Adapt or Get Left Behind: Why Adaptability Is the Skill of the Future with Ross Thornley | EP35

[00:00:09] Hi everyone, welcome to the Talent Revolution Tales from the Trenches. I'm Joe Shambaugh. And I'm Jill Caniglio-Kirk. Joe, we talk constantly on our podcast about finding the right talent, hiring for the right skills, and preparing leaders for the future. But what if one of the most important traits we're looking for isn't really a technical skill at all? Have you thought about that? I have, and that's a great topic and thanks for the lead in, Joe. Let's talk about adaptability.

[00:00:37] And whether it might actually be one of the best predictors of who succeeds in the world, but when the world gets turned upside down, we have to go figure this out. And today we are joined by a special guest, Ross Thornley. Ross, welcome to the show. Great to be here. Thanks, Joe and Jill. Looking forward to it.

[00:00:57] And for everyone that doesn't know Ross, Ross is the co-founder and CEO of 8QAI, an entrepreneur, author, keynote speaker, and a pioneer in science of adaptability intelligence. Ross has spent years working along what it takes for people, leaders, and organizations to navigate constant change and how adaptability can be measured, developed, and strengthened.

[00:01:23] As AI and technology continues to reshape the workplace, Ross brings a fascinating perspective on why adaptability may be one of the most important capabilities in the future of work. Again, Ross, thank you for joining us. And please, if there's anything else you'd like to add about your background for our listeners. I think you've hit on the things that are relevant for here. The only piece I'd suggest us thinking about is often people talk about, oh, the future of work.

[00:01:53] Well, actually, that vision of it is now, right? We're in that moment of what we perhaps had previously thought was the future. So true, Ross. And things are moving at an exponential pace and the world is changing as we speak literally.

[00:02:13] The most basic question I have, and I would like to start with the basics is, can you really talk to us about your definition of adaptability and why is that so important today in today's world of work? Yeah, so I think our kind of definition of not just adaptability, but adaptability intelligence. So adaptability intelligence is kind of the measurement of how adaptable somebody is. And we do that kind of through three core areas, our abilities.

[00:02:40] People are familiar with skills. So we have certain adaptability skills, characteristics, how we show up and why we might change. And then importantly, the environmental factors. So we might have certain skills, might have certain characteristics, but the environment that we sit in makes a difference to our own adaptability and that of others.

[00:03:01] So that's what I mean about what we're measuring. And we're measuring both behaviors, actions of people, organizations that how do we respond to uncertainty, information and change circumstances. Yeah. And to me, listening to you talk about that definition, I had some aha moments myself thinking about working in a business that has exponentially changed over time and how difficult it can be for some employees to really adapt with that change.

[00:03:31] Right. So I think having this measurement and ability to assess people's, I guess, part of its willingness and part of its capability to adapt. Right. I think there's there's different elements with do you want to. Right. And then how can you once you, I guess, mentally decide you want to adapt? Yeah. And is the environment helping or hindering that? Right. So we might want to. We might have the skills, but the environment actually is the friction.

[00:03:58] So it's an interesting dynamic when you geek out in the detail. So is somebody born with adaptability? Well, I think that's a endless conversation, right, about humans of nature versus nurture. Is it part of our DNA is happiness, something that is born with or is it environmental? I think for adaptability, if we think about fundamentally, what is life?

[00:04:25] What is being alive? Being alive is to be able to respond and fit into situations that we find ourselves, either that we choose or chosen for us. So inherently, we are adaptable creatures. What happens, I think, over time is a bit like curiosity. We reach peak curiosity at about age five. So a lot of the researchers talk about. So it's not about how do we help people to become more curious?

[00:04:52] Actually, we need to stop the systems that bash our curiosity out of us as we go through life. So I think adaptability, we might find ourselves 100% addicted to the habits that we have, but those habits might no longer be useful for the outcomes we're trying to achieve. We are, what is that, the creatures of habit. So I totally agree with that. I think everybody is to a certain point.

