Developing Adaptability Is Your Key To Win In Today's World As An Young Entrepreneur, Here’s Why
Adaptability is the most important skill you can develop as an entrepreneur. It’s a skill that venture capitalists directly look for when making investments. They ask “what if” questions to determine how you think, and how adaptable you are in situations where your business might fail. The most successful entrepreneurs have stories of having to adapt dramatically in order to win:
AirBnB had to launch its product 3 total times before it stuck – they literally sold cereal while they pivoted away from air mattresses to entire rooms and homes (Fun fact: the “Air” part of “AirBnB” was for “Airbed,” because the idea was you could rent an inflatable bed in someone’s house)
Slack had to pivot away from its game “Glitch,” which failed to take traction – they sold their internal IRC-based chat tool instead
Instagram (originally “Burbn”) dropped its unused checkin and planning features when they realized their users were mostly engaging with photo-sharing
Youtube started as a video dating platform and pivoted to being a video sharing service when they saw users were uploading non-dating videos
Had these companies “stuck to the plan,” they wouldn’t be here. This is why the titans of entrepreneurship repeatedly emphasize the importance of adapting:
Elon Musk: "Some people don't like change, but you need to embrace change if the alternative is disaster."
Mark Zuckerberg: "In a world that’s changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks."
You Need To Develop Adaptability
You come into adolescence with a certain level of adaptability, but you are far from doomed to remain at that level. But, as a student you need to do your own work to develop it. School doesn’t support learning to be more adaptable, simply because the system has never truly adapted itself. You have probably heard many times that it is fundamentally the same system it was at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.
Luckily, we know how to help people become more adaptable. Research by A. Diamond (2013) on adaptability, showed that if we challenge our “cognitive flexibility” (the mental ability to switch between thinking about different concepts or options) by learning new skills and languages, or by solving tough problems, we can become more adaptable. This research has also been linked to higher levels of job satisfaction and performance (Pulakos et al., 2000).
How To Develop Adaptability
Based on the scientific literature and our own experience, here is how you can get started improving your adaptability:
Read about it., As with everything there’s an abundance of online resources out there, and understanding the cognitive nature of adaptability will help you deliberately improve it. Here’s some stuff we’ve liked and learned from:
Practice creating a mindset that encourages you to take a step back and think in terms of exploration, rather than exploitation. What does this mean? It’s easy when we win in business to think, “that’s the way to do it,” and continue to exploit the same techniques over and over. Closing one’s mind to new approaches means your business will fail to find new avenues to success as times change. One way to approach this is by setting time to look at your processes for solving problems perhaps in your business or just everyday life and ask “what could I do differently,” and then try it! It might fail or it might be a success.
Try the process of unlearning. This comes from spiritual and political leader Gandhi: “I must reduce myself to zero”. He always sought out returning back to a beginner’s mindset, rather than being an expert. Becoming a beginner at things, whether novel or routine, will develop adaptability in your mind. This can be as simple as brushing your teeth with your off-hand, or as complex as committing to speak the local language if you travel to another country.
Reps! You need to build wins by adapting . You need to be thrown in the blender where you try something out and fail because you didn’t adapt. Then get feedback and coaching on what you could have done differently, and intentionally build a plan for the next challenge that adapts to what you learned. Doing this is the fastest way to make adaptability a second nature. That’s why this is our pedagogy.
We can improve our adaptability, but it’s got to be practiced. Become adaptable as a student. You’ll find school, college, and future achievements become easier as you’re adapting to the ever-changing landscape of both yourself and the world around you.
