Promote Resilience With Adaptability Skills

Security rests in adaptability. Our current uncertain times can either freeze us from action, or create a space where we strengthen our ability to adapt. Remember, survival is based on "requisite variety".

That's a fancy biological term that basically means the organism that has the greatest number of responses to a situation has the greater chance of surviving. Watts Wacker, a noted futurist, offers things we can do to gain more options for ourselves:

• Learn to be a better listener. You don't learn when you are talking.

• Read a trade magazine from a different industry.

• Find two things in every issue that relate to your business.

• Let your kids tutor you in a subject they know more about than you do.

• Volunteer, and see the world through a different window.

• Read what has stood the test of time.

• Read Aristotle, Shakespeare, Adam Smith.

• Reading the great books helps frame your thinking.