change has always fascinated me we go
through so much of it in our lives me
included my parents divorced I was
widowed in my 20s I’ve been a single
parent and my whole career has been
built around helping others deal with
change why do we respond to it
differently how can some people just
adapt what others clearly struggle let’s
face it the pace of change is not
slowing down eighty percent of the jobs
which would exist in 2025 do not exist
today the average amount of jobs in
someone’s lifetime is now six in six
different companies that’s a lot of
change and given that one third of the
UK workforce is at this moment dealing
with an anxiety well-being or mental
health issue the data suggests that were
not coping very well with what’s going
on I believe that we’re going to have to
do better at change I believe that where
we’re losing the the ability to adapt
proactively because we’re not taking the
time and attention to prepare and
develop ourselves we’re constantly
jumping from change to change acting on
impulse not acting on strategy and so
that’s why I’m on this stage today my
purpose is to help you respond to change
how you want to and be the person that
you want to be while you do it all
started with a little project to see you
know what made some people adaptable and
others not I researched into into theory
and academic literature launched a
full-scale review at work of thousands
of stories of lives and careers and
breakthroughs and insecurities naively I
thought it might be easy to begin with
but it wasn’t and my little project
became ten years worth of work but now I
can share with you a formula for success
which will help you both in work and out
but first of all let me share with you a
couple of insights during this time I
was working in Australia and I was
travelling back into every every couple
of months and I was a single parent at
the time so it required a lot of
organization and planning but also
brought with it a lot of tiredness and
guilt and on this particular trip made
my children were really struggling with
me being away this time and I was in a
meeting with my colleagues and I was
checking my phone occasionally to make
sure that they were okay and that they
didn’t need me and my colleague called
me on it and he said Jen you keep
looking at your phone are you bored
finally get really distracting you have
to stop now I’d like to say that I
responded to his request to change my
behavior you know with gratitude and
thanked him and put my phone neatly into
my bag but I didn’t I I stood up and I
raised my voice and I launched into a
justification of my behavior telling him
how only a couple of hours before I had
face time my sons and they were so upset
they were so emotional with me not being
there but they couldn’t even say my name
and if it’s okay with him I’d just like
to check that they’re okay I’m not proud
of it it’s not wasn’t my finest moment
but and isn’t always easy to respond to
change how we want to and my tiredness
and guilt it had worn down my
adaptability and I was less able to
control my response we all struggled to
adapt sometimes and quite often the
coping mechanisms that we’ve had in the
past don’t necessarily work in the
future you know as we progress into
leaders and parents and mature human
beings most of the time we need to be
even more aware of how we respond to
change so that we don’t cause ourselves
anxiety or regret because we’re just
acting incongruous ly with who we are
also we don’t unconsciously also teach
others how to struggle it reminds me of
a lady I worked with called Jane and
Jane have been recently promoted and she
was overcome by the amount of change
that this new role brought with it
her response to change was quite
aggressive and perfectionistic she liked
to control everything and you know with
this new role it just wasn’t possible
anymore the role was too big for her to
get her arms around in the same way
since she’d taken the post she’d had two
team members go off with stress she had
another two who’d just become yes-man
they’re obviously out of fear and her
peers saw her as as well inconsistent
and they just didn’t know which Jane was
going to turn up we were in the middle
of a coaching session and she just she
put her head in her hands and she said
Jen there’s just too much change we’re
gonna have to stop we’ll work on me when
all of this has died down just at the
time when she needed it most luckily she
did reverse her decision a couple of
weeks later but it brought home to me
the importance of this project of mine
because this is how we live our lives
isn’t it you know in the midst of so
much change in urgency that we respond
we react instinctively and we we react
to what’s in front of us because we have
to but we don’t take the time to prepare
ourselves in advance of the change and
you know I responded to just a
colleagues perception of my behavior
Jane responded to another change on her
plate neither response was plan they
were automatic and instinctive but they
were inconsistent with who we are and
where we want to be we can’t always
control the change that happens to us
but we can manage our response to it and
this is what I found out about how to do
that I found that those people who were
able to be adaptable who could respond
to change how they wanted they they they
had this certain adaptability and it
meant that they had certain
characteristics in common
those who struggled to adapt these
characteristics were minimal or missing
and I call it the adaptability equation
