Your Plan Will Change. Your Purpose Doesn't Have To | Adaptability

Chris@cwcedge.com: Quick heads up before we start. I occasionally swear on this podcast, I do apologize. It's never intended to offend anyone. Sometimes I just get a little bit excited, and sometimes it's just for emphasis, and sometimes that's simply how the emotion comes out after a considerable period in the British military. Right, let's get into it. Hello everyone, and welcome back to the age with Chris Campbell. I've been thinking recently about adaptability, and I've realized something. I don't think adaptability is really about being good at change. I think it's about what you do when reality looks you straight in the face and says, your plan isn't going to work, big lad. And sometimes we've all been there. You can have the meeting, you can build the plan, you can create a PowerPoint deck, you can identify all the milestones, putting everything into your lovely little gant chart, color coding it. Risk register, action points, owners' dates, everybody agrees. Then reality bang hits you right in the face. Someone important leaves the team. Customer changes the requirement, the supplier doesn't deliver, the machine doesn't produce what you need, the budget changes, the weather changes, your child is maybe ill, or someone says no. Technology doesn't work. The football pitch gets called off. Something you were absolutely convinced would happen doesn't happen. And suddenly you've got a choice to make. You can spend the next three, four weeks explaining why the original plan that you dreamt up hasn't worked, or you can adapt. And after more than 23 plus years in the military, followed by working in business, in engineering, in projects, leadership, grassroots football. And now slowly building the CWC edge community, I think adaptability might be one of the most underrated leadership skills there is. Here's my definition it's ridiculously simple. Stay anchored in purpose and stay flexible in the execution. That's to me is adaptability. And one thing one thing military life teaches you very, very quickly is that plans matter. Despite the stereotype that people think soldiers just crack on and get stuff done, planning matters enormously. Preparation matters. Rehearsals matter, contingencies matter, and understanding the risk matters. But you also learn that the plan is based on what you know now. And the world has this annoying, annoying habit of ever changing. Information changes. People behave differently from how you expected it during the plan. The environment changes, equipment doesn't behave right, timings change. My big bugbear. Risk changes, and sometimes within minutes, the beautiful plan you've started spending hours and hours creating isn't the plan anymore. That doesn't mean planning was pointless. Quite the opposite. Good preparation gives you the understanding needed to adapt intelligently. And it's an important distinction. Adaptability isn't just saying, fuck it, we'll just wing it. That's not adaptability. That's per planning, wearing a really fancy jacket or a nice fancy t shirt. Good adