Success Secrets and Stories
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Success Secrets and Stories
Navigating Business with an Adaptability Toolkit
Unlock the secret to becoming a successful leader in today's fast-paced business world by mastering adaptability over intelligence or strength. Our latest episode promises to arm you with the essential traits of an adaptable leader, inspired by Keith Keating’s insights on the ATD blog. Discover how flexible thinking, strategic planning, and an insatiable curiosity can transform your leadership style. Flexible thinking invites leaders to question ingrained patterns and explore fresh paradigms, while strategic planning, underscored by Dwight D. Eisenhower's wisdom, prepares you for any scenario. Curiosity fuels growth and problem-solving, driving innovation and progress. Through engaging stories and personal anecdotes, we reveal how these traits empower industry leaders to conquer challenges with agility.
Continue your journey into the heart of adaptability as we reflect on Peter Drucker’s bold claim that culture often trumps strategy, especially for mid-level leaders. Through our diverse experiences, we demonstrate the critical role of embracing and adapting to organizational cultures. We also highlight the power of diverse teams in enriching adaptability by bringing varied perspectives to the table. Drawing from David Finkel’s expert strategies, we offer a roadmap to cultivate adaptability: embrace a growth mindset, stay updated with industry trends, nurture open communication, learn from missteps, seek diverse viewpoints, and set flexible goals. This episode is your toolkit for navigating the ever-shifting business landscape with confidence and success.
Presented by John Wandolowski and Greg Powell
Well, hello everyone and welcome to our next episode of our podcast, Success Secrets and Stories. I'm your host, john Wanoloski, and I'm here with my co-host and friend, brent Powell. Hey everybody. So in this podcast, we wanted to talk about something that should be current with a lot of people and a subject that I think kind of plays into what we've seen in the marketplace as far as the changes that are going on all the time Adaptable leadership and the ability to be flexible and responsive to changes within the business environment. As they put it A little bit of a technical description, an adaptable leader is considered to be quick and to be able to adjust to situations and make the necessary changes in order to be successful. And when we were talking about that, greg and I were talking about this and we found an interesting article by Keith Keating and Greg, why don't you take it from there?
Speaker 1:Thanks, John. So let's talk about the three traits of adaptable leaders by Keith Keating. This is March 2021, at the ATD blog Association for Talent Development. Charles Darwin I think you all know who he was. He said the most important factor in survival is neither intelligence nor strength, but adaptability strength but adaptability. Change is inevitable. Leaders all over the world are constantly facing change and complexity, including new cultures, jobs, Think about the different markets, Think about the competitions coming up. So if you want to thrive as a leader, it requires the ability to adapt to all of those changes and adjust to different conditions. Adaptive leadership means seeing change not as an obstacle, not hiding from it, but as an opportunity to focus on being ready. There's three key traits to help chief executives down to frontline managers take on an adaptive leadership framework and leadership style that helps them navigate through change much more easily. The first one is adaptable.
Speaker 1:Leaders have flexible ways of thinking. Right. They're not rigid, they're not immovable with their thinking. So, for leaders, adaptability is about having ready access to different ways of thinking with their thinking. So, for leaders, adaptability is about having ready access to different ways of thinking. Make sure, as a leader, you enable leaders on your team to shift and experiment as things change.
Speaker 1:Have an elastic cognitive approach that allows leaders to use different thinking strategies and different mental frameworks. You need a deepening awareness and perspective to help leaders understand how they think, how their teams think and how their customers think. Some fundamental activities to unlock flexible thinking include one question your thought patterns. Ensure you are approaching with an open mind, exploring from all angles. Next, relax your mind. Yes, it sounds a little bit like meditation. I think we're talking a little bit about that. Give yourself the freedom to step back from rigid processes and analytical thinking and allow yourself to play with the idea of a new paradigm or a new thought. And also examine your emotional flexibility. Practice reflecting on your own emotions as well as those of others. Vary your approach to dealing with others' emotions.
Speaker 1:Adaptable leaders plan ahead. Adaptable leaders understand that while an end goal and a vision are necessary, the path that takes them there needs to be very flexible. The practice of adaptive leadership means having multiple plans for reaching your said goals. Rather than getting stuck on one solution to solve a single problem. Adaptive leaders have a contingency plan in place for when plan A doesn't work. Planning allows appropriate responses to the demands of the moment. Planning creates focus. Planning creates focus. I'm going to say it a sentence before, Say it again Planning creates focus. Planning enables leaders to focus on their resources and use their energy to reach their goals. Planning helps to assess risks as well as opportunities. Planning helps to assess risks as well as opportunities. Planning provides a platform to examine the opportunities and threats in current and future situations. So, by understanding the obstacles they may face and the tools they have at their disposal, leaders can minimize the risk and maximize the reward. President dwight D Eisenhower had a famous quote. He said plans are worthless, but planning is everything.
