A Lesson in Naming the Inflection Point of Adaptive Change

Hi, we are Adaptation Addicts. And, frankly, we don’t have any plans of recovering from that addiction anytime soon. 

One of the key first steps to understanding individual and group adaptation is that not all growth is the same. In an effort to differentiate overcoming two types of limitations, we call some challenges technical and other challenges adaptive. (Shout out to Ronald Heifetz for the education.) 

The shortest story on this topic is that technical challenges are overcome with information. They are generally known problems with known solutions. While the challenges are critically problematic, there is someone with an answer. SEE: breaking your femur, losing electricity in an airplane mid-flight, or needing funding for a start-up. 

Adaptive challenges are different. Overcoming these challenges doesn’t come with more information. These are only solved with a transformation of some kind. The person with the problem would need to experience some adaptation to overcome it. Adaptive challenges have a solution that would require new learning and sometimes the challenge itself is unclear. 

The reason we’re talking about this today is to discuss one of clearest characteristics of adaptive experiences and it all comes down to the moment the problem is solved. 

In a technical challenge scenario, like not yet knowing how to plan a roadtrip because you aren’t sure how long the drive from Albuquerque to Atlanta is, we can point to the moment that you Google that fact as the clear moment the challenge was solved. 

Adaptive challenges are often a progression. 

If someone were to ask me on what day I became a good coach, I wouldn’t be able to produce an answer for that. Similarly, when did Mickey Mantle become a good baseball player? Could you point to the moment Anne Lamott became a quality writer? 

These adaptations are a spectrum of progress.

And, I mention that because we have a point of view that says overcoming adaptive challenges is where the juice of life is at. I’d bet all of the money in my wallet that you, the reader, has an adaptive challenge that may or may not be in your awareness that can only be resolved with you becoming a further along, more evolved, higher capacity version of yourself. And, by definition, that change isn’t coming from listening to a podcast or getting some soundbite of advice or reading a self-help book, you’ll need to become someone new. 

Get to it.