Why You Need To Adapt To Change To Survive

The importance of learning adaptability is not limited to children in school.  It pertains to you too.  Adapting to change is a crucial skill regardless of whether you are a CEO or you are just starting out in a new job.

The rapid pace of change is both good news and bad.  It is good news for people who are ambitious and flexible.  It means that the next technological revolution is probably is just around the corner.  And when it comes, it will inevitably create new and previously unforeseeable work and business opportunities.  The bad news is for people who find change difficult.  A rapid pace of change will make certain skills and related occupational obsolete.

If you can anticipate the next revolution from the beginning, you will have an enormous advantage in learning to use and profit from new inventions and discoveries.  Furthermore, becoming a participant will give you a head start over people who watch from the sidelines.  Conversely, if you cannot adapt to change, you will become its victim

Is being able to adapt enough?  Here is another question.  How well do you manage information?  New information, if anything, is an even more potent force than new technology.  And the speed at which new information appears and proliferates is at least the same as the speed of technological progress.  New information technology, such as the Internet, serves to speed up the dissemination of facts and data.  Keeping up with the growth and spread of information has become just as important for you as becoming familiar with new technology.

Many managers have already begun to feel pressured to assimilate and evaluate larger quantities of information than they feel they can handle.  This feeling has led a growing number of office workers to complain about what psychologist David Lewis calls data smog.  How will you cope when confronted with a confusing mass of data?  It is not uncommon for people to invest in memory training to improve their memory and learn faster.  You will need to be able to dive in, pick out a few critical facts or concepts and use them as hooks to hang a coherent picture of what the information as a whole is telling you.  Having this ability will protect you from feeling overwhelmed by new data as they become available.

In the other two attributes, creativity will also become essential for finding and keeping a good job.  Why is creativity more important today than it was in the past?  The answer again is the computer.  Being able to accelerate your learning and remember more is just part of the puzzle.   In the past you could earn your living by diligently applying what someone had taught you in school.  But the days will soon be over when a company will pay you to apply tried-and-true methods.  Today companies can buy a robot to do that. 

In the future companies will hire human beings to succeed in those areas where computers fail.  Applying set procedures, mechanically and repetitively, has become the work of computers, not people.  Companies have learned this.  More than ever before, you will have to value and nurture your talent for innovation.

Developing creativity will be essential for you to define and shape your own  niche in the market, where technological progress is not likely to become a threat. It is a fact that computers cannot innovate, but you can.  Even if you do not consider yourself to be especially creative, the fact remains that you are surely more creative than present-day computer programs.  You need to recognize creativity as one of your true strengths, even if you have not viewed it as a strength in the past.  Nurture your creativity, and it will reward you.

In summary, there are three indispensable skills that together will help you cope with unprecedented demands on your abilities.  First, you must be able to easily and quickly adapt to change; second, you must become an adept manager of information and learn memory techniques; and third, you must develop creativity and innovation.