The Tyrannosaurus Rex was impressive - until it wasn’t. Same with the Woolly Mammoth. Because adaptability trumps brute strength. Every time.

Let’s be clear though: adaptability is not optional. It’s the core characteristic of any system or organism that survives long enough to tell its story.

I once worked with a multinational whose internal documentation hierarchy could give a cathedral a migraine. They’d built a compliance fortress - but not a single adaptable process. Over 35 years, I’ve seen high-tech firms in a number of countries, such as Germany, South Korea, and South Africa outmanoeuvre much bigger players - not by sheer force, but by shifting with the current instead of fighting it.

An aerospace component supplier in southern Germany weathered five major supply chain disruptions not by expanding their inventory, but by investing in scenario-based decision training for their staff. While others hoarded stock, they hoarded options.

And options, as it turns out, are the currency of adaptability.

To be adaptable means to get comfortable with discomfort. To accept that not everything must be solved, optimised, or frozen in a Gantt chart. Chaos isn’t the enemy - it’s the medium we navigate.

The best leaders treat strategy as a living document, not a stone tablet.

And lastly, kill the phrase: "We’ve always done it this way." If those words appear on your office walls, set fire to the wallpaper.

You can't “install” adaptability, like you would software. It’s an outlook, it’s a mind-set. A culture of curiosity, a habit of learning, and a refusal to fear recalibration.

The day your people feel confident to suggest another way - not because something’s broken, but because it could be better - is the day your organisation begins to breathe.

Smart Questions to think about:

Prompt 1: What systems in your organisation are optimised for control rather than adaptability?

Prompt 2: What assumptions are you holding onto that no longer reflect reality - and how fast can you let them go?