Editor’s Note: I was thinking about this post in terms of a session on Predictive Adaptation I sat in on last month. Dr. Liz Alexander moderated. She is considering a book on the subject which boils down to:
Can we stay tuned in enough to adapt prior to a change in our marketplace?
As the shelf life of companies grows shorter and shorter, the ability to adapt is on the short list of survival strategies. How do we cultivate it? One way is to not be stuck in our habits.
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I’m a tea drinker, I have a teapot with an infuser, numerous immersion devices and a cabinet stuffed full of teas – black, herbal, medicinal, green. When I drank coffee, it was the same scenario, with different props. My freezer was full of Peets’ (now, alas, part of Starbucks) Major Dickinson blend and my cabinet, coffee brewers — drip, stovetop, percolator, French and Italian press – you get the drift.
Habits can lock us into rigid ways of thinking and doing. The solution? Try something new.
Two weeks ago I ran out of tea. I reordered in a such a panic that I used an old address. My tea — a special blend I’d grown to depend on to get me out of the door in the morning — never arrived. The tea blender refused to fix the delivery snafu. So I didn’t reorder.
That’s how one habit (getting in a snit when things didn’t go my way) forced me to re-evaluate another (my tea drinking compulsions). I was forced to rethink that morning ritual. Now I’m brewing tea bags (Choice) I buy at the grocery store. I don’t enjoy my tea nearly as much, but it’s saving me time. Unintended consequence: I’m actually getting to work on time.
Habits can be helpful, but they can also lock us into position. I’ve noticed that whatever it is hoard is a habit – wine, ice cream, tea, coffee, graham crackers. In the same way, my response to the tea blender was a habit — he chided me about my carelessness, I felt like a bad child, and I didn’t want anything more to do with him. Other habits I’ve flagged since my tea disruption:
- Who I greet in the morning
- Where I walk the dog
- What I do with my spare time
- Who I telephone to spend time with
- How I think about my abilities (and shortcomings)
- The books I read
- How I view people with ideas that are different from mine
A search on “habits” took my to former Googler Matt Cutts’ Ted Talk, “Try Something New for 30 Days.” (Editorial note: Why is the guys can look like slobs and the women have to look like they’re ready for the Academy Awards?) Regardless, I’ve resolved, for at least 30 days (when Choice tea bags will probably already be my new habit), not to reorder tea. We’ll see what happens.
Who knows what I’ll discover.
