#593 No Regret Skills: How to Get Better at Adaptability

0:00Hi, I'm Sarah. And I'm Helen. And this is a Squiggly Careers podcast, where every week we borrow some brilliance and turn that curiosity into useful action for you and your career. And today's episode is part two of our No Regret Skills mini-series. We were honestly, the honest story here is we were going to do it as one episode and then we realised actually... We got carried away with decision-making. And so excited about developing and teaching each other some No Regret Skills that it's probably worth its own episode. So in last week's episode, I talked about the no regret skill of decision making.

0:33And I borrowed a bit of brilliance from a poker player called Annie Duke and applied it to our career. And today it's Sarah's turn. And the no regret skill that she's going to be focusing on is adaptability. So adaptability. Why did I why did I choose this? My no regret skill? Well, one, I can hear people talking about it a lot at the moment. so actually last week we did talk about you know that kind of trade-off between like hot skills like what is almost like trending right now versus no regret skills that kind of go beyond that so you know there's an interesting dilemma here like is does this go beyond just of the moment I felt like it did and the reason for that is I was looking at the World Economic Forum work again around skills and actually they don't use the word adaptability but they just use three words that sort of mean adaptability so they say resilience flexibility and agility oh yeah the agility one often yeah and I do you know what I nearly went for agility instead of adaptability but I was like actually no I do think adaptability feels consistently useful I liked this definition I was playing around with like actually using Claude with trying to get to a really simple definition um of what what is this skill and it's uh the one that I liked the most that was sort of a bit a bit half me half claude uh the skill of changing what would that be claude yeah so the definition i liked was the skill of changing how you think or act when things change so the skill of changing how you think or act or i guess it could be think and act when things change i quite like the thinking part like thinking agility or adaptability but we often think about it I don't know it's like changing the action that you take yeah and sometimes I think it might be about thinking and I think the better you are at this the more well equipped you are in a squiggly career to navigate ambiguity so you just don't know what you don't know work through challenges when not all the information is clear or even known and one of the things actually we talked about when we talk about adaptability briefly and learn like a lobster is this adaptability paradox, which is that the moment where we often need to be the most adaptable is when we're the least adaptable.

2:52And in lots of ways, that does make sense because you need to be really adaptable when things change at the last minute, we're under time pressure, it feels really stressful. So you know when you're like, of course that's when you're likely to be most fixed because it's also hard, but that's also when it's most useful. and one of the examples that has always really stuck with me is the difference between flexibility and adaptability and that is the idea of flexibility is you're in a situation where maybe something's changed and if you're flexible, you were going to take one tool from a toolbox, a hammer and you're like, oh, I need to be flexible here so I'm going to switch up the hammer for a spanner.

3:35You can tell I do zero DIY. I feel like they're real tools. It's like talking to me about sports. Yeah, I was like, that feels right. So you're like, but you're still using the same toolbox, but you're like, I've switched up the tool. I've been flexible about the tool that I use to do this job. Whereas adaptability is knowing that you need a new tool that isn't in that toolbox. You know, like you need something different. So I think it feels harder, like it's a more sophisticated, more nuanced skill. The other reason I picked it is I always get a bit frustrated with these really massive skills that everyone says are really important but no one ever breaks down the specifics of like what is it and if you're telling me it's really important I think you've got to help people with well what does good look like what does it mean to make to make progress in this area so then okay I did a deep dive into like rigorous research around adaptability and I am going to try and name and I hope pronounce them right.

4:33So these four researchers came up with and don't worry we're going to make this practical but it is called Adaptive Performance Dimensions so they've done proper research on adaptability and gone well here are all these dimensions of which there are eight around this is what really good adaptability looks like and they're called Pulacos, Arid Donovan and Plamidon they're like the four researchers so I was like okay that's interesting so this is what we're going to do what is coming Sarah said so we have we keep all of our like notes and plans for the podcast on a shared drive and Sarah's basically said don't look at it beforehand so I really don't know what's coming with these eight so the more I thought about adaptability the more I appreciated that you can't really talk about this in isolation from real life situations okay so So I have written a squiggly career scenario specific to you, which I'm going to share in a second.