purpose inquisitiveness resilience and
threat
developing your capability in these
areas will help you to be more adaptable
let’s take purpose Winston Churchill
once said that you will never reach your
destination if you stop and throw stones
at every dog that barks he was talking
about purpose those with a strong
purpose know that that it’s actually
their purpose that will help them to
weather the storms without getting
distracted or demotivated and it helps
them to be more adaptable because it’s
their purpose that guides them to make
the right choices in the face of change
take Elon Musk as an example some people
think he’s set up an electric car
company but his purpose is to rid the
world of carbon emissions today he
chooses electric cars tomorrow it’s
solar power or the – OOP your power of
purpose is so strong why do you think
Tesla is worth more than the Ford Motor
Company even though it’s never made a
profit and do you know your purpose and
whether your everyday habits and choices
take you closer to it or further away
inquisitiveness is the inner child that
asks a hundred questions a day it
requires space and Headroom and a
certain mindset to constantly learn and
grow dr. Carol Dweck we’ll call it the
growth mindset and these people they’re
they’re able to constantly scan the
environment looking for the need to
adapt in the future this makes them more
adaptable because all the powerful
thinking and insight has happened before
the change hits them or before they
decide to make a change think about it
you know the more questions you ask the
more you learn the more you learn the
more questions you think of to ask
it’s a reinforcing cycle so think about
a problem in a different way try a new
solution ask the stupid question and
then there I found a characteristic
which involved overcoming setbacks and
reducing stress both for the individual
and for those around them and this I
call resilience it’s been proven that
the formation of a habit
is not affected by falling off the wagon
every now and then so that you know that
kq8 while you’re on your diet or that
outburst you had while you’re working on
your self-control their normal their to
be expected and it’s actually overcoming
these setbacks and learning from them
which will help you to be more adaptable
so be honest with yourselves have their
setbacks and changes that you’ve
experienced have they made you settle
for being off-course or are you still on
track to being who you want to be now
these first three characteristics had a
positive correlation with adaptability
so developing a high capability in these
areas will help you to be more adaptable
but then I found a characteristic which
had a negative correlation with
adaptability so a high level of threat
will actually hurt your adaptability
overall the aim here is to reduce it we
all have a threat response when we’re
faced with a real or perceived danger
and this can be as subtle as aggressive
body language or a different point of
view or a threat of looking stupid the
effect on the brain is the same as being
followed down a dark alley in Australia
I was in a high state of threat my
children needed me I wasn’t there for
them and my colleague while
well-intentioned was keeping me from the
only partial responsibility that I could
take which was checking my phone to be
highly adaptable you need to have a
strong awareness of your threat response
what it looks like what it feels like
what triggers it and how best to manage
it so here’s the equation adaptability
equals purpose plus inquisitiveness plus
resilience / threat to be highly
adaptable and be able to respond to
change how you want to develop your PIR
reduce your T now what’s interesting
about all these characteristics is
they’re non fixed characteristics
they’re not genetic they can be learned
and developed over time
this was quite a breakthrough for me
because I realized that all these people
had studied and worked with who are
adaptable had not just been adaptable
they had learned how to be adaptable you
see historically it was thought that the
brain was a physiologically static organ
it’s created in childhood and now we’re
just stuck with what we’ve got and while
it’s true that the brain is much more
plastic in the in the early years
plasticity happens throughout life we
just may need a little bit more focus
and persistence as we get older we are
meant to adapt but the brain is also
highly efficient and this means that it
will it will look for patterns to avoid
us having to consciously think about the
same things over and over again so just
like river flowing down a well-worn
riverbed the brain will take the easy
route encouraging us to think in the
same way react in the same way and
creating automatic thinking habits and
blind spots it’s much easier to continue
doing something we’ve always done than
it is to stop unless we know this and we
make a conscious commitment to change we
all have the capacity to learn and we
all have the capacity to learn how to
adapt we just have to start so today I
challenge you research shows it takes 66
days for a new habit on average to fall
from today that takes to just past New
Year’s Day start today to being the
person you want to be in the face of
change don’t wait for a resolution to be
someone you next year look at the
adaptability equation which areas do you
need to focus on so that you can respond
to change how you want to and be the
person that you want to be while you do
develop your PIR reduce your tea and
encourage others to do the same thank
