assess how long this situation could last. She gave it 15 days. Thankfully she had savings in place to last 3 months.?
2. Since everybody was sick, quarantining wasn’t an option.
3. She masked up at home, to ensure that her parents didn’t have to mingle. Mom didn’t have covid so she didn’t use the common spaces and stayed pretty much in one room.?
4. Masking and washing hands she cooked in batches so that at least nobody would go hungry.
5. She called neighbors to deliver groceries and the occasional meals too when she herself was too sick to cook.?
6. She spoke to her friends extensively to keep her morale up during this time.

Corona is a debilitating disease and it helps if friends and well-wishers keep checking in.?

All of them got tested again 15 days later, and they were all negative. I am sure we have most likely gone through similar situations if not worse. The pandemic was like that.?

I look for the uniqueness not in the seriousness of the situation, but in the approach to the situation.?

Her tack was financial, logistical, emotional and mental. That worked for me.?

This entire shift in our behavior due to the pandemic, and my resulting interview process makes me believe that adaptability is a skill that can be built, and improved upon.?

We do learn to function with the latest upgrades to our software almost daily. When the maid doesn’t show there is that redistribution of work at home. When the kid is cranky and wants something else, someone gets it done. When the boss is sceptical and wants you to pull another all-nighter, you call upon your team and such.?

Now for the context of this article, how do you build adaptability at work??

• I nudge my teams to look inwards. What if all the solutions that you are proposing are shot down by the customer? What if no parent wants their kid to be on screens, so your app goes for a toss. At this point, people start coming up with radical, drastic ideas - some of them actually good, even if not economically viable right then. But seriously, if we removed access to screens from our kids’ lives, what would you do to keep them occupied if you yourself couldn’t give them in-person real-time all the time. Think.?
• One of my interview questions is, at times around, how quickly somebody unlearns. Unlearning doesn’t mean picking up a new skill. It simply means that you still want the same thing done, but now you are firing your circuit in a different way. What I am looking for is a beginner’s, zero starter mindset.?
• You need to at least know enough to hold a conversation, about a lot of things. I understand the subject matter expertise perspective. And that’s great. The vertical line of your T, make it as deep as you like. But the horizontal dash of your T, don’t forget that. Make it broad, wide and let it surprise you. The more you know or pick up things about unrelated stuff, the more your brain will fire in different ways both personally and professionally.?

I have a personal example to share here too, on how this skill can be built. I am the product of 12 years of schooling from 10 different schools. With my dad being in the army, getting exposed to different people, cultures, languages, food, climate, and ways of learning - was a way of life for me. It meant that adaptability was ingrained into me as a matter of survival, right from the time I became aware of myself. Growing up as a kid, it was no fun to try and make new friends every second year, however, as a working professional, I do see this as a huge advantage. I start looking for commonalities that will initiate a bond, rather than focus on differences that will make life unmanageable.?

Like most things worth their weight in gold, adaptability is a skill that pays off over time. The world today has given us a golden opportunity to cash in on that. Let’s see if we can use it to our advantage.?