By Marcus Timson, FuturePrint

Back in December 2020, we introduced the idea that while 2020 was clearly the year for crisis management, 2021 must be the year for adaptability. This is what we wrote back then

And I think all of this remains true now and will do well into the future.

Despite the increased freedom of this summer with fewer restrictions, to varying degrees, the world is still frustratingly immersed in the seemingly never-ending pandemic. Exhibitions are still being postponed, variants are raging across the world, and while the various vaccines are having an impact, it doesn't mean we are impregnable to COVID.

This potent mix of uncertainty along with a sustained acceleration of change means that adaptability will be the order of the day for quite some time to come.

Changes...

Humans do not like change, particularly when it doesn’t seem to be essential in order to survive. But when a crisis occurs, as we all have experienced recently, this resistance begins to abate more quickly because being open to change becomes a lot more pressing when it is clear we have no choice.

But however sophisticated we believe humans have become, we still remain governed by our amygdala and either the fear and flight neural response that is designed to keep us safe. Useful when in conflict, battle or war but mostly too overactive when not. Regardless, anything that threatens us (our brain doesn't distinguish between mental and physical) will trigger this response, no matter how intellectual we believe ourselves to be. So going ahead and changing how we do things without any guarantee of success, or indeed clear evidence that it is needed will therefore take courage. Although being courageous may sound appealing on one level (everyone loves a superhero) most of us instead prefer to remain comfortable and safe. Think of a ship that never strays too far from land, this may sustain needs for a time, but the ship and crew will never reap the benefits of reaching new places that may have greater value.

In response to the pandemic, the World Economic Forum has launched a new campaign called ‘The Great Reset.’ We, at FuturePrint, prefer ‘Great Adaptations’, largely because we do not believe you can expect or assume that the human race will reset. It’s not realistic, and statements such as this tend to make people feel threatened. However, the essence of the message is useful.

More here from the World Economic Forum website...

“The inconsistencies, inadequacies and contradictions of multiple systems –from health and finance to energy and education – are more exposed than ever amidst a global context of concern for lives, livelihoods and the planet. Leaders find themselves at a historic crossroads, managing short-term pressures against medium- and long-term uncertainties.”

So whether it’s the Great Reset or Great Adaptations, we need to accept a level of discomfort and inconvenience in order to change in line with what the planet and our businesses and livelihoods need to thrive in the future.

Why is change so difficult?

For many, change provokes a fear of loss mixed with a need to conform, to not stand out or make risky decisions. These twin instincts form deep-rooted and powerful barriers that can take an inordinate amount of time and energy to break down.

Tim Harford, in his book Adapt, talks of a famous social ‘conformity’ experiment conducted in the 1950s by Solomon Asch and in the following script from Simply Psychology, Dr Saul, explains more.

“Asch devised what is now regarded as a classic experiment in social psychology, whereby there was an obvious answer to a line judgment task.

If the participant gave an incorrect answer it would be clear that this was due to group pressure.

Asch used a lab experiment to study conformity, whereby 50 male students from Swarthmore College in the USA participated in a ‘vision test.’

Using a line judgment task, Asch put a naive participant in a room with seven confederates/stooges. The confederates had agreed in advance what their responses would be when presented with the line task.

The real participant did not know this and was led to believe that the other seven confederates/stooges were also real participants like themselves.

Each person in the room had to state aloud which comparison line (A, B or C) was most like the target line. The answer was always obvious. The real participant sat at the end of the row and gave his or her answer last.

There were 18 trials in total, and the confederates gave the wrong answer on 12 trials (called the critical trials). Asch was interested to see if the real participant would conform to the majority view.

Asch's experiment also had a control condition where there were no confederates, only a ‘real participant’.

Themes

Asch measured the number of times each participant conformed to the majority view. On average, about one third (32%) of the participants who were placed in this situation went along and conformed with the clearly incorrect majority on the critical trials.

Over the 12 critical trials, about 75% of participants conformed at least once, and 25% of participants never conformed.

In the control group, with no pressure to conform to confederates, less than 1% of participants gave the wrong answer.

Conclusion

Why did the participants conform so readily? When they were interviewed after the experiment, most of them said that they did not really believe their conforming answers, but had gone along with the group for fear of being ridiculed or thought "peculiar''.

Apparently, people conform for two main reasons: because they want to fit in with the group (normative influence) and because they believe the group is better informed than they are (informational influence).

Of course, critics have suggested this study is too dated and that it was based on a pool of people who were too similar etc, but the point is hard to argue with. When in-group thinking, the tendency is for people to follow groupthink rather than being prepared to stand out, despite knowing the correct answer. It doesn’t make sense on one level, but it demonstrates the power of group thinking to block change.