[00:05:19] So then is there certain behaviors that you can see in people that are highly adaptable? Yeah, I think there is. It comes back to my point about curiosity. And it's easy to be curious when you're five years old, when everything's brand new, right? And you're looking around and going, oh, what's this? What's that? Can I draw on the walls? Can I put this in my mouth? All of these different things that we do, right?

[00:05:44] And then society, structure and various things put regulation, governance, rules, performance, expectations around it. And as we get older and we start to lead others, how do we show up around adaptability? I think shifts and changes from what we've seen of when I feel safe, maybe I'm in a fun area.

[00:06:09] I might be more curious than when I'm under a ton of pressure, is uncomfortable and I'm uncertain. Do I still proceed with curiosity or do I proceed with this is what I've done before? And I fall back to perhaps some old habits, some old things that pressure's on so I can't try something new. Pressure's on, my boss expects this so I won't go and have a little look over there because I've got to deliver against there.

[00:06:34] So I think one trait that I see is curiosity that survives discomfort. And the second one, kind of a little bit linked, is unlearning. It's one of our sub-dimensions we measure and that's the ability not to forget, but intentionally shift our behavior or decisions based on new information. So if we think practically as an HR professional, how do I hire for adaptability?

[00:07:02] What might be some things I'm looking for if I really want to bring people who are adaptable into my organization? So I think what's happened before in the past is we will look in hiring in a few ways, right? We'll look at CVs. We'll look at these things, match it to a job description. We'll look at experience. We'll have interviews. We'll then go through those phases and processes. And often things will show up about adaptability.

[00:07:31] People will ask questions of, tell me a time when something went wrong and how did you deal with it? Did they defend their actions? Do they try and say, oh, it was the system and I was trying to change the system. It was somebody else. Was it me? All of these things start to uncover how somebody behaves and how their adaptability shows up. Now, it's got to be contextual. If the role that you're hiring for is going to be the same in two years' time or five years' time,

[00:08:01] then how adaptable they need to be might be tempered. If the role asks or expectations are going to shift in a year's time, two years' time, then adaptability is way more important. So we can now shift from a few questions and what have you done before or a few experiments to, we can measure it, right? We can measure someone's AQ. What we need to understand is that their AQ will shift based on their environment.

[00:08:28] So when somebody comes in, we had, for an example, a client that was taking in lots of new interns, hundreds of interns, and a lot of them were leaving within a year. They were highly adaptable people, but the system they were coming into wasn't adapting. And so there was a mismatch of both the expectations of, ah, can the organization also adapt? So I think it's twofold. We don't just think, ah, I need to adapt, employ, and look for highly adaptable people.

[00:08:57] I need to be able to give them an environment in which highly adaptable people can perform. So then if you step a back step on that, how do you set that up with the hiring leader to know, is this job and role need to be adaptable to then find a candidate that fits that? I guess, you know, let's start with the worm before we go fishing. It is. And I think it comes perhaps even further back into the organizational design

[00:09:25] and the strategy that the organization is operating in. And that shifts slightly from industry to industry of the pressure and pace. Jill, you mentioned about, oh, we're living in exponential times, right? Technology shifting. We're getting, you know, breakthroughs with new frontier models, solving previously unsolvable mathematical problems.

[00:09:50] You know, we've just seen that from Astra 6 solving a very complex problem around fluid dynamics that has never been solved before. And this situation of organization of, do we even see adaptability of our organization being important or not? If they're not even seeing that, they won't even put it in the agenda of thought for hiring, right?

[00:10:14] Hiring is a downstream of the industry and strategic objectives that they're trying to operate within. So my opinion on this is all organizations should be highly adaptable. In the space environment that we're in right now, where there's more uncertainty than there is certainty,

[00:10:38] we need to be able to prepare better for foresight, for experimentation than we are leaning towards things that are productivity and efficiency. And we're managing something that was done before. That's gone in most industries, in most roles, or at least it will be within the next five years. So I think if the leaders aren't already thinking about this, you need to ask your questions of, are they the right leaders?

