CHAPTER 15
Flexibility
“If we don't change, we don't grow. If we don't grow, we aren't really living.”
—AUTHOR GAIL SHEEHY
The rate of change in our world is constantly increasing. Some social scientists have been wondering lately if there is a limit to people's capacity to change, and if there is, whether or not we are reaching that limit. For some of us this change offers unlimited opportunity, and we welcome it into our lives.
We tend to embrace change if we feel in control of the pace of change and are certain that we will receive a benefit from it. Many people buy lottery tickets, thinking that they would embrace the change that would come with suddenly becoming wealthy and having more choices in their lives. They foresee all the things that they would do if they could quit their jobs and follow their dreams. They foresee that they would be in control of the change and that the change would be positive.
The reality, however, is that most people are unprepared for the change that will be thrust on them when they suddenly come into a great deal of money because they cannot change who they are. Most lottery winners come from working-class backgrounds. Should they buy a large house in a new neighborhood full of wealthy people, they discover that they have nothing in common with their new neighbors. Accustomed to traveling on a budget, they find that they are rubbing elbows with unfamiliar moneyed classes whenever they travel in the luxury style. If they stay in their old jobs, they are often derided by coworkers for continuing to work and expected to buy lunch. They face a great deal of pressure over managing their newfound wealth. It is little wonder that many lottery winners end up saying that they wish it had never happened.
Others, however, dread change and wish we could slow the pace or stop change altogether. Typically people resist, deny, and avoid change if they only see that it will have negative consequences in their lives. Economic turndown, war, and natural catastrophes are changes that are dreaded by most people. Regardless, it is unlikely that the pace of change will slow. Today, more than at any other time in history, success is determined by our ability to be flexible. We are constantly forced to make changes to accommodate unforeseen circumstances and situations. People who embrace change are always looking for the positive that comes with it. While not ignoring the negative aspects, they choose to focus on the positive. As the Chinese philosopher said after his house burned down: “Now I can see the stars.”
Think of the following race car driver analogy. The driver, representing emotional intelligence, has to continuously adapt to an environment that is changing by the minute, even by the second. Other cars are constantly veering in and out of his path. The road continually changes— one minute it is flat, and the next it curves. At any time, there is the possibility that the car may go into a skid, requiring immediate action. Another car may crash and become an obstacle. In some situations, the driver has a great deal of control, while in others very little. Regardless of the amount of control, flexibility allows the driver to get the most out of any given situation.
Robert Sternberg, a Yale Scholar and one of the world's leading authorities on intelligence, had this to say about the relationship of flexibility to success:
Not only does what is required for success differ in different fields and domains, it also differs over the course of one's career. The characteristics that lead to success in entry-level management jobs, for example, are quite different from those that lead to success at the higher levels of management. At the lower levels, one largely follows; at the higher levels, one largely leads. At the lower levels, one may have little work to delegate; at the upper levels, one may have to delegate almost everything.1
Successful intelligent people are flexible in adapting to the roles they need to fulfill. They recognize that they will have to change the way they work to fit the task and situation at hand, and then they analyze what will have to be done and make it happen.
Qualities That Come with Flexibility
Success depends on our ability to react quickly and appropriately to new situations. Flexibility is related to a number of other emotional intelligence factors such as stress tolerance, independence, and self-regard.
Confidence
Feeling confident in ourselves directly impacts our feelings of how well we can adapt and successfully change. How successfully we feel that we have been able to deal with change in the past determines the level of confidence we will have when dealing with new changes.
Stress Management
It also requires that we be able to keep our stress at manageable levels. High levels of stress will make us less able to cope with change. A person who is unable to cope with a lot of stress will be easily overwhelmed by change. It is not that those who manage to adjust well to new situations do not feel stress; they have just found ways to not let stress levels get to the point where it impairs their ability to choose, make decisions, and act when appropriate. Again, having successfully dealt with changes in the past will reduce our anxiety level about change that we will encounter.
Independence
People with low levels of independence might view themselves as victims of change, feeling there is little they can do about it. More independent types will look at change differently by focusing on ways that they can use the change to benefit themselves. They may also feel more in control by not accepting change wholesale, but rather adopting aspects of change that they find beneficial and rejecting other areas that they find detrimental.
Feeling in Control
Having some sense that we are in the driver's seat of our lives is also a necessary precursor to flexibility. Feeling weak and out of control only increases our stress and desire to avoid involvement with anything new.
Embracing the Future
In most sports, successful athletes are those individuals who are the most flexible. A good example of a highly flexible athlete is hockey superstar Wayne Gretzky. Able to score from a multitude of situations, he had the knack of being able to predict where the puck would be several plays ahead, and get into the best possible scoring position. His high degree of flexibility allowed him to adapt quickly to take maximum advantage of every situation.