5:34So I'm going to give you the scenario. Then I'm going to ask you a series of questions. And I have mapped all of these questions across these different dimensions. So different questions often hit maybe two or three of the dimensions. So it's not like one question per dimension. That wasn't sophisticated enough for me. I went beyond that. I'm quite proud of this table that I've got. And so new information will also emerge. as we go through this scenario. So I'll sort of add information and then just keep asking your questions. Okay. And what's the outcome? The outcome, well, you're going to just, you're going to answer the questions.

6:05So you're going to talk about like, well, what are you going to do? Do I get an adaptability assessment? So no. Okay. I will say I did try to build one for you. Oh, I love that you did. On about three different platforms. Okay. And do you know what? I was like, this is not that good. So I ditched it. So are you just going to pay back some insights? I'll ask you, I think, some questions about your questions. Okay. So once you've gone through, I think, like the squiggly scenario. Right. Okay, so here's your situation. And my hope is by listening to this that you, or if you're watching this, you could design your equivalent.

6:42So I have tried to make this really personal to you. So you're designing and delivering a global leadership program. You're halfway through the program. and because of a strategy change at the organisation we're working with, 50 % of the skills you were planning to include in the programme now need to change. They've changed their skills strategy. So you've received an email, like this afternoon, after this podcast you receive an email saying, do you know what, we've had a change of skills strategy. How are you responding to that email? um first of all i would be looking ahead at when the next sessions are in the diary so because what i want to work out is how like in my head i'm thinking how much time have i got to change because that that that that piece of data would affect what i did next because what i want to do is have a conversation with people that have changed that decision um it sounds to me like that decision's been made so I'm not trying to influence that but I do want to discuss the implications of it how it might affect different people but I don't I don't know how long I've got to do that until I kind of looked ahead and what seemed like when is my next session because if my next session is tomorrow like what do I do with that so the first thing that I would do is I'd look ahead in my diary and say well for that global leadership learning program what are the next dates I have in the diary let's assume it's next month yeah so I know I've got some time then I'd be thinking okay so I've got a month first thing I need to do is talk to these people and understand the thinking yeah just like okay where's it not to influence it because it sounds like a decision made but just be like okay where's it coming from what is it you're looking for what's important now I would then want to go back with a proposal this is what I think we could do and what it would look like and I want to get their buy-in and then I would feel confident to continue that's what i do okay so you have a conversation with them so let's let's build on what your responses are you have a conversation with them and it becomes clear to you there's actually some debate about these new skills so they have decided but you can also hear you can hear some debate um but you've got to deliver some of the learning on one of these proposed new skills next week what do you do

9:00okay so let me just clarify that so they've got these new skills that a bit of internal discussion about do we actually are these the right ones are they not the right ones yeah maybe a bit of there's not as much clarity as you might need on exactly what do we mean by this skill hmm i my my first thought is i'm not sure it's right for the learners to be the guinea pigs of that without being aware that they're the guinea pigs yeah you know to be like oh we're just we're we think this might be important so we're just going to tell you when that decision hasn't been made so I would either propose a very kind of quick pilot session before like the real life learners yeah I'd either propose a quick pilot session and say you know like kind of like the prototype of saying okay so if we made this change so option one is continue as is option two is deliver these new skills what I might then say is let's let's why don't I do a quick prototype I'll show you what that could look like yeah um so that when we could make a decision and then I would probably want to let the learners know yeah okay I think I would probably want to say um because they're probably like on the program they've already had some of the program right so actually I'd need to let them know that actually things are changing and we're adapting to that and you're the first group of people that are going to receive these new skills.