[00:11:09] Yeah, if we go back to your example of the students being hired and the environment, can you maybe just paint a picture for some of our listeners about what would constitute an environment where adaptable people thrive? Where they thrive. So we've got kind of five pillars in our environment section that constitute highly adaptable environments. So many of your listeners are probably familiar with the concept of psychological safety.

[00:11:37] We attribute that to team support. So if I have an adaptation, i.e. a different opinion, a different thought, a different method for achieving something, is that, oh, I can appreciate it. I can appreciate you have a different opinion, Jill. Cool. Do I embrace it? Can I actually do a duality? So the paradox that, oh, Jill's got an opinion. So is Joe. Well, one's going to be better than the other. One's going to get the budget. Or do we back them both?

[00:12:08] So does the environment, okay, we might appreciate it. Can we have the system set up to actually embrace multiple? And then whether they work or not, are we incentivizing and are we linking our targets or outcomes to the result being right or to the behavior of experimenting and learning being right?

[00:12:29] So I think an environment that encourages highly adaptable people is one where, oh, we talk about, you know, fail fast or learn fast or those sorts of things. But to truly embrace the dualities, to shift from a, oh, I feel safe to we actively celebrate and share different things. That's one piece. Another one very quickly is about stress.

[00:12:55] Stress and stress shows up in a whole host of ways, right, for all of us in life, from health stresses, family stresses, all sorts of things. And we're multifaceted. But in a work context, what we look at is task overwhelm. So if you think about on a continuum, on a spectrum, no stress, no task overwhelm, why adapt? No real pressure to. So much. I am so overwhelmed. I have no capacity to adapt.

[00:13:25] All I'm doing is I'm just trying to make sure I keep going. The car's running at 100 mile an hour and you're asking me to change the wheels and change the tires and do this sort of thing. I'm just so overwhelmed. So there's this great space called eustress, eustress, where there's just enough to say, yes, we want something to change. You, system, processes, but not too much that you haven't got the capacity to do so. So those are two parts, psychological safety and work stress.

[00:13:53] There's other parts then around processes and structures that are the systems, the culture. So we might have a classic example is when organizations are in highly regulated industries, finance, health care. And they say, oh, I'd be way more adaptable if we weren't in this, in this regulatory framework, because we can't do that because of this.

[00:14:18] Well, how might you find ways to be adaptable inside those frameworks? And in fact, some of those triggers, a shift in regulation or governance are exactly what drives adaptability and a shift in change around regulatory changes. And equally, that regulation needs to shift. It needs to change.

[00:14:42] We saw that with the pandemic where telemedicine or the timescales to bring out new things, they had to change some regulations for that. Now, where did that come from? The unreasonable requirement. So an environment that promotes unreasonable requirements without breaking the system, I think is how I would surmise that.

[00:15:08] Is there a difference with adaptability with where a company is in its journey, whether a startup versus an established to a small versus large? I think there's a difference in, A, how it shows up, the implications of that adaptability. So one is, yes, how long that organization has been around, for example, from startup to very mature, to which industry they're in, to what are they actually trying to achieve?

[00:15:38] One of the other characteristics that we look at is around regulatory focus theory and which shows up under motivation style. So this is about, do I play not to lose, play to protect, or do I play to win? So, for example, Jill might be in an organization that has a lot of things that they want to hold on to. Customers, reputation, revenue, all of these things. Now, there might be some pressure about, I've got to protect that.

[00:16:06] In another division in that same organization, they might be about Horizon 3 breakthroughs. So they've got a bit of sandbox, got a bit of area of, oh, we need to win. What is the new thing we're going to gain? New geography, new territory, new proposition. Even within that large organization, adaptability will show up in a few different ways. Protect what we have, build what's next, and you'll get friction in the middle. In a startup, there's that very nature.

