Your screeching smoke detector wakes you up and you smell smoke. Adrenaline is pumped throughout your system and you’re on your feet at the doorway, staring at a hazy room with flames in the background. What are you doing to make this situation better?
You’re at a family gathering during the holidays. Everyone is having a good time sitting around after dinner, eating candies and playing billiards. When you have your next shot all lined up, you hear your aunt exclaim, “She’s choking!” Your head snaps over and you see your grandmother gesturing helplessly as her head rolls back. Your heart is racing, but there is no time to think. What are you doing to make this situation better?
Skill in planning is unquestionably valuable over the course of a lifetime, but taking immediate and decisive action in a time of intense chaos can separate the habitually successful people from the unexceptional masses. There are two main sources of this trait that I know of: mastery of a discipline to the point that the subconscious can perform skillfully under pressure, and a more generalized disposition to composure and action in chaotic situations. For the former there is a clear path to attainment, but the latter seems to require a much more comprehensive mental and physical temperament to support it. Either way, it’s clear that adaptability is an important asset.
A while ago I made an observation (math geekery warning) about a correlation between success and “dwell time” — essentially how long a person dwells on a setback before returning to full operating pace. I will extend that now and say that there is a strong correlation between success and adaptability. How quickly and accurately one is able to change course to deal with unexpected events smoothly will make it easier to attain success in a variety of challenging situations.
One of the most important manifestations of this skill can be found in highly dynamic environments, like startups. Everything is changing faster than you can possibly plan reactions for, so the more useful your actions are amidst the chaos, the more success you are likely to attain. Other skills are certainly important in a startup environment, but adaptability, assuming it’s combined with a healthy dose of persistence, is far and away the largest single contributor to eventual success. The core team members who have the most influence on a startup’s success during the first two years will almost always be highly adaptable individuals, handling problems from all angles and putting out fires with quick turnarounds. Still though, adaptability isn’t only useful in the highly dynamic startup environment.
I think that earned success, in broad terms, requires adaptability. Whether it’s a businessperson, a firefighter or a mother of three. Reacting with grace, decisiveness and precision keeps things running, inspires confidence and enables the nimbleness to deal with change. These traits seem to be more common with certain types of personalities — level-headed and cool tempered people, problem solvers, analytical thinkers — but I’m convinced that most people can become more adaptable with conscious effort. Patience and rational assessment form the cornerstone of a personality that will endure the best and worst of times with quick actions and habitual success.
What now? You might start by evaluating your own flexibility and adaptability in various situations. Simple awareness of your actions or predisposition toward composure might give you enough insight to make conscious changes if you think it would help.