10:21So what I would really appreciate today is your feedback. I'd probably want to get some fast feedback to also then inform, is this the way this goes forward for everybody? And if you were pausing to think, right, who or what could I borrow brilliance from to sort of cope with this situation? So there's a fair bit of ambiguity here. suddenly there's more unknowns than you had imagined there would be um and it's very easy right to get like very tunnel vision in these kind of moments um like what maybe what would help you zoom out or where would you look for a bit of inspiration um well there's a couple of things that'd be going on in my head so i'd be thinking like not to see this as a reflection on you you know because I think sometimes you know in when things are changing it can affect your confidence like oh is this because I'm not doing a good job yeah so I think I would try to keep when the zooming out thing I try to keep what is the company trying to achieve in mind like what is the outcome they want and how does my work contribute to it that would that would help me um I'd obviously talk to you um I I think to be honest it wouldn't it wouldn't throw me that much Like that scenario wouldn't throw me that much.

11:42I would care much more about the consistency of the experience for the learners and the communication of it. And I wouldn't want there to be constant change. That's what would be in my mind. I'd be thinking, okay, I get that you want to change it. That's totally fine. We can do that. Let's create as much clarity as we can between us. We don't need to surface that mess. I think we can have those messy conversations and work it out between us. I would like the people at the end to have a high quality experience that's the thing that that's the thing that matters to get to that I'd need to make sure my confidence was in check like that I would talk to you and I'd be like what do you think how would you do this um I might I might just think about have there been any other situations where this has happened yeah um it might not be exactly the same but you know maybe where there's been a change of leader and that's changed the entire could see some like different but similar things and I might just think about okay what did we learn what did we learn from that I also think I would be confident in giving my opinion about what do I think the best way is for I don't think I'd just be on the receiving end of it I would be like this is accept this is what you want to do this is the best way with what we know this is the best way I think we could respond to it makes sense okay I don't know I've no idea if this is right but this is really what I would do yeah but that's why it's good right because it's not well I mean in some ways we are testing um which never feels like a great word like testing the questions are designed to test some of the dimensions okay so if you believe in the dimensions I guess you go well like how well are you answering in response to those dimensions that you don't know about I know what these dimensions are yeah but I will I will reveal them um so I've got a few more questions and then then I'll let you stop stop being interviewed with my squiggly career scenario so one of the skills that the company is confident in but wasn't there before yeah is storytelling yeah um and it's not an area that you typically deliver learning in so it's not usually part of a program um so how are you going to approach that um there are some people that I know that are expert in that area where I'm not I would go and talk to them about this skill and I would work with them to see how we could integrate it within the program I think I'm always conscious whenever there's a skill that a company needs support with where we are not the expert I'm very happy to recognize that I'm also very happy to ask into our network where I know those skills exist the bit that I think is really important is it connects to squiggly in some way so I would do the kind of squiggly points of connection so why in a squiggly career is storytelling an important skill like that and then I would like confidently hand over to an expert that you can learn from is and then probably once you've heard from that person together we're going to join the dots about what this could mean for your squiggly career development so I'd do that and I'm the client in this situation and I say do you know what though you've been doing such a brilliant job we actually don't feel comfortable getting anyone else in at this stage so we are going to need you to deliver that interesting interesting I mean there's a bit of a compliment in there take that thanks I am great no no um what would I I think in that I probably just create some choices and I'd say okay well if I deliver it it could look like this and the implications are that like we probably can't go into I can't do a really deep dive so this is sort of like the level of learning that I can deliver um and the advantage of that would be like consistency in the program connection with the learners contextualize the squiggly careers the