The future will belong to those who are able to adapt. Those unwilling to change will lose out. There is a saying to the effect that “if you are standing still, you are falling behind.” Everything is constantly changing: technology, the economy, the environment, and the people around us. If we resist change or do not keep up, then the world and the people around us will leave us behind. In many cases, relationships end because one person changes and the other does not. Sometimes both people change and find out that the new person that they are with is not the one they knew back when they first met.
The way we view change has a lot to do with how successful we are at adapting to change. The creative types that look for all the wonderful things that change can bring to our lives welcome change. Creative, flexible people are those who love to learn and see excitement and adventure in exploring and learning new ways of doing things.
Those who are trapped in their old habits often have doubts and reservations about their ability to learn. They are pessimists who see change as imposing new demands on their set, clearly defined world.
Yet, the only thing that separates the creative optimist who loves to learn new things from the pessimist who dreads change is how they see change. If the pessimists only looked for things they have successfully adapted to and that have benefited their lives over the last few years, they would find lots of examples. Banking machines, cell phones, and the Internet have all made our lives much more convenient. Most people use these relatively new innovations quite effortlessly and with little thought. When they were first introduced, however, large numbers of people experienced anxiety about their ability to learn to use these new technologies, fearing that they would be left behind. We need to remember that it would simply not make economic sense for any company to develop a new consumer product that was beyond most people's ability to learn to use rather easily. The product would fail rather quickly. As well, political leaders who try to introduce ideas that the populace is not ready for doom themselves to political suicide. It is therefore ultimately in our hands as to how much change we are ready for and willing to accept.
Enhancing Our Flexibility
The great news is that all of us can become more flexible. Like other aspects of emotional intelligence, flexibility is learned. Try something new tomorrow. Start with something that is not that difficult for you and doesn't cause too much stress. Regardless of the outcome, look only for the positive. One thing positive is certain; you have learned something from the experience that is, in and of itself, positive. Even if it is only in a minor way, you will have expanded your world. If you are unable to see anything positive in the experience, ask someone you have confidence in to look for something positive. Think about the positive aspect they are seeing and incorporate it into your own thinking. Begin to make it a habit to begin to look at all new experiences in this way. As well, make it a habit to reward yourself for learning something new or adapting successfully to a new circumstance. Don't compare yourself to others, because you will always find people who are more and less flexible. Simply focus on the things that you can be successful at.
Flexibility and Age
Many people have the misconception that we naturally become less flexible and stuck in our ways when we get older. This is simply not true. Show me an inflexible sixty-year-old and I'll show you someone who was inflexible at twenty. There are examples everywhere of highly flexible individuals who, well into their seventies and eighties, are taking on new challenges in their lives.
Several years ago Val, a friend of mine, retired from her job at age fifty-five. She purchased a small house in a fairly remote little town in the mountains, close to an area that she always enjoyed. She rented the house out and planned to do so until she moved there when she turned seventy. Until that time she was planning to, as she put it, “have adventures.” She did just that, teaching English as a second language in various parts of the world, as well as traveling and living in areas that had always interested her. Taking up travel photography and writing travel articles, which she tried getting published in magazines, gave her constant challenges.
Making Mistakes
Flexibility and trying new ways of doing things naturally results in making mistakes. Organizations that want their staff to be flexible and creative have to let them know that making mistakes sometimes when one takes a risk is expected and acceptable. As long as the mistake resulted from an honest attempt to improve things, employees must be allowed to learn from their mistakes rather than be punished. There is no better way for an organization to show that honest mistakes are forgiven than by having management share stories of mistakes that they have made along the way. New hires will come to trust that if they try something new and it doesn't work out, it will not mean the end of the road in the organization.
Southwest Airlines believes that to get employees to be flexible and take risks they need to know that they will be treated with dignity and respect if they make a mistake. They believe that the cost of mistakes pales in comparison to the benefits of unleashing an employee's creativity and flexibility. Some of the company's most loyal and dedicated and enthusiastic employees have made significant mistakes in the past, and despite their errors, have gone on to bigger and better things in the organization. This willingness to forgive and forget has endeared and bonded these people to the organization. It has been described by some staff as an exercise in character building.
“ ‘We must become the change we want to see’—Those are the words I live by.”
—MOHANDAS GANDHI
Kathryn's Story
Kathryn was part of the unit that made up a small division of a large corporation. The part of the company she worked for was a specialty unit. Their work was unique, although it complemented the overall business of the company. There were only ten members on staff, and they were somewhat isolated from the larger picture. This separation had both advantages and disadvantages. On the upside, they had more opportunities to be creative and try new ideas than did a larger office. Unfortunately, many of the staff members were not known to be overly flexible and open to new ideas.
Kathryn heard about emotional intelligence through a workshop she attended. When ideas for staff development were being bandied about during a unit meeting at work, she proposed that all of them take the emotional intelligence test. The results would be confidential, to be shared only between the test administrator and the individual staff members. In that way, everyone would have the opportunity to do some personal development work without anyone else knowing how they scored. All of the tests could then be added together to come up with a composite, or overall score for the unit. This score could be used to do some group work with their coworkers. The overall score would be confidential and it would not be possible to pick out anyone's individual score.