[00:16:34] There's not much to protect, right? So it's all in game. So if you've got people that are in there from a protection basis of, oh, play not to lose, it can be very challenging in the adaptation process. So one is situational and context. And the other then is driven often by the leadership team and by we're going that way because that's where I see more value, more opportunity, listening to customers. What do they need?

[00:17:02] And I think the real challenge where we had time to do this, go out and ask customers and clients, what would you like? You know, what would be good? Then spend a bit of time working on it. Then a few focus groups. We're at the point where even these frontier models, they're going to be doing daily releases in the next few years, not annual, monthly, quarterly, daily releases of breakthrough models because the way they've been developed, that they're learning off themselves.

[00:17:31] So I think the reality for organizations of, yes, it makes a difference where you are in your life cycle between thriving and collapsing. And there's two other stages I talk about in my book of the four cycles of adaptation. And I think the larger the organization, the more they need to operate a game of twister with left hand red dot that is thriving and looking to protect, you know, left foot over

[00:17:59] on the blue dot, you know, back behind them, looking at how do we disrupt ourselves and a few other things in the middle and know that it's going to be messy. It's going to be difficult. And in that uncertainty, we need to face it with smiles, not with, you know, scared rabbit in headlights or deer in headlights. If you were going to give advice to hiring leaders when they're evaluating candidates,

[00:18:27] can you talk about maybe some of the pitfalls they want to avoid when, you know, they're bringing new talent to the organization if they're looking for adaptability? So there's always been a challenge with any psychometrics about using it in hiring, right? The challenge of all discernment and judgment and part of process. Now we have our AQME assessment. It's used predominantly in development and leadership development.

[00:18:54] And we encourage people to, you know, from a recruitment perspective, the fact that the environment makes a difference is going to skew their adaptability anyway. So the advice that I would give to them in the first instance is to be fluid around what you're actually recruiting for, let alone the person.

[00:19:18] So traditionally, and I've worked a lot with some very large institutions that have their mandates, you know, a lot of different agencies in the United Nations, for example, they'll have their set title with all their job roles, all their job descriptions and the collection of tasks that are in there and responsibilities. And my concern is forget what the talent is you're looking for.

[00:19:42] I think you need to shift the role and the definition of what we think of as employment. And that I think is the biggest challenge for talent at the moment is it's easy if it's this role with these technical skills, with a bit this over here at the side of communication and some soft skills and this thing, adaptability. Whereas if we have, I talk about it in one of my first books of a broad aspect of somebody that

[00:20:12] has the breathing skills to learn continuously rather than apply a skill set they've acquired currently. And I think that's the biggest shift of experience versus the ability to learn continually. So that would be my advice of hiring is find people who have the tenacity, the hunger and

[00:20:40] the baseline core skills to continually evolve and learn and adapt, knowing that those roles are going to shift. Now we just need to instill that into the hiring manager's brain. So, you know, that's an adaptation challenge in itself, right? Yes, it is. Speaking from the TA side, but Ross, no conversation would be any conversation these days with, without the words AI into the conversation.

[00:21:09] You know, where do you see AI taking this adaptability and being adaptable with the AI workforce? So AI capability inside of everything and the whole changing of it, you know. I think if we look at any technology as inert until we give it a purpose. And as we find out more about a given technology, we apply it in different areas.

[00:21:36] If we think about the early mobile phones, I can now make a phone without a cord. I might have been in my car as a big blocky thing. And then, you know, with a backpack and, oh, now I can send text messages or now I can do this. And now I can run my life on a phone, right? From every component of interfacing from calls to videos, to photos, to film, to banking, to all sorts of areas.

[00:22:03] If we think about AI in the context of, oh, organizations are coming in and they're spending a ton of money on licenses, on the technology and IT departments doing this stuff. And everywhere we've seen the major blocker is people, not technology. And this challenge between fear, got to protect my value, protect what I know, what I provide,

[00:22:31] that I belong here, that I can contribute to. I'm uncertain. Oh, is it going to do this? Oh, I've seen this here where there's a risk, a data leak, compliance issues. And so we're in this kind of mash of heavy investment, but with people not really ready to be able to fully utilize that.