disadvantages are if we have some really deep questions I don't have the expertise to respond to them yeah um and then I probably kind of have a an option b which is we co-deliver so what if we did 50 50 um so you're still getting a lot of me and the consistency and then option c would be you know i literally intro and hand over and it and i would probably play back what they've heard it sounds like option c is not what you want but between option a and option b yeah what are your thoughts i'd probably try to introduce another option brilliant so the company go great we're going to go with one of those options a or b you've done a good job of influencing um so we're a global company and we were going to run cohorts per country um but now for cost reasons we're going of merge three countries together for the program how would that impact what you were planning to do or like what are some of the questions that you would ask yourself um first of all I would I feel like I have a quite a few questions of them you know before I have questions I'm probably without I probably have a list of questions for them which would be well I've got questions about where are the learners in the journey like how much are these brand new learners or are these people that are partway through let's imagine they are partway through so until this point they've been in their own there's been like a I don't know Americas there's maybe been like a European one or something and then they're like actually no we've got to we've got to merge everyone together okay so I I think the story is really important so I think the last thing we would want them to think is that this is a cost-cutting initiative and it's affected the quality of your learning so I would probably go back to what was the original purpose of the program and how can we talk to people about this change in that context yeah I'm an eternal optimist so I'd be like what I'd be like okay what's the opportunity here the opportunity is now having done half the program in your region you get the opportunity to learn from other people's perspectives in different regions so I would be like trying to look for the opportunity as a result of this change and I would before I delivered anything I would have to do a bit of a like from and two which might be um okay well from we used to have i don't know 60 minute sessions for the region to it's probably going to be 90 need to go to 90 minutes because you've got more people more perspectives more time for discussion and it might be from we all used to be in the same room to i don't know regional breakouts or something like that i'd be like actually if we want to keep the quality then there are some things we might need to change as a result of this and so you're finishing the program you might be glad you might be glad to say great last question you're finishing the program um and you you actually you've got everyone in the room for a bit of a like a final program session um and you're 15 minutes away from starting and the client says to actually we've we've just realized we're gonna have some people dialing in so you thought you're gonna be delivering to everyone in a room some people haven't made the journey or whatever but but you've been given no time essentially yeah um how are you responding in that moment i mean literally this has happened i know many many many times this is like the least the least um tough question for you because i was like well she actually will have had this situation uh well i think a few things would be going through my head like simultaneously so i'd be thinking okay I want I want everybody to feel included um and I'd probably think be thinking about where the majority of people so the majority of people sound like they're in the room so I'd be thinking okay so in terms of my delivery the majority of my energy needs to be in the context of there are lots of people in this room but I do need to make sure the people who are joining virtually are included so I would have that in mind like okay that's that's now my outcome and I probably think about what do I need to change to achieve that so that might be okay I need my laptop open and I mean I literally do this as soon as this has happened so I think my laptop open because I'll be thinking while these people are in a physical breakout because I'm going to get these people talking then I can be in a little virtual breakout with the people that are joining remotely and and so I think that would I would just think ultimately this is a learning experience where everyone should feel like they could contribute I need to change quite quickly the way I'm delivering this learning in order for that outcome to be achieved and then I would change in that scenario particularly tech well done there are you how are my learners how are your learners your learners are doing you're doing brilliantly because you're just amazing storytellers you're just you're just so adaptable um how did that I suppose how did that feel like going going through those questions um just interesting your like your first first thoughts first observations um