Speaker 2:So what rings in your head when you hear that quote though?
Speaker 1:So for me, john? I work for a guy, a COO, and he loved planning. So, unfortunately for me, I think about how he tore into it. I said what's your favorite part of the job? He said planning, planning for the organization. What about you, john?
Speaker 2:Well, when I hear planning is everything, dwight Eisenhower was trying to give scenarios. But there's no such thing as the Mike Tyson line comes back. Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth. When actually the battle starts, you're probably going to use one of the plans that didn't make it to the table. So you've planned for that scenario, but you're not going to apply it to your ultimate plan that you're enacting. But, by God, it did show up. So, because you did an extensive element of planning and came up with options, you're prepared. So, without him going on with his context, that's what I think he was implying.
Speaker 1:I think you're right. Let's talk about another aspect, and that is to be an adaptable leader. You need to be curious. Curiosity helps to open the mind, enable growth, encourages new ideas and is a fundamental principle of the adaptive leadership model. Curiosity generates questions that wield problem solving, at least of finding results. Adaptive leaders use activities such as the following to help develop their curiosity. And in this case, curiosity did not kill the cat. Rather, it enabled the cat. An adaptable mindset does not come naturally to everybody. With practice and focus, however, adaptable leaders, traits such as those listed before can be developed to help foster navigation through the course of very changing landscapes.
Speaker 1:John and I've talked on these podcasts a lot about our careers, different companies. We've worked for industries, and I have a little kind of trip down my own memory lane regarding the need for adaptability in changing careers, and so I call it changing careers, but also part of my leadership journey. So one of the things I learned early on was be open to different industries, right. So I've worked in social expression. I've worked cosmetics, catalog retail, consumer packaged goods, print media and energy, and I'm here to tell you catalog, retail, print media. They're not what they used to be. They just aren't. So you have to be adaptable to different company cultures while maintaining your personality and style, and that was important to me. I am who I am. A poor old country boy had a Northeastern Kansas right, no matter what company I'm working for, that's me. So cultures were different in those companies, but it was one of those things that was worth my while to adapt to those cultures.
Speaker 1:Peter Drucker once said culture eats strategy for breakfast. We understand that from the young leaders standpoint. Being mid-level leaders, you have to understand that that culture will take away any great plans that you have if you're not adapted to it. You have to understand that that culture will take away any great plans that you have if you're not adapted to it. Now, because I became an HR professional, one thing I learned and made adaptability much easier for me is that HR is HR, is HR right.
Speaker 1:No matter what industry, no matter what company you've got staffing, leadership and development, total rewards, talent management, employee relations. You know the company culture, even something fancy like HR information systems. All the companies I worked for had some elements of those pieces, but I had a willingness to adapt. I was curious and I wanted to learn about those different industries, and I can tell you I'm better for having that experience, and it was fascinating to understand how things work at a catalog company versus how they might work at a consumer packaged goods company. Or my last company was an energy company and that was totally mind-blowing experience, right. So the notion that if I wanted to do the same job at the same company my entire career, I can't even imagine that Change is inevitable. You have to adapt to change.
Speaker 2:John, I think when you were going over the list, the very first, adaptable leaders have to have flexible ways of thinking. You also have to have a diverse team. You can't have a bunch of yes people. You can't have a bunch of yes people. You can't have a bunch of apprentices. You need different backgrounds, different cultures. The ability to be adaptable in 2024 means that you need to have a breadth of what your consumer base, your production base, your operational base in the room to help you think about where to go that next step. Those who only have people with like minds are usually going to run down that path until it basically blows up in their face and then wonder what happened? So, hiring and having that element of diversity, and how do you actually kind of construct a leadership team? That's where you become nimble, that's where you become adaptable. So when I think about this my favorite line that I got from a friend who was in the moving industry and we had moved our plants so many times he would call up and say I just moved that room to another room. And I stopped him mid-sentence and said change is good, you're making money, it's a good thing. But if I'm going to give credit to somebody who came up with the line. It's really a Greek philosopher, hercules. The only constant in life is change. I can't believe I'm quoting Greek philosophers now, but yes, change is good. Adaptability is based on having that kind of mentality. So when Greg and I were kicking this around, we were also talking about how do we take that one next step, how do you find a way to cultivate it?
Speaker 2:And the importance of adaptability in leadership is an article that we found on Inccom. It was from March 16th 2024. And it's an opinion from David Finkel, co-author of the Scale Seven Proven Principles to Grow your Business and Get your Life Back. It sounds like an interesting book, but from his article it was the importance of adaptability in leadership. In the ever-changing landscape of business world, adaptability has emerged as a critical trait for the effectiveness of leadership. Leaders who can navigate uncertainty, embrace change and pivot when it is necessary to be in a position of lead, those are going to be successful organizations.
