December 2023 - Peripheral Thinkers™ Newsletter
December 15, 2023
Aloha, Peripheral Thinkers™!
I’m so glad you are here. This month, we’re discussing adaptability.
It is touted as an essential attribute for business success and longevity. We’ll look more deeply into how it is important and why it’s dangerous—using a few boxing/martial arts analogies. No person or animal was injured while typing this newsletter.
But before we jump into the ring, please remember that your participation in the Peripheral Thinkers™ community blesses me and your fellow Peripheral Thinkers. Thank you for participating.
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Let’s Get Ready To Rumble!
KNOCKOUT
A Peripheral Perspective — Adaptability
If you are reading this and have been in business at least since January 2020, you have learned new levels of adaptability. Personal and professional adaptation.
We’ve adapted to shortages and different working environments. We’ve learned how to extend our use of what we have and do more with less. All in response to disruptive changes.
This is a good thing… right?
To figure out if this is a good thing, I went to the source of all truth—Google.
It returned scores of reports referencing the importance of adaptability in the workforce. The World Economic Forum, Deloitte, Harvard Business Review, McKinsey & Company, and dozens more list adaptability as an essential attribute for success and longevity.
But there’s something still missing, so let's go another round.
Bob & Weave
The Oxford Dictionary defines adaptability as the quality of being able to adjust to new conditions. "adaptability is an advantage in the harshly competitive global economy."
Adaptability involves adjusting strategies, structures, and operations in response to unexpected circumstances or market shifts. When your business faces sudden disruptions or changes, its adaptive capacity allows you to pivot quickly to reach some semblance of stability. This reactive adaptability serves as a survival mechanism.
Over the last several years, this highly-touted ability has been central to an “Adaptable Organization”—groups that respond quickly to changing client and market demands.
Research by Jennifer Chatman and her colleagues at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, points to “a clear link between organizations fostering a culture of adaptability and achieving superior economic performance. The research shows a 28 percent increase in revenue over the course of three years among high-tech companies that had established adaptable cultures.”
“… McKinsey analyses indicate that the top quartile of businesses exhibiting healthy, resilient behaviors are more than 40 percent less likely than those in the bottom quartile to go bankrupt.” – McKinsey’s The State Of Organizations 2023 Report.
(Record scratch!)
Wait. What?
“Less likely to go bankrupt?”
What happened to “increasing revenue?”
Jennifer Chatman and her colleagues’ research was published in August 2014—not long after the Great Financial Crisis bust—during which U.S. home prices fell 27% between 2006 and 2012.
The McKinsey report is from 2023—in the wake of the 2020 global pandemic.
An organization's ability to respond to changes and unexpected disruption is helpful for survival. But survival is pretty low on most business leaders' expected results.
Imagine you deliver this message at a town hall meeting:
“Congratulations, team. Your adaptability makes us 40% less likely to go bankrupt.”
Now, that’s a confidence booster!
Photo by Todd Keith
What’s Wrong With Adaptability?
While reacting to external changes is a powerful skill, this must not be the destination. Being proficient at reacting puts you squarely in the crosshairs of disruption.
Reaction, by definition, waits for someone/something to act first.
Wearing the badge of adaptability with pride is like wearing a sign that says, “Go ahead. Hit me. I can take it.”
Your company may be able to rebound from a punch, but how many successive punches can it take before it’s physically, emotionally, or financially bankrupt? Knocked out.
I spent many years training and competing in martial arts. And while I was an accomplished counterpuncher, it was a proactive decision. I allowed blows to land early in a match. It gave me the information I needed to find my opponent’s weaknesses. Then, I used my proactive (attacking) skills to exploit their weakness for successive scoring strikes. I scored the requisite points to end the match and moved on to the next opponent.
The real danger of being proudly adaptable is missing the lessons that move you to being proactive.
Let’s not stop at being adaptable. Let’s push further… into the periphery.
Going on the Offensive: From Adaptability to Proactability
I know proactability isn’t a word, but I’m dyslexic and get to make words up.
I meet successful, highly adaptive business leaders who miss the hidden skill of turning rapid reaction into proactive creation.
The reactive nature of adaptability involves responding to immediate changes and challenges as they arise.
The proactive nature of innovation revolves around anticipating the future and creating before and beyond the pending changes.
Start by identifying the lessons from adaptability like:
The cause(s) of the disruption
The breadth of the disruption—the number of industries affected
What approaches were effective and ineffective, and why
Then, dig deeper and answer these questions to go on the offense.
What were the pre-indicators of the change?
Where else were there similar indicators for a different change—past/present?
What would I do differently to avoid the disruption if I could see the indicators?
Applying the lessons from adapting with the foresight from digging deeper improves your ability to predict changes.
Finally, the icing on the cake, the winning move, the knockout punch, is innovating before the change. Applying all the lessons and insights to change the environment.
Changing the environment moves you and your business to a place shielded from the pending change. Because… the change is headed where you were, not where you are going.
The best way to avoid a punch is not to be where the punch is headed.
The best way to deliver a knockout blow is to swing where the opponent is not looking.
The Winner By Knockout Is:
We are in an ever-changing environment.
And statistics say that 91% of business leaders—even the adaptive ones—will not reach their goals in 2024.
This doesn’t have to be you.
Take the lessons from your adaptability, combine them with your answers from the deeper dive, and be the creator of the ever-changing environment.
You can adapt to the changes coming at you from your environment, or…
OR…
You can adopt the lessons and insights to create the change in your business and to your environment.
You be the change.
You be the Disruptor, not the disrupted.
From all of us at Peripheral Thinkers™, we wish you and yours a Happy Holiday Season and a Peripheral New Year!
Until next time, we’ll be looking for you in the Periphery.
p.s. If you are new or want a refresher, here’s an overview of Peripheral Thinking™ 👉🏽 https://www.pauldanielsjr.com. Click and scroll down to “What is Peripheral Thinking™?”
Additional News
Thank you to everyone who took advantage of my offer for a free keynote through the end of January. Peripheral Thinking™: Challenging Convention to Thrive in Any Environment is, hands down, the most thought-provoking, inspiring, and engaging message I've created to date. Some dates are still available, so if you or someone you know has an upcoming event in the North Texas area, please tell them.
When you are ready, here’s how I can help you.
1. Executive & Board Advisory. Take your observations from the newsletter and start applying them to your business. The Peripheral Thinkers™ advisory programs help CEOs, Business Leaders, and Corporate Executives apply new perspectives to future-proof your business. Programs are designed for your needs and delivered in 1:1, group, and ongoing advisory sessions. 👉🏽 https://www.pauldanielsjr.com/contact, select ADVISORY, and I’ll reach out to discuss your objectives.
2. Keynotes & Workshops. At a time when speeches and workshops look and sound the same, audiences say that the Peripheral Thinking™ message stands out. “New. Insightful. Inspiring. Immediately applicable.” Samples 👉🏽https://www.pauldanielsjr.com/speaker. Click on “Hold The Date,” and I’ll contact you to discuss how I can make your event the best ever. “With Paul on stage, event planners relax confidently. Sponsors stand proudly. Audiences engage fully.”