People, on the whole, would rather not stand out from the crowd. Why is this? I think it starts when we are children. Before we enter education we are perfectly equipped to be adaptable, but as soon as we begin schooling, then we get educated out of it. Our generalised education systems tend to validate conformity while punishing dissent of any kind. Sure, bad behaviour is bad behaviour, but often this is a result of the system not being designed for the individual.

General group rules are given far higher status than an individual needs. Creativity, therefore, is something an individual is permitted to do as a hobby, and crazy people are creative. This results in producing compliant people who do not think they are creative and are therefore far less able to adapt. And to some extent, they don’t even understand what creativity really is! So many people I have talked to over the years think creativity is something that only artists can do.

At school, anyone who is a little different is made to feel that they are weird just as the results of Asch’s experiment prove. As a result, creativity is an outlier quality in people. It is more of an accident if someone retains their playfulness into their adult years. It is a sad fact that if we are told by enough authority figures that something is not approved most of us tend to comply.

So are Misfits better at Adapting?

In short, yes I think so. Misfits are less concerned about what other people think. They are more inclined to make individual decisions and will go against groupthink. But you do not have to be a ‘misfit’ to be adaptable. Anyone can decide to be more adaptable, no matter how old or conformist they are, it just requires a change of mindset, a preparedness to be wrong and to take risks that may lead to failure. But the failure, whatever it may be, should not be terminal. As we outlined in our first post on adaptability earlier in the year, it is also important to not judge, persecute or point the finger of blame at people. People will not try anything if they believe that they are at risk of losing some of the fundamental comforts of life. Leadership is responsible here, leaders must not instil fear in their people, they must give their permission to innovate and that should there be a failure, it will not be fatal.

As Tim Harford himself says, ‘effective adaptation requires a sense of security, an inner confidence that the cost of failure is a cost we will be able to bear.’

After all that, of course, compliance thinking does have its place. Process and efficiency are important attributes of any business, but a culture that over-focuses on these areas is simply less able to flex their model to adapt when times are changing, and changing fast.

It’s a rather obvious thing to say that the adaptive mindset is somewhat at odds with a compliance mindset. I suspect that adaptation has been particularly difficult for the more traditional manufacturing industry and for the printing industry, after all, one of the oldest manufacturing sectors, and I sense this is particularly challenging. The printing industry, over the centuries, has grown so accustomed to being judged in a certain way.

And when a culture has thrived for so long without a powerful need to change in any kind of structural way, then why would it?

A Long Hop Crossing the Chasm

This may explain why it has taken digital printing so long to cross the chasm and gain real traction even in the commercial printing market even with such strong brands as HP and Landa. This is because the print culture is resistant to change, despite all the evidence to the contrary. The mainstream waits to see strong evidence of people gaining a lot of success first, so they can join the party without the risk of it going wrong. If they can feel that their risk is not great, and it seems they are missing out, then a new trend will tip from innovative into the mainstream. It is silly though, as digital printing doesn't exactly kill analogue printing anyway, it merely adds more value that aligns perfectly with the changing demand in the industry right now. Yet still, it has achieved a rather small level of representation.

So how do we begin to be more adaptable?

Change Your Mindset

Move beyond your paradigm. Accept that while our technical rules have a place to provide certainty to the business you know well and the client base you are used to serving. Any new idea, market or technology will require you to work it out as you go along. To help change your thought process, be curious and listen to others without quickly discarding their ideas. There is not a script to follow, so assimilate information, look for patterns, and search for real problems to solve that are useful and valuable.

Take Risks and Accept Responsibility

For anything new to ensue then a risk must be taken. We recommend lots of small risks, trying, failing, failing and then succeeding. Don’t bet on the entire farm but you can certainly bet a field or two.

Do not persecute failure! But you don’t have to celebrate it either. Put in place a process that your team adhere to that manages risk and analyses results. It is all a learning process so document what has worked, and what hasn’t. Know when to abort, the sooner the better. Ego can get in the way particularly if someone doesn’t want to feel they have got something wrong.

Accepting the journey and collaborating with people will galvanise the team and is the best ever team-building process anyone can go on.

Inspire Others

The old adage of ‘Do what you have always done and you will get what you have always got’ is overused, but so true. So frequently, we do things a certain way because we have always done it that way. Often, very few can actually recall why. So we do need to open our minds to new things, not knowing everything and trying it out anyway.

Embrace Learning

This means you need to embrace learning. To some extent, we need to unlearn.

Curiosity does not kill the cat in this regard. Curiosity is King and Queen. Look for ideas outside your industry. Business is ultimately the same whatever the market, but I believe inspiration is more likely to occur the more we think, listen, read and observe in different markets, outside our community, from business leaders, authors, thinkers and entrepreneurs. If we accept the journey is not a simple A to B, and that we are learning, then ‘adaptability’ will be achievable. So be vulnerable, admit our weaknesses, ask for help, and listen more than we talk.

But most of all, try. It is a far greater risk to do nothing at all, and risk becoming obsolete.