20:30I well I felt like I have to adapt quite a lot in our job so um it did they didn't feel like hard questions I just felt like well this is the reality this is I'm doing this anyway so that was my second point just felt like a default and then my third reflection would be well I don't I don't know what that that is my default that would have definitely got to an outcome I think that would have the learners would have had a good experience but what I don't know is what else could I or should I have done that's the that's like the bit of knowledge that I'm probably missing where could where would I have had a better adaptability response yeah so I knew that your score your adaptability score generally as in like how adaptable do I think Helen is was naturally going to be quite high which is why I was like well I don't want to tell you what they are first because I was like well that's going to influence yeah that's going to influence what you say so I was like oh interesting just to see like where your head goes so if I now tell you the dimensions yeah and then let's just have a think through maybe for some of those questions there were things that I was expecting to hear from you that I didn't okay because I was like that's the even better if yeah right because lots of what you do so good and also I did want to make it real because I was like you're right we have forced high adaptability but that won't be true for everyone listening.

21:44Also hasn't been true for me in every job. It's just higher now. So dimension one, crisis, emergency. Quick, decisive action under sudden pressure. So there were quite a few examples there of you feeling, I thought, pretty adaptable. So sudden pressure is like, suddenly everyone's, some people are online. Suddenly cohorts emerging. When you receive the email at the start of the scenario, the one thing you didn't say that I was like waiting for was I'll get back to them really quickly like you didn't you didn't actually you know as in like well when I received that email I'd want to I thought you were maybe going to say that is a same day response email because that's clearly urgent and important that's going to have quite a big impact on that program they need they need me to be responsive I think I think yeah my first thought there was almost don't respond too quickly my first thought was work out the implication of this you've definitely gone to like dates before yeah I was like okay if that's what's happening what's the implication and then go back with that in mind and you know I'm not saying one's right or the other but you could there think well do they need a fast acknowledgement and there was no fast acknowledgement from you I'm trying to come up with some even better research here.

23:04Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's just true. Next one. So that was dimension one. That one I thought that was the only one I could spot because I was trying to do that filtering for you. Second one is work stress. Staying composed and effective under pressure. Which I thought on that one you scored, particularly the first two questions, you talk a lot there about creating clarity. So I think that is a skill that you've got that helps you to stay composed under pressure combined with your optimism. So I was like, oh, Helen's clarity plus optimism helps you. I think it helps you to make sense of work stress.

23:43I think it's your sense making skills when things get stressful. So that one I thought you did well at. Well, do you know what it is as well? I think I felt like I had control. I would have felt less, I think more stress, sorry. I felt like, okay, you're changing that, but I've got control now of what we do with the learning, how I can inform it. Whereas if I had less control, that definitely makes me stressed. The next one was the one where I thought maybe you had your biggest, even better riffs, which was creative problem solving. So generating novel solutions to new problems. So that's where I was sort of asking you a bit about like Borrow Brilliance or like we're doing storytelling.

24:24And I think you, because probably I'd done such a real situation, And you definitely described what you would actually do. I mean, I actually know the person that I would invite in. I know, I could almost see you. And I was like, how useful is it that this is really real? Yeah. Hi, James. You're really good at this. But what you didn't, your brain just didn't go there, I don't think. You know, like you didn't start to go, oh, is there a different way of learning here? Yeah, could they share stories and we give each other feedback and we combine two skills they've got in the programme? could I design and you definitely could could I design a GPT here like the long context that we've talked where you actually learned you know that you didn't go to that's a good Sarah's skill I would say you naturally go there well I was you did say you talked to me and I was like oh I can help here this was the one where I was like because I do think there is as I was going through these you know like the we actually did chat a bit about this because we did know we're talking about adaptability you know like I think in certain situations you bring different types of like adaptable skills like you are incredibly good when things change last minute and that is my like my least favorite situation it's interesting isn't it ah i know we're still going through your eight but an adaptable team might not be where every individual has all eight but you are covered you're across the team you've got the eight so i think you could work on all eight but eight is quite a lot all right as well and i was like individually yeah so individually be like right i've got to work on these eight um but i also thought it was helpful for you right if you were I think if you were thinking, I really think adaptability is really important to me.

26:01I was like, oh, creative problem solving. Either you can work on it. It was like, or and also who else is good at it. Next one, dealing with uncertainty, functioning well without complete information. You didn't seem that bothered. I'm probably not that bothered. But for some people, I think people will find that hard, right? You know, like there's lots of shades of grey. There's lots I don't know. um i think when people are very detailed like you're not very detailed so actually not having lots of information doesn't really bother you yeah but for some people being like well what are the skills you know like i was like saying well we don't they don't really know it's a bit confusing and i can definitely see that with different personality types that they would find that really off-putting um and so that is almost where i think and you actually describe this really well is actually saying this is where options are helpful scenarios um this is that you know um i think we've moved past the don't bring me problems bring me solutions to more if there are problems like new problems or we need to adapt like bring me options and that isn't actually where you went uh the next one which was interesting i don't think this one came out that well okay which might also have been my questions because obviously you're also assuming my questions are good questions which you know um this is learning new tasks and tech so quickly mastering new content or methods and so there wasn't I just don't think that really came out from those questions the ones that it was designed to because I do have a cross cross-referenced matrix to try and make sure that it did when I talked about like storytelling or boring brilliance I was thinking oh like you might talk about like maybe there that might have come I do wonder though I do think there could be an insight I think in like high pressure moments when I need to change your thinking or your actions if I just go kind of back to that definition I do think I probably rely on things that I know have worked well I might do I might use them in a different way yeah but I'm not I'm not necessarily going what is a completely different thing that I can do in this situation I think I'm thinking what do I know has worked that I could use differently now you know how you I'll use tech in like a way it's probably not supposed to be used because I'm like, okay, that solves that problem for this situation.