Speaker 2:In this article he goes into the significance of adaptability and leadership and explores the strategies to cultivate that vital skill, and it's more of a bullet point kind of approach. So I kind of jumped down the article and went to strategies, because I think that's the key. How do you actually get that? Next, and went to strategies because I think that's the key. How do you actually get that? Next step in being an adaptive leadership team? His first point was embrace the growth mindset. Adopt a growth mindset is the first step towards becoming an adaptable leader. Believe in your ability to learn, to grow, to adapt. Encourage this mindset amongst your team as well.
Speaker 2:Stay informed this is next point To stay informed, not only with things that are happening within your organization, but industrial trends and market dynamics. The more you know, the better you can anticipate and respond to the changes. And this is my favorite, because we've talked about this almost in every other podcast Encourage open communication. Create an environment where open and honest communication is encouraged. Actively seek feedback from your team and be receptive to their ideas and their concerns. I'm going to just stop here and just say it's almost in every one of our kind of podcasts where we're talking about what's important. Trust me, communication starts and ends every one of those podcasts.
Speaker 2:Next point learn from your failures. And there's no more truer words he put into this. Cultivating adaptability than those words. Learn from your failures. Cultivating adaptability than those words. Learn from your failures. View your failures as an opportunity to grow and learn. Analyze what went wrong, adapt your approach and apply these lessons to future endeavors.
Speaker 2:When I was using this technique, I would also share failures with a broader group, like other peers, other regional directors, so that we all learn collectively that we're not learning the same error at different points in the organization. We all learn from our failures. We used to call it near misses, those near misses. You want to make sure that everybody is conscious of them so that we can minimize the hits, the problems. Anyway, to seek diverse perspectives and this is what we were talking about earlier engage with individuals who have different backgrounds, experiences and viewpoints. Diverse perspectives can provide valuable insights and change conventional thinking.
Speaker 2:Next point is set realistic goals and make sure that the goals are flexible and adaptable. Instead of a rigid long-term plan, focus on the short-term objectives so that they can be adjusted whenever circumstances change, ie to be able to adapt. The next point I think is interesting and very important Lead by example, and if you're talking about adaptability, people are looking on whether you are actually walking the walk. Demonstrate the ability in your actions and your decisions. Your team will follow your lead, so model, the behavior that you want to see from others. So, greg, why don't you wrap up this concept about adaptability for me?
Speaker 1:Thanks, John. Adaptability is not a luxury, but it's a necessity for effective leadership in today's dynamic business environment. Leaders who embrace change foster innovation, and they navigate uncertainty with resilience, and they're better positioned to lead their teams to success. By cultivating adaptability as a core leadership skill, you can thrive in an ever-evolving world and inspire your team to do the same. Remember that adaptability is not just about surviving change. It's about thriving in it. John change.
Speaker 2:It's about thriving in it. So I kind of like this last article because it's giving you strategies to try to make it part of your culture. And that's really the part to make adaptability important. You know the industries that you're in and you know the term that I learned during my MBA days. Greg and I talked about this before.
Speaker 2:Most organizations have a life cycle and if your organization is going to last for any period of time, they have products that have life cycles and then you adapt to the next product and you adapt to the next product. And if you're looking for an organization that's going to be thriving and adaptable and understands this concept, they have this magical department called research and development. And if you don't have any research and development, you better have a wonderful product that can last for 50 years and offhand. The only thing I can think of that hits that category is electricity, and I'm positive. Electricity has had to adapt to all the changes that are happening in the world how it's marketed, how it's actually produced. It's electricity. It's still 120 volts coming out of your wall socket, but it's never that simple.
Speaker 1:And I can say that with a high degree of certainty.
Speaker 2:yes, Exactly See, coming from the electrical industry. That's kind of why I tip the hand towards the electrical. It's always dynamic. If you think you got it figured out, somebody else has got another way, another fresh idea that's going to possibly change the industry, and if you're shocked by that discovery, you're not adaptable. That's the essence of why you should be listening to some of these keys to help you to make that transition and to understand its importance. That it's something that you should have in your toolbox. That is an important skill.
Speaker 2:So, if you like what you've heard during our podcast an important skill. So if you like what you've heard during our podcast, my book, Building your Leadership Toolbox now you get that toolbox reference right. Okay, my book and ebook are available at Amazon and Barnes Noble websites. The podcast is on the format that you're listening to, Thank you. It's also available in a lot of other popular formats like Apple, Google and Spotify. A lot of our work comes from Dr Durst's work on the program called Management by Responsibility and his training program, and books are available on successgrowthacademycom. If you want to get a hold of us, my email address is wando75.JW at gmailcom.
Speaker 1:And Greg. I can be reached at gpowell374 at gmailcom.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and the music is brought to you by my grandson. So, thank you, and so we want to hear from you, tell us what you think, give any suggestions that you would like to hear from us in terms of podcast material. We appreciate the input and, in closing, thanks, greg.
Speaker 1:Thanks, john, as always.
Speaker 2:Next time.