Organisations have always had to adapt. That’s not news, but what is changing is the pace at which they are being asked to do so. AI and other relentless technological innovation are changing workflows, and the skills people need to survive, let alone thrive. This means the challenge is no longer simply how to manage one period of transformation successfully, but how to create an organisation and workforce capable of adapting repeatedly as work changes.
This was one of the central themes of our joint webinar with Public Digital earlier this year, “Adapting by Design: Building the organisational muscle for constant change”. During the discussion, Jon Matthews, CEO at The Career Innovation Company, described the need to develop an “adaptability muscle”. This means helping people learn and develop the broader career skills that enable them to keep on responding as their work evolves.
This isn’t simply about asking employees to be more adaptable – on its own, this is never enough. As Linda Essen-Möller, Senior Director at Public Digital, explained in the webinar, adaptability isn’t just a mindset initiative. How work is organised, how power is exercised and how people behave day to day all influence an organisation’s ability to learn and respond. These elements are interconnected, so simply addressing one in isolation is very rarely enough.
The human mindset is important of course. People need a sense of agency, instead of feeling as though change is being “done” to them. They need to feel capable, recognise that their strengths still matter and believe they can learn what comes next. They also need psychological safety, trust and the support of others as they adapt. When change is relentless, learning must become part of everyday work, with plenty of opportunities to experiment, learn and build confidence and capability together.
This is what makes the idea of building the muscle for constant change so useful. For adaptability to appear, the right conditions and experiences must be intentionally created. As Jon explained in the webinar, if organisations want people to repeatedly adapt as work changes, that is something they can deliberately build.
This thinking sits at the heart of our Human Advantage work at The Career Innovation Company: strengthening people’s agency and skills, enabling teams to redesign work together and building the internal capability to sustain adaptation as further waves of technology transform work.
The goal is to not only prepare people for the changes happening now, but to build adaptable people and organisations that are more equipped for what comes next.
Get in touch to explore exactly how we enable adaptable people and organisations with Human Advantage.