28:15And you definitely described that, which is a good thing, right? You know, we know that agility is almost like using what you've learned before, but then applying it to a new situation, which I think you would naturally do. But you're sort of less keen if we're, it doesn't happen that often, but if we're ever delivering together and we're mid-delivery, I'm really happy to do something new like in the afternoon. Whereas you'll be like, well, no, because we're literally in the middle of this. Whereas I'll adapt based on, maybe a bit more based on what's in the room. yeah i'll be like oh i think we could try this out or the energy's changed actually we had an example of this the other week where you were talking to me about something you'd done with the group and i said oh i will often do this thing around experiments and you were like oh i don't i don't necessarily kind of do that but i i will if i think the energy needs to go up so that might be i think you've actually got this skill but maybe you just don't apply it as much in those high adaptable moments potentially it's one you know all one to think about um next one interpersonal adaptability so this is about flexing your style and message for different people okay um and you seem quite comfortable here because I think you were if I've been interviewing you which I did feel like I was doing a bit at times which I quite enjoyed um you're very learner focused yeah you know there's lots of chat about how my learner's going to be feeling what's going to matter to my learners my learner experience um and then obviously when I was asking about people in a room countries that was designed to be like well I'll how far are you going to flex your style because some people in that situation would be like well I know what I've got to deliver everyone's if they're online they've just got to suck it up right yeah whereas you were like oh no I'll go and join that group and I'll kind of be part of it um so I felt like you were kind of comfortable with that one and it's linked to the last one which is around um cultural adaptability which is adjusting approach to fit cultural norms um actually I had an example of this the other week at London Business School where we were talking about mistake moments and that word mistake yeah and we actually talked to a few other people about this where the word mistake in some of the languages you just almost couldn't use it because you almost feel like you're either telling someone off or it'd feel very high blame and I always think we are very open to we want to hear those because I think we're quite curious and we find it quite interesting this one I found harder physical adaptability adjusting to new physical demands or settings so that's why I asked the room question okay yeah um because that that one is in there that was also talking about um because this research was done in like loads of different work contexts so obviously physical demands in some jobs are a bit different to others but I was thinking the up-to-date view of that is kind of like you know like working from home versus being in an office and like I think that's how I was thinking about adaptability so of those eight which of those do you think is you at your adaptable best i think i am good at staying composed i'm not a flapper no and i think i you give me like a situation and i'm probably the person who creates calm for other people as well yeah the work stress one staying composed and effective under pressure yeah good yeah almost i think it probably almost goes too far sometimes because i can be like a robot so calm but you turn into a calm robot like there is no need to panic panic panic panic panic and which was your uh biggest even better if adaptable work on would you say i think the creative problem uh one because yeah it's just not in those situations i think i'm like how do we move forward what is the fastest way how do we keep every you know that i don't think i'm like let's just try something new and And I think I almost mentally dismiss that as being valuable, but then I can talk to you and be like, yeah, that would be a good response.

32:08And so I either bring that more into my brain or just recognise that that is a gap. I don't think it's OK to recognise you've got a gap, but be conscious of that and think, do you know what? I need to bring that brain in to this. And what I would say, the thing that I didn't include, because I was trying to, I wanted to do something a bit different and I was really trying to break adaptability down into bite-sized chunks, is if you haven't watched Natalie Frato's TED Talk, which we have referenced before on adaptability and your adaptability quotient, I think if you're really interested in this, if you sort of buy into this as a no-regret skill, it's a brilliant watch, it's really short.