[00:22:54] Imagine giving the iPhone 17 to somebody who's only ever known a phone that makes a phone call to speak to somebody and say, go. AI is like that. We're saying, oh, let's go with it. And we haven't even got a hedge round all of these things that it can do. So I think AI is going to completely transform, not just not going to. It has and it is. It's just not evenly distributed yet.

[00:23:23] So that is the challenge of that distribution is going to be sudden. And it is going to be unforgiving. So the ethical and human side to make sure people aren't left behind, I think, is the biggest challenge. And the technology isn't going to be the limiter. It's going to be our human's ability to adapt to it is. And those that can't will be left behind, unfortunately.

[00:23:53] And so the sooner we get aware of that, the more we can then start to be humane around the decision making and judgments of those things. So what human skills will be more important in an AI environment in the workplace in the future? I think that is a really, really good question. And I think it will be one more of choice than a hierarchy of, oh, this skill can't be done by some form of technology.

[00:24:23] I believe that in my lifetime, all of the things that we currently hold as a human thing can be replicated in some form of technology, either in silica, you know, in a virtual world or in a physical world. From relationships to love to every mechanical function to every intellectual function.

[00:24:51] And so this shift where knowledge workers are suddenly being displaced, you know, physical workers were displaced by another physical worker from another region in the world. Knowledge work has then been outsourced. Now we're going to be outsourcing it from a human to human to a human to a machine. We did that with some SaaS. We did that with some technologies, but it was still functioned with a human in there. SaaS will now go to sort of this result as a service rather than software as a service.

[00:25:20] You know, we're getting the outcome as a service. Agents that are performing the actual outcome, not, you know, helping someone do it. Same in physical when we have rapid deployment of humanoid robotics. So AI that has impacted every element. I come back to this breakthrough just a couple of weeks ago around something that was previously unsolvable. Now for maths nerds, that's a massive deal. For everybody else, it's like, oh, what does that mean? It solved this.

[00:25:49] When it then shifts how we design submarines, how we deal with aeronautics, how we not, oh, can I create a black hole in a coffee cup by stirring the liquid? Theoretically, yes. In reality, that doesn't make much sense. So I think the impacts of going to make job roles obsolete, absolutely going to make tasks obsolete. That is happening first.

[00:26:14] So the shift back for, ah, it's not necessarily this collection of tasks makes this job role and that's the title. And therefore that title is the identity I wear underneath my badge. I'm Ross Storley. I'm an accountant. You know, I'm Joe. I'm a talent person, whatever it might be. Is that those skills that remain will be only a choice that I would rather have it from a human because that's my choice.

[00:26:42] Rather than, oh, the skill is only human because it's communication or empathy or these sorts of things, I truly believe that there will be no skills that are only human. It'll be just choosing to have it done by a human. Same way I choose Jill versus Joe, both humans. Good choice, Ross. Well, keeping the future thing going, Ross, what do you think you're going to be a recruiter in the future or any of us?

[00:27:11] What might you be evaluating in the future that you're not evaluating now and looking at candidates? Imagination, judgment, discernment. So if we're orchestrating currently this messy thing called a human that when they get together as teams, they do wonderful and awful things that are difficult to manage and wonderful to observe, all of the complexities of that, we're then putting into that orchestra that we're trying to then manage these AI agents that are going to go and do stuff.

[00:27:40] They'll then create their own chat rooms, have their own conversations with each other and sometimes with a human in the middle. The future element will be to orchestrate that multi, let's call it species workforce, because we had a multi-species at the moment of a robot that moves of an arm to do something or a combine harvester that does something. Some of that automated, some with a human.

[00:28:04] That we will have a multi-species workforce that can they judge performance, who's right to do a certain role and job from a Joe to a Jill to somebody else, from this agent to this agent, from that collection of people to this. So an orchestration of judgment and discernment. And then imagination. I wrote about we're entering into the imagination economy. We're shifting from the knowledge economy.

