PeopleSmart in Business eBook - The Platinum Rule

Example:
While you have developed the competencies required to successfully
complete a known task, you work with three other people who
also possess these same talents. But they don’t have the same pressing,
competing priorities facing them as you. So in this case, adaptability
also includes having the vision and self-corrective aptitudes to seek
one or more available resources to help you appropriately manage
your adaptability. Isn’t that better than trying to be superhuman and
doing it all yourself?
Adaptability, then, is important because it directly relates to your degree
of achieved success in a wide variety of life’s opportunities. Th ese
range from relationships with other people, to coping with changing
conditions around you, to managing diff erent types of situations.
Extreme behavior can raise others’ tensions
At times people may perceive extreme adaptability as acting wishywashy,
sashaying back and forth across the fence line, or acting twofaced.
Additionally, a person who maintains high adaptability in all
situations may not be able to avoid personal stress and ultimate ineffi
ciency. Th is was suggested previously by the superperson myth of
doing it all yourself. Th ere is also the danger of developing tension
from the stress of behaving in a foreign manner with others. Th is is
usually temporary and may in fact be worth it if you gain rapport with
the other person.
Th e other extreme of the continuum is no behavioral adaptability.
Th is causes people to view someone as rigid and uncompromising. He
insists on behaving at his own pace and priority.
Adaptability is important to successful relationships of all kinds.
People oft en adopt at least a partially diff erent role in their professional
lives than they do in their social and personal lives. Th is is
to successfully manage the professional requirements of their jobs.
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