you
you
through so much of it in our lives me
included my parents divorced I was
widowed in my 20s I’ve been a single
parent and my whole career has been
built around helping others deal with
change why do we respond to it
differently how can some people just
adapt what others clearly struggle let’s
face it the pace of change is not
slowing down eighty percent of the jobs
which would exist in 2025 do not exist
today the average amount of jobs in
someone’s lifetime is now six in six
different companies that’s a lot of
change and given that one third of the
UK workforce is at this moment dealing
with an anxiety well-being or mental
health issue the data suggests that were
not coping very well with what’s going
on I believe that we’re going to have to
do better at change I believe that where
we’re losing the the ability to adapt
proactively because we’re not taking the
time and attention to prepare and
develop ourselves we’re constantly
jumping from change to change acting on
impulse not acting on strategy and so
that’s why I’m on this stage today my
purpose is to help you respond to change
how you want to and be the person that
you want to be while you do it all
started with a little project to see you
know what made some people adaptable and
others not I researched into into theory
and academic literature launched a
full-scale review at work of thousands
of stories of lives and careers and
breakthroughs and insecurities naively I
thought it might be easy to begin with
but it wasn’t and my little project
became ten years worth of work but now I
can share with you a formula for success
which will help you both in work and out
but first of all let me share with you a
couple of insights during this time I
was working in Australia and I was
travelling back into every every couple
of months and I was a single parent at
the time so it required a lot of
organization and planning but also
brought with it a lot of tiredness and
guilt and on this particular trip made
my children were really struggling with
me being away this time and I was in a
meeting with my colleagues and I was
checking my phone occasionally to make
sure that they were okay and that they
didn’t need me and my colleague called
me on it and he said Jen you keep
looking at your phone are you bored
finally get really distracting you have
to stop now I’d like to say that I
responded to his request to change my
behavior you know with gratitude and
thanked him and put my phone neatly into
my bag but I didn’t I I stood up and I
raised my voice and I launched into a
justification of my behavior telling him
how only a couple of hours before I had
face time my sons and they were so upset
they were so emotional with me not being
there but they couldn’t even say my name
and if it’s okay with him I’d just like
to check that they’re okay I’m not proud
of it it’s not wasn’t my finest moment
but and isn’t always easy to respond to
change how we want to and my tiredness
and guilt it had worn down my
adaptability and I was less able to
control my response we all struggled to
adapt sometimes and quite often the
coping mechanisms that we’ve had in the
past don’t necessarily work in the
future you know as we progress into
leaders and parents and mature human
beings most of the time we need to be
even more aware of how we respond to
change so that we don’t cause ourselves
anxiety or regret because we’re just
acting incongruous ly with who we are
also we don’t unconsciously also teach
others how to struggle it reminds me of
a lady I worked with called Jane and
Jane have been recently promoted and she
was overcome by the amount of change
that this new role brought with it
her response to change was quite
aggressive and perfectionistic she liked
to control everything and you know with
this new role it just wasn’t possible
anymore the role was too big for her to
get her arms around in the same way
since she’d taken the post she’d had two
team members go off with stress she had
another two who’d just become yes-man
they’re obviously out of fear and her
peers saw her as as well inconsistent
and they just didn’t know which Jane was
going to turn up we were in the middle
of a coaching session and she just she
put her head in her hands and she said
Jen there’s just too much change we’re
gonna have to stop we’ll work on me when
all of this has died down just at the
time when she needed it most luckily she
did reverse her decision a couple of
weeks later but it brought home to me
the importance of this project of mine
because this is how we live our lives
isn’t it you know in the midst of so
much change in urgency that we respond
we react instinctively and we we react
to what’s in front of us because we have
to but we don’t take the time to prepare
ourselves in advance of the change and
you know I responded to just a
colleagues perception of my behavior
Jane responded to another change on her
plate neither response was plan they
were automatic and instinctive but they
were inconsistent with who we are and
where we want to be we can’t always
control the change that happens to us
but we can manage our response to it and
this is what I found out about how to do
that I found that those people who were
able to be adaptable who could respond
to change how they wanted they they they
had this certain adaptability and it
meant that they had certain
characteristics in common
those who struggled to adapt these
characteristics were minimal or missing
and I call it the adaptability equation
purpose inquisitiveness resilience and