[00:28:33] So I think the next phase will be truly around imagination, that if we can imagine it, we'll get close to being able to make it real. In silico, you know, in digital version or in physical form. So one thing on my mind is, are the leaders of today ready for tomorrow? And where are they at in this journey? When have we ever been ready for tomorrow?

[00:29:00] There's a small proportion of people who actually live in that tomorrow. They're never really present, right? They're always in the tomorrow. And there's advantages and disadvantages in that. And there's people who are always in the past, in the nostalgia of, oh, it was much better. Insert a period of time. The good old days. The good old days. Absolutely.

[00:29:23] And, you know, we meander through those either in a daily basis from, oh, that's exciting to, oh, wish it was like it was before to, oh, I'm dead happy with where I am because I'm right present in my moment, whether that's with a family or I've contributed in some way or I feel a sense of love or belonging. So I think, are we ready for tomorrow? No.

[00:29:52] Tomorrow meant just a small tweak on yesterday before. Tomorrow now is a paradigm shift. Every tomorrow. So I really feel the requirement for connection, for a care for humans to feel a sense of belonging when it's going to be disrupted of our ability to contribute and be valued.

[00:30:20] And therefore, how we show up in societies and communities, I think is what will help us get the bridge to not just tomorrow, but the repeated tomorrows that are so different than the today's or yesterday's. And that is only, I feel, through a connection with each other as a community. I want to quickly go back to one thing you mentioned at the start, and that was unlearning.

[00:30:50] So what does it need for a leader to actually unlearn and how can they do that? So we do it all the time. Some unconsciously, the difference is intentional and consciously. So we can unlearn something when it no longer works. That's the easy one, right? If, ah, that's no longer working, I stopped doing it. That's a form of unlearning. The tricky ones are the messy in the middle where it works sometimes. All right.

[00:31:16] So let's say I use face-to-face sales call, you know, Zoom to get my sales. And I'm converting 20% of the time. There's still a little applause there. So my unlearning is hard because I get a little hit of success along the way. Around the corner, there might be stop doing it via Zoom and do it with an AI avatar of you. And you get five out of 10, but I still got two and that sounds scary and it's not there.

[00:31:46] So I'll never stop doing what I am because I'm getting a little bit of an applause. So that one's tricky. And then the unlearning of I'm actually getting five out of 10 or 10 out of 10, but I foresee that in one day's time, in a month's time, in a year's time, I'll only be getting one out of 10. So I need to change it now. So unlearning has a shift of when do I need to unlearn it?

[00:32:13] What's the consequences of unlearning it early or late? And what is the pain, the pain of unlearning that piece? Now, this is a challenge of one that I've decided to unlearn it or everyone around me requires me to unlearn it. Oh, I'm stuck in that ERP. I'm stuck in that software. I don't want that other new one. I'm stuck in this process because I've learned it. I know it.

[00:32:38] I have expertise and experience in this, that new software, that new process. That's all new. I don't like it. I did it for an hour. So I'll go back to my old piece. So the unlearning is uncomfortable. It's painful. And the challenge when we have revered expertise and knowledge, I've got the T-shirt, I've got the scars and a leader is one that has knowledge and the answers to something.

[00:33:08] The leader of the future is the one that can run experiments in uncertainty and not have the answers and be okay with that. So I think that's a big shift and unlearning is a huge component of it. And I think one of the biggest blockers for people to realize a tomorrow that they like versus a tomorrow that they fear and a tomorrow that they hate. We get pushed a lot. And at least in my world, we get pushed. How do we find more?

