ADAPTABILITY 101
Image Credit: Jesse Ditmar
In times of strife, we have our imagination, we have our creative impulse, which are things that are more important than material things. They are the things that we should magnify.
Patti Smith (1946—) is an American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and poet who became an influential component of the New York City punk rock movement with her 1975 debut album Horses. She is referred to as the "punk poet laureate" and among her many, many accomplishments was inducted into the 2007 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Her adaptability is present through the versatility of her mediums, her performance in action, and her proximity to her audience.
Smith is not limited to music, and has composed poetry, performed literature, written exquisite prose, taken some stunning photographs, and continued to hone her perspective across an indiscriminate range of creative expressions.
Smith wrote an essay on her performance at the Nobel Prize Award Ceremony honoring Bob Dylan, where she infamously succame to nerves. She had to stop her performance to regroup. After repeating a line, she told the crowd, “I apologize, I’m sorry, I’m so nervous,” to encouraging applause. She has explained that later “I hadn’t forgotten the words that were now a part of me. I was simply unable to draw them out.”
Lastly, Smith has spoken and written at length that she writes and performs “for the people.” And that notion of “the people” is elastic and always shaped by how one identifies and orients oneself relative to the body of culture. Smith reflects on how this notion has evolved for her over the course of her half-century career:
When I wrote the lyrics for [my 1975 debut album] Horses I had a particular body of people who I was speaking to, and that was the people like myself, who I felt were disenfranchised. The more maverick person. I wasn’t really addressing the masses. I didn’t even think I had anything of interest to share with the masses. But I felt that I had something to share with people like myself. So my early work was really written to bridge poetry and rock and roll and to communicate, as I said, with the disenfranchised person. And I think in that way it was successful. But in the eighties, when I stopped performing and I got married and had a family, I became more empathetic to social issues and the humanist point of view. And I think my lyrics had changed. I was speaking to a larger body of people. As a mother, you want to speak to everyone.
Chappel makes an interesting interviewer. They interview one another on the craft of writing and the cathartic process of finding their voice.
ADAPTABILITY 101
We must pivot between two modes in any situation (when it is needed). To hold our certainty or experience lightly to learn is the ultimate expression of adaptability.
Individuals, as well as organizations, thrive on the right amount of tension. Because it takes a significant effort to develop a strategy, most leaders would like to see their plans fully executed. Variations from the strategic plan are often unwelcome and assumed to be detrimental to overall performance. Yet, conformity to the strategy isn’t necessarily a straight path to outstanding performance either.
In between strategy and the execution lies tension. We feel that tension acutely in the form of stress. Questions such as “are we doing the right thing?” or “are we doing the right thing (well)?” live in this gap. There are no easy answers. Too little stress, and we are bored or too rigidly aligned to the plan. It makes us blind to emerging risks or opportunities. Too much stress and we burn out, wobble in our performance, embrace unrealistic goals, and waste resources.
The right amount of tension keeps us alert, responsive to emerging developments, and increases our performance up to a point, but not beyond that point. A diamond is the byproduct of constant pressure over time from multiple sides. Similarly, being able to successfully pivot our approach when we need to comes from our ability to adapt to pressure.
We become inflexible and eventually stubborn when we lack awareness of alternative paths. Without the awareness that a shift to adapt is needed, we will never rise to our potential and achieve our definition of success. If we are to succeed, we must readily and willingly adapt to circumstances as they unfold, including the things we cannot change. We can be confident that our experience, performance—whatever outcomes we are after—will take time to evolve.
Life itself underscores this dynamic. Consider the phases we each go through as we develop. We crawl until we learn to take our first steps. We teeter until we fall. In our teens, we are adjusting to physical and emotional changes. As adults, we go to college, get married, have children and grandchildren, nurture careers, develop hobbies, and retire. Each development phase brings events to our lives completely out of our control. If we stick with the skills from our last phase of development but fail to gain the skills our current phase requires—we fail to move forward.
To take advantage of changing circumstances, we must survey the situation and then make the necessary adjustments. Maybe we need to bring in new people. Perhaps we need to shake up the routine. At some point, we need to change our actions.