Some of the staff members were excited about the prospect, while others were hesitant, but all gave in to the urgings of the majority. Everyone, including the manager and supervisor, took the BarOn EQ-i and received feedback from a consultant who was brought in. Although their overall score was above average, flexibility was one of the areas in which the test indicated there was room for improvement. Kathryn was asked to come up with ongoing exercises they could do on a regular basis as a group to become more flexible.
One of the things that everyone agreed kept them from being more flexible was fear. In order to deal with fear, they looked at various possible scenarios and broke them down. For example, if we did this, what is the worst that could happen, what is most likely to happen, and what is the best that could happen? What was the likelihood that headquarters would shut them down? There was little evidence that this was likely to happen. If it did, most staff probably would be transferred to other areas rather than lose their jobs. On the contrary, they were able to come up with solid evidence that headquarters was pleased with the work they were doing and considered their unit, although small, to be an important component of their overall operation. In this way, staff were able to see that most of what they feared was not based on evidence and reality.
Through demystifying fear, it was felt that they would be able to remove one of the major barriers that kept them from trying new things. Staff members were all encouraged to use the same process individually to increase their own flexibility. A couple of the staff members were already highly flexible and prepared to assist their coworkers in becoming more open to change.
At first, it was difficult to see if there was any real change going on. The staff members who had adamantly opposed new ideas in the past were no longer openly expressing their opposition to ideas that were presented. This may have been due to not wanting to be identified as dinosaurs in the post–EI testing world more than their having embraced the notion that they needed to be more flexible. These individuals could still sabotage the process by subtly undermining it, or doing nothing to help.
After a year it was suggested that staff members switch jobs with each other for a period of time to gain a wider knowledge base and increase their skills. This was a radical idea for the organization and a year earlier would have been ridiculed immediately and dismissed. The usual people who were always opposed had reservations, but promised they would give the idea a try. It was agreed that if it didn't work out, they could always go back to their former positions. The best scenario was that they would come to enjoy the new challenge, and headquarters would see the unit as being dynamic and innovative. A couple of the staff struggled to adjust to their new positions while others were delighted. After a few months went by, even those who had difficulty adjusting thought it was a good idea and did not want to go back to the way things were. Word got out in the organization that this small unit was a very happening place to work. This encouraged dynamic staff from the organization who were looking for challenges to apply to work there. Like the flexibility-building exercise used in this organization, the beginning of your own change process will be the most difficult. It is important to stick with it for a long enough period so that change becomes second nature, and you can look forward to it. Your ability to become more flexible will depend on where you are now, to some extent. However, even if you are very inflexible, with time and effort you will learn to no longer dread the thought of change as you once did.
“Change has considerable psychological impact on the human mind. To the fearful it is threatening because it means that things may get worse. To the hopeful it is encouraging because things may get better. To the confident it is inspiring because the challenge exists to make things better.”
—BUSINESSMAN KING WHITNEY, JR.
Techniques to Increase Flexibility
- Practice making changes daily. Take a different route to work. Take your coffee break at a different time, with a different coworker. Try something totally different for lunch. Pick things that are uncomfortable and require you to stretch, but do not cause a great deal of stress.
- Be aware of what you tell yourself and how you feel when thinking about doing something different that makes you uncomfortable. Challenge the things that you tell yourself. How many messages are based on evidence or reality, and how many are based on unwarranted fears? Whenever you try something new and none of the negative outcomes that you imagined occur, write it down in a book. Keep track of the number of times you do this in a week. Next week, try to increase that number.
- Celebrate every time you try something new that is a stretch for you. Think about how it feels to have broken through your old barriers. Share the good news, but only with those people you know will be supportive.
- Ask for support from those you are close to who will not only be supportive but will also challenge you to reach your goals.
- While taking small steps to make changes on a regular basis, set goals at regular intervals. Six-month time periods are ideal. Establish goals that are difficult for you, yet achievable. For example, let's say you are afraid of public speaking. On a daily or weekly basis, speak up in small groups more; initiate conversation with others more. All this would be leading up to you making a formal presentation to a small group.
- Keep going. Once you have reached goals, celebrate and set higher goals.
- Mark into your day-timer or calendar a yearly date at which time you will review your progress. Ask someone who is supportive, knows you well, and will give you an honest answer, if they have seen any change in you.
- If you do not reach your goals, don't punish yourself, but do set goals you are more likely to reach.
- Ask others to give you examples of where they feel you could be more flexible. What area of inflexibility do you feel is most detrimental to you? Focus on that area in your goal setting and change your plan.
Note
1. Robert Sternberg, Successful Intelligence (New York: Simon & Schuster), p. 153.