[00:33:37] How do we find different? We need more candidates. We need more things. So you're starting to, it's a little bit of unlearning, but it's also pushing that adaptability into a new realm of more, more, more different, different. It's why we're seeing more about internal mobility being massively important rather than, ah, when organizations are making these mass redundancies, what that is, is a declaration

[00:34:02] that they were unable to reskill and make and adapt them to the value they need for tomorrow. And so that failure is showing up as redundancies. We need to make tasks redundant, not people redundant, but the speed at which we can make them valuable again and the cost to do so, we haven't figured it out yet. And I think that's the real challenge.

[00:34:27] So internal mobility that, oh, we had an organization that had somebody who was incredibly successful, been 16 years in a department, absolutely great. And everybody went like this. He got all the projects, got all the stuff because he was good at it, good at what he did, but he was utterly miserable. And the reality that when they saw their ATV profile and their leaders saw it, it opened

[00:34:52] up an entirely different thought process that was previously blocked because they were in with the blinkers on. They're now in an entirely new area, new division, thriving, that was never something that was the logical career path for that individual. But because they saw this profile and these skills and a conversation then happened, it opened an opportunity that was previously unseen. And that I think is to your point of, oh, we always need different, need more.

[00:35:22] It's probably lurking in a corner where you didn't realize it's already lurking. I'm sure we have a listener out there that's like, I'm pretty complacent. I'm pretty happy where I'm at. I've been in my job and my company for a long time. How do I stay adaptable? You know, what career advice would you have for that individual who might be saying, am I adaptable? I've met a lot of them and I'm sure we all have. And the sentence of horse order comes to mind, right, of these things.

[00:35:52] We still need the pressure of that individual aligned to their own outcomes that they're looking for to be on the line. So if I'm complacent and comfortable, there is no reason to adapt. If I then suddenly see something I'd like and I don't have the required insert, whatever that is, resources, skills, position, influence, whatever it is, that might shift me to have

[00:36:21] that conversation, do that learning, have that course, apply for this, whatever it might be. Or if I see the writing on the wall and I still want to contribute, i.e. I'm not going out to then, okay, succession, I've done my bit. I'm okay with that. I'm just eking it out till the end and then I'll play my golf, play my paddle, do whatever it might be, spend time with the grandchildren. That's cool. That's fine.

[00:36:46] If that's your thing, do it within humanity with, you know, communication about it. No surprises. We're all grownups. It doesn't have to be painful, awkward and, you know, difficult in that period. If it's then something, no, I'm not at that phase, but I'm complacent. Is it then, ah, play to protect, I might lose my role. I might lose my position, my influence, the respect I have from others around me, from

[00:37:16] my family, from whatever it is. I need to pull my socks up. I need to go and shift and do something. You know, is the juice worth the squeeze? So we need to have something that is juicy in their eyes for the squeeze, squeeze meaning adaption, to take place. Otherwise, they just languish in limbo land. And that in a linear change world was okay. The consequences and risks were minimal.

[00:37:46] In an exponential world, they won't be minimal. It will be a slap and it will be a slap that people won't want and don't like. And then they'll be forced to adapt in some way. You know, same with our health, right? At work, how many of us know what healthy lifestyle is? Sleeping, eating, exercise, all of those things. How many of us do it? Very few. How many do it? Then when we get a diagnosis, that shifts the change.

[00:38:16] In work, sometimes the diagnosis is you're no longer valuable. So the biggest gift sometimes can be that. But done in a humane way is the biggest challenge right now in an ethical way. Thinking about companies and how they approach talent, what could you suggest for the HR person,

[00:38:41] the TA person, and even the hiring leader, what could be something that how companies approach talent, what could change? Many organizations we speak to are shifting. Oh, we need to be a skills-based organization. And we have to understand things. In order to know where you are, you need to have an inventory. You need to know what stock you've got in the stock room. You need to know what cash you've got in the bank to write the checks for what you're trying to do tomorrow. Same with your talent.

[00:39:07] Now, whether that's already internal or what is in your pool for what's coming next, you will have data on them. Loads of data, right? People analytics data, you know, from sickness to performance to skills to all of these sorts of things. What's missing in a lot of that is their adaptability profile. So the thing that they can do is get that adaptability profile, and it's not a label. Oh, I am a this and that's it. To your very first question, are we born adaptable or not?

[00:39:37] That's our current profile and current skill set. What we do with that is then important. So in the same way you would do a stock check and you check your balance in your accounts, you need to do an adaptability check of your current workforce and of the workforce that's incoming of the pool. From there, you can then look at the adaptability gap. Gap between what is current? Oh, do we need high grit or not in this role?

[00:40:07] Do we need high mental flexibility or not? Where's our resilience level? Have we depleted that? What's our level of team support? Once we know those things and we're trying to achieve this, insert, you know, expansion in a particular region, proposition, holding on to these top clients, whatever it might be for an organization. We can then go, ah, these are the interventions I need. The other piece that it gives is an upstream indicator of what might be too late symptoms afterwards.

[00:40:35] So a health symptom could be someone has a heart attack. Prior to that, we would have seen shortness of breath. We would have seen countless other indicators. And if we'd have looked through an MRI or a blood test or things, we would have seen something that might have prevented it. AQ and the assessment helps us prevent things that come further down the line, i.e. redundancy. Well, if we knew earlier, we could deal with that.

[00:41:03] Burnout, disengagement, all of those things are symptoms later down the line because we didn't understand the adaptability profile and put in the systems in place in order to maintain continual value, continual fit in the environment that they're in. Yeah, Russ, for anyone listening who's interested in your adaptability profile, can you answer how they can connect with you or connect to the resources? So aqai.io.

[00:41:29] So we actually did the assessment via conversational AI before AI was sort of mainstream. So in 2018, we launched the assessment via a conversational AI. So yeah, check out that website. I'm on LinkedIn, Ross Thornley on LinkedIn. Reach out to me. I've got countless books out there. Decoding AQ is kind of the pinnacle book of the science of adaptability. So a whole host of ways.

[00:41:55] If they're curious and it's piqued their interest, just check out aqai.io. Fantastic. Any final thoughts, comments that you'd like to share, Ross, to the listeners out there? A lot of this can put pressure and anxiety on people of, oh, I've got to adapt. I've got to do all of these sorts of things. If we think about breathing, we breathe all the time. It's life. When we stop breathing, we're dead.

[00:42:24] But we breathe differently based on the requirement and context. So how I'll breathe before or after certain events, a run for the bus or a really bad phone call with somebody or call or a really good one. We will breathe differently because our body requires that. If we're about to prepare for something that's uncertain, some deep breaths really help. Same with our adaptability is to realize that it's like breath.

[00:42:52] There are moments when actually slowing down and just not adapting just for a moment is exactly the right thing to do. And so for me, the intelligence is knowing when to use it and how much to dial up and down between you, those around you, the environment and systems, which is it that is going to be valuable. And so therefore, going into some neutral and a lot of this is about personal coherence,

[00:43:21] you know, being in a sense of presence of being able to unlearn. If we're in cortisol, high stress, we've impaired our cognitive ability to learn, let alone unlearn, let alone critically think, all of these other things. It starts with sometimes just take a moment.

[00:43:46] And so if I can encourage anybody under this entirely wonderful and exasperating and challenging time that we're living in, the best time and the worst time, the duality of these things, take a moment, take a breath. You've got this. So those of those around you with intentionality, we can show up for somebody else in a great way to ensure that we can make sure no one's left behind.

[00:44:17] Well, Ross, thank you. I certainly enjoyed this conversation. You gave me so much to think about and the whole unlearning concept. There's a few things that popped into my mind there. So I'm sure a lot of our listeners are walking away with some mental notes. But thanks again for joining us today and for this great conversation. Joe, you have any closing words? That was inspiring and definitely a lot to think of. And I need to check out AQAI.io. So really appreciate joining us. Thank you, everyone, for listening.

[00:44:47] Again, don't forget to like, share and comment. And we'll see you next time. Thanks again. Thanks, Jay. Thanks, Joe.