32:47Also talks a bit about things that are not in here, like being a beginner, you know, kind of staying curious. Almost more probably our typical sorts of content. whereas this to me felt a bit different and I was wondering whether if you were doing this as a team you could do what I've just done but as a team so you could create a team situation like it's really easy to do you just pick one that's real you know that a team has really been through and all I all I started to do to kind of create this was then just go okay and I use Claude to help me I got all the dimensions up I actually wrote the questions didn't like Claude's questions okay so claudera didn't do very well there no no so i i think because i just wanted them to feel very us yeah so i think as a team you could do that as one person could just write them but i think it'd be really interesting to then hear how different people would respond to the questions right because you'd hear different adaptability strengths like when you receive an email sharing the change of skill strategy how do you respond it's almost interesting for people to have chats about that and be like oh so helen and sarah like what would you do versus someone else i'm pretty sure i could like create this tool i feel like i could take those eight things and create almost like you're criticizing my lack of ai skills no i'm just like actually i could see our team like it's got a fixed scenario they type the scenario and then everyone spends five minutes answering questions and then you'll have to help me prototype it because like that is actually where i started but you know when you also think it's really important to critique ai where it's not working because i sort of had this idea of like i was trying to create that and i used claude i used gpt i used Microsoft Forms because I had to get permission from my own team to be able to use Microsoft Forms but it just kept feeling a bit quizzy you know a bit like quiz and profile and I think the challenge in my own mind was I was like is this actually going to help somebody reflect quite deeply on their adaptability today and like what that might you know like how to get better I mean if you think it's a good use of my time I'm happy to give it a go but otherwise I have just appreciated the depth of halfway through that you cross your arms and I was like I was like is she appreciating this or has she sort of had enough of these questions honestly no I think my body language might give off sometimes the wrong I enjoyed the crossed arms moment I wasn't like that at all no I appreciated the depth of adaptability my reflections are I found the last two harder you know there was the culture and the physical context yeah and i whilst i totally appreciate that as an important element of adaptability i found the first six more universally like if i was talking to a team i feel like people could relate to the first six elements of adaptability more than the last two would be my reflection on the eight i think the cultural one might depend on your work context yeah so there are companies that we work with where they're so global yeah that would be top I just know that would be top of their list the physical one I found harder but I mean that research is 26 years old so I think it was in 2020 and I think some of those things were things like people who might be working in construction or so that one I was the best I could come up with was like almost are we adapting to hybrid working where you know people are going to be in an office and actually some I saw Bruce Daisley post about some new research um on returning to office today where essentially they've pretty conclusively proved now that it's all about and as in best thing we can all do is spend some time physically together and some time to have space at home so i was like oh that's interesting because we're all going to need to adapt to that right as in you know everyone's going to always be in a room together every day we're going to be in different places there's much more there's much more adapting needed to make that work so i was like you could probably dive in you could try and connect the dots i think between those two things.

36:39Quite a nice name for a co-working space. Either like work and or just and, the and of this. You know, it's quite nice. Someone in those good places, go brand a co-working space there. Thank you for teaching me that no regret skill. Well, at least you'll get your own back when I think you're going to interview me on AI next. Oh, okay. You must listen, everybody. You must listen to our next Borrowed Brilliance episode, which will come out in a week because they come out every Tuesday. I am going to put Sarah through an interview, an AI type of interview where I ask her AI based questions that she might have to answer in a future interview and she doesn't know what the questions are in advance.

37:17So if you're not looking forward to that which I am not looking forward to that and I've really stuck to not looking at the questions and we've also very deliberately picked me to do this because I would say I'm not an early adopter I'm not a complete laggard but I think I'm just very in the middle of the curve yes and so I think I'll be a good representative example of lots of our listeners. Can't wait, can't wait. See you next week. Thanks for listening, everyone. Back to you again soon. Bye for now. Bye, everyone.