threat
developing your capability in these
areas will help you to be more adaptable
let’s take purpose Winston Churchill
once said that you will never reach your
destination if you stop and throw stones
at every dog that barks he was talking
about purpose those with a strong
purpose know that that it’s actually
their purpose that will help them to
weather the storms without getting
distracted or demotivated and it helps
them to be more adaptable because it’s
their purpose that guides them to make
the right choices in the face of change
take Elon Musk as an example some people
think he’s set up an electric car
company but his purpose is to rid the
world of carbon emissions today he
chooses electric cars tomorrow it’s
solar power or the – OOP your power of
purpose is so strong why do you think
Tesla is worth more than the Ford Motor
Company even though it’s never made a
profit and do you know your purpose and
whether your everyday habits and choices
take you closer to it or further away
inquisitiveness is the inner child that
asks a hundred questions a day it
requires space and Headroom and a
certain mindset to constantly learn and
grow dr. Carol Dweck we’ll call it the
growth mindset and these people they’re
they’re able to constantly scan the
environment looking for the need to
adapt in the future this makes them more
adaptable because all the powerful
thinking and insight has happened before
the change hits them or before they
decide to make a change think about it
you know the more questions you ask the
more you learn the more you learn the
more questions you think of to ask
it’s a reinforcing cycle so think about
a problem in a different way try a new
solution ask the stupid question and
then there I found a characteristic
which involved overcoming setbacks and
reducing stress both for the individual
and for those around them and this I
call resilience it’s been proven that
the formation of a habit
is not affected by falling off the wagon
every now and then so that you know that
kq8 while you’re on your diet or that
outburst you had while you’re working on
your self-control their normal their to
be expected and it’s actually overcoming
these setbacks and learning from them
which will help you to be more adaptable
so be honest with yourselves have their
setbacks and changes that you’ve
experienced have they made you settle
for being off-course or are you still on
track to being who you want to be now
these first three characteristics had a
positive correlation with adaptability
so developing a high capability in these
areas will help you to be more adaptable
but then I found a characteristic which
had a negative correlation with
adaptability so a high level of threat
will actually hurt your adaptability
overall the aim here is to reduce it we
all have a threat response when we’re
faced with a real or perceived danger
and this can be as subtle as aggressive
body language or a different point of
view or a threat of looking stupid the
effect on the brain is the same as being
followed down a dark alley in Australia
I was in a high state of threat my
children needed me I wasn’t there for
them and my colleague while
well-intentioned was keeping me from the
only partial responsibility that I could
take which was checking my phone to be
highly adaptable you need to have a
strong awareness of your threat response
what it looks like what it feels like
what triggers it and how best to manage
it so here’s the equation adaptability
equals purpose plus inquisitiveness plus
resilience / threat to be highly
adaptable and be able to respond to
change how you want to develop your PIR
reduce your T now what’s interesting
about all these characteristics is
they’re non fixed characteristics
they’re not genetic they can be learned
and developed over time
this was quite a breakthrough for me
because I realized that all these people
had studied and worked with who are
adaptable had not just been adaptable
they had learned how to be adaptable you
see historically it was thought that the
brain was a physiologically static organ
it’s created in childhood and now we’re
just stuck with what we’ve got and while
it’s true that the brain is much more
plastic in the in the early years
plasticity happens throughout life we
just may need a little bit more focus
and persistence as we get older we are
meant to adapt but the brain is also
highly efficient and this means that it
will it will look for patterns to avoid
us having to consciously think about the
same things over and over again so just
like river flowing down a well-worn
riverbed the brain will take the easy
route encouraging us to think in the
same way react in the same way and
creating automatic thinking habits and
blind spots it’s much easier to continue
doing something we’ve always done than
it is to stop unless we know this and we
make a conscious commitment to change we
all have the capacity to learn and we
all have the capacity to learn how to
adapt we just have to start so today I
challenge you research shows it takes 66
days for a new habit on average to fall
from today that takes to just past New
Year’s Day start today to being the
person you want to be in the face of
change don’t wait for a resolution to be
someone you next year look at the
adaptability equation which areas do you
need to focus on so that you can respond
to change how you want to and be the
person that you want to be while you do
develop your PIR reduce your tea and
encourage others to do the same thank
you
you
Please follow and like us: