How To Improve Your Adaptability Skills in the Workplace?

Adaptability skills are key to thriving in any workspace. This holds true irrespective of your job description. In fact, your ability to adapt to a new work environment is vital to your success within it!

Consider this: as humans, we are constantly changing and evolving. We adapt to the circumstances that befall us. An understanding of our every day realities allows us to abide by and anticipate any possible impediments, and navigate them successfully.

Change is the Only Constant

The world is governed by chance. And we are equipped to adapt to it. Seasons change, and with it change clothes, food habits, and activities. When we can anticipate these changes, we can prepare for them accordingly. Only a fool wears a fur coat in the desert, and lemonades replace piping hot ‘cuppa’s come the summer.

Your work environment is no different. Change is inevitable when it comes to industry trends, new technologies, consumer tastes, marketing strategies, etc. This is also true for persons at the workplace. A late night of revelry with the mates might mean that your work colleague is irritable or unproductive. Or maybe he just smells funny. But you have to adapt to unexpected changes in circumstances and deliver despite them.

Only the fittest survive! So, the quicker you adapt to your workplace, the greater your chances of surviving and being successful.

Here are some useful tips to help you improve your adaptability skills in the workplace:

1. Be an Active Listener

This is an important aspect of adaptability. In any workspace, it is important to pay attention to the communications of your colleagues. Active listening is the ability to entirely focus on the speaker, in order to truly understand what they say. This allows you to respond to them in a thoughtful manner.

Active listening skills will allow you to retain information better. This makes it easier for you to recall it later and apply it effectively, all without seeking a repeat of previously issued instructions.

Also, you will be appreciated for your ability to receive instructions and execute them at once. Furthermore, your ability to listen carefully and respond thoughtfully will make your colleagues appreciate you more. They will recognize that their words have value, at least when spoken to you.

Active Listening also promotes trust between you and your colleagues, but also within the workplace in general. It will help you better identify if anybody is facing any challenges in the workplace or any problems within a particular project. Your ability to listen will help spot those issues, making it easier to find a solution for them.

2. A Flexible Mind

A flexible mind has the ability to think flexibly, act flexibly, and feel flexible.

In any workplace, it is important to consider, devise and apply different strategies. A nimble mind is capable of considering a task from a variety of viewpoints. It can then find solutions to realize or resolve it in a variety of ways.

A job or project involves a multitude of persons, each bringing with them a diverse skill set. A flexible mind also makes it easier to approach and explain tasks to your colleagues in a manner best suited for them. While some might require you to paint the entire picture, others will need you to provide some context. Some others will still need clear instructions to follow a task to the letter. Your mental flexibility in such cases will support you immensely.

3. Emotional Flexibility

Emotional Flexibility is another important aspect that you should possess. A workplace is built of persons, and persons are idiosyncratic. A work environment is a delicate ecosystem, one often disturbed by circumstance. Grief, stress, and anxiety often enter workspaces, and having the emotive sensitivity to adapt your methodology to them is an important skill.

An emotionally flexible mind is also disposed to maintaining optimism grounded in reality. One may encounter impediments to success, or to the successful realization of a task. It is important to acknowledge a roadblock and remain calm in the face of it. Only then can you find a way around it.

4. An Inquisitive Mind

“Curiosity killed the cat” is quite a popular maxim we’ve been hearing for ages. Now we don’t know this person, and why they might have been inclined to kill a harmless feline. In any case, let’s separate curiosity from inquisitiveness!

An inquisitive mind is an asset, both to you and to your workplace. It is important to ask the right questions in the office, and an inquisitive mind will have a lot of them. But they all come from a place of conscious, considered thought. Thus, the questions you ask should explore the unexplained or the unknown in the workspace. Also, inquisitiveness will ensure that no cats are killed in the process.

It is important to have questions and to have them answered. It gives you more information to consider, and it will allow you to make better decisions. It will also allow you to understand ancillary and incidental aspects of your own work, and inform Big Picture understanding.

This will give you the chance to anticipate any issues, have a greater context to resolve them, and even develop alternative plans and solutions to keep them handy just in case things go awry.

Most importantly, it will make your work experience more immersive and engaging.

5. Push Yourself

Don’t get comfortable! A workplace is a dynamic environment. You will not survive, let alone thrive if you get comfortable. Remember that it is natural to enjoy a state of stasis. It is coded into our DNA! So train the mind to expand your comfort zone, rather than placing you in uncomfortable situations.

A simple way to do this is to introduce incidental changes. Add something to your pre-work rituals. Go for a jog, even if the distance is short. This way, you create a context that you can comfortably handle. If you run already, run a little further. Pushing yourself beyond your perceived limits in a space where nothing is at stake will inspire confidence that you can carry to work.

If nothing else, challenging your limits will help you develop the ability to execute your work much more efficiently. It might also inspire the confidence to finally pitch that idea you’ve been working on. Pushing yourself in this way will make you understand the importance of the process rather than worry about the outcome.

6. Humility

Do you want to adapt to your workplace better? Then keep your ego in check.

In its purest form, ego is just another word for self-love. A balanced ego is an asset to any workplace. An unbalanced ego is a menace.

An important hallmark of a balanced ego is humility. It is important to remember that there is much to learn at all times from all people. It takes humility to remember this. Life has a wonderful way of taking us by surprise. You never really know who might impart some wisdom or offer knowledge or useful information. So make sure to stay humble, and keep your learning faculties engaged.

Humility allows us to step outside of ourselves and observe a situation. It allows you to see other perspectives, alternate approaches, and unearth unlikely sources of information. Such information is vital to a holistic understanding of a situation and finding any solutions that may be necessary.

Forbid the very thought of how things are supposed to happen. Learn to appreciate the outcome. Don’t sulk if your idea isn’t selected. Appreciate the one that has been. Leave space for others to express themselves. Celebrate their accomplishments. Know that anything is possible, and no matter what the outcome, you can adapt to it.

Concluding Note:

Workplace adaptability is a journey with no destination insight, and it is important to be mindful of this. Take your work experiences a day at a time. Being adaptable makes it easier to live in the moment. So try to be open to change, instead of allowing the experiences of the past and the uncertainty of the future to affect the present.

Pay attention to your work colleagues. When they speak, listen carefully. Observe. Don’t react. Be empathetic. Bring enthusiasm and the spirit of inquiry to your actions and interactions. Don’t be afraid to express a considered thought. Celebrate the ideas of your colleagues, even if they come at the expense of yours.

Remember, you’re a conscious, mindful, inquisitive, flexible, empathetic person. This makes you ultimately undeniable! Develop and practice these skill sets and see how they enrich your experiences and aid your journey toward success and satisfaction.