How do we manage our ability to pivot with our circumstances and maintain or accelerate our performance?
PRACTICE:
Consider these questions:
List a few significant times in which you adapted, even if you did so reluctantly. What criteria do you use to determine when you need to adapt?
How do you respond when you are asked to adjust a habit, attitude, or behavioral pattern in your life?
COMMIT
[ ] I commit to myself to being an instrument of change for truth, even in circumstances requiring me to change my thinking.
FURTHER READING/ WATCHING
Devotion (Why I Write): Smith offers a detailed account of her own creative process, inspirations, and unexpected connections. She presents an original and beautifully crafted tale of obsession—a young skater who lives for her art, a possessive collector who ruthlessly seeks his prize, a relationship forged of need both craven and exalted. She then takes us on a second journey, exploring the sources of her story through Paris and London. Smith generously opens her notebooks and lets us glimpse the alchemy of her art and craft in this arresting and original book on writing.
Through Death's Door: How To Transform Grief Into Gratitude: Following the tragic and sudden death of her mother, a 3-day retreat in a hermitage brings the author new insights, revelations, and peace. No matter the cause, the death of a loved one brings a devastating sense of loss and causes a re-examination of our beliefs and fears. This two-part work begins with the "in-the-moment" grief journal, as it was written during the retreat. Part Two provides a workbook for the reader to use as they begin their own grief journey, as well as a collection of some of the author's favorite quotations and poems on the subject of grieving and loss.
Patti Smith on Patti Smith: Interviews and Encounters (Musicians in Their Own Words): With her characteristic blend of bohemian intellectualism, antiauthoritarian poetry, and unflagging optimism, Smith gave them hope in the transcendent power of art. Her interview archive serves as a compelling counternarrative to the albums and books. Initially, interviewing Patti Smith was a censorship liability. Contemptuous of staid rules of decorum, no one knew what she might say, whether they were getting the romantic, swooning for Lorca and Blake, or the firebrand with no respect for an on-air seven-second delay. Patti Smith on Patti Smith is a compendium of profound and reflective moments in the life of one of the most insightful and provocative artists working today.
In Her Words…
“No one expected me. Everything awaited me.” —Just Kids
“I refuse to believe that Hendrix had the last possessed hand, that Joplin had the last drunken throat, that Morrison had the last enlightened mind.”
“Make your interactions with people transformational, not just transactional.”
“In art and dream may you proceed with abandon. In life may you proceed with balance and stealth. For nothing is more precious than the life force and may the love of that force guide you as you go.”—Early Work, 1970-1979
“..slowly I discerned a familiar shift in my concentration. That compulsion that prohibits me from completely surrendering to a work of art, drawing me from the halls of a favored museum to my own drafting table. Pressing me to close Songs of Innocence in order to experience, as Blake, a glimpse of the divine that may also become a poem.
That is the decisive power of a singular work:a call to action. And I, time and again, am overcome with the hubris to believe I can answer that call”— Devotion
"What is the dream? To write something fine, that would be better than I am, and that would justify my trials and indiscretions."
“Tearing things apart (is) a powerful aspect of human nature.” ―Devotion
"The only thing I've ever wrestled with through the years, in terms of art was, 'Am I good enough? Do I deserve to call myself an artist?'"
What we don’t see on the resumes we review or the job descriptions we want is the litany of emotional entanglements we bring to our roles, uninvited, to the team and organizations we work in. Alongside technical skills, people who can master a range of subjective skills are better able to influence, deal with ambiguity, bounce back from setbacks, think creatively, and manage themselves in the presence of setbacks. In short, those who learn lead.
Observing subjective qualities in others past and present gives us a mental picture for the behaviors we want to practice. Each figure illustrates a quality researched from The Look to Craftsmen Project. When practiced as part of our day-to-day, these qualities will help us develop our mastery in our lives and work.
References:
Johnson, B. (1996). Polarity management: Identifying and managing unsolvable problems. Amherst, Mass: HRD Press.
Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, fast and slow. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.