Adaptability Quotient AQ, the secret ingredient to collaboration?
AQ, the secret ingredient to collaboration
What is the newly emerging secret ingredient to effective collaboration?
Many may suggest it's a willingness to help others (pro-social behaviour) in the workplace. While this is important, situations often arise where collaborators may be forced into cooperating. This may not result in the best outcome. Instead, regardless of the problem, genuinely effective collaboration requires cultivating a particular mindset. We call this secret ingredient the Adaptive Mindset.
An adaptive mindset comprises a set of flexible thought processes which contribute to sustainable collaboration, Curiosity, Unlearning and Refocussed Resilience. Combined, these three thought processes create a state of mind that allows for diverse inputs, leading to improved solutions and decision-making amongst collaborators.
Here are some examples of how these thought processes work.
Curiosity is the antidote to judgement.
When we are being judgemental, we compare things against our own set of biases. However, these biases may or may not be correct or appropriate to any challenge. As humans, this is a hard-wired process that has historically served us well as a survival mechanism. We learn what to do and what not to do to survive and make comparisons against these life lessons unconsciously. However, generally speaking, we do not face a life-or-death situation in our day-to-day lives, yet the hard-wired and unconscious process to judge remains.
A way to -pause circuit judging is to consciously suspend it long enough to remain curious about others' ideas and solutions. Our solution may not always be the best approach, and it may be better to adopt another's ideas when collaborating. This may also involve 'unlearning' how we usually do things.
Unlearning is fast becoming the new prerequisite required to remain relevant and effective in the workplace (and life).
Due to the increasingly rapid changes in markets, technology and organisations, we need to be mentally prepared to let go of previously reliable ways of doing things and learn new approaches to keep up. This does not mean forgetting your experiences but acknowledging the critical need to learn new working methods continually.
It was particularly adopting ever-evolving online collaboration platforms and technologies that increase collaborators' efficiency, creativity and connection to new levels in virtual workplaces. This involves an element of 'refocussed resilience' to overcome any difficulties experienced along the way.
Refocussed resilience involves clarifying shared goals amongst collaborators that benefit all, aligning members with those goals, continually referencing progress against them to overcome difficulties, and allowing collaborators to overcome setbacks or problems to achieve shared goals quickly.
Combining these three thought processes, curiosity, unlearning and refocussed resilience, helps to generate an adaptive mindset.
Contributing to collaborators working together in practical, creative, productive, and outcome focussed ways.
Maintaining an adaptive mindset is rapidly being realised as the new secret ingredient to collaborative success!
This is part 2 in our AQ blog series within the Regenemm health project - Part 1 Leadership and Adaptability Quotient (AQ): Moving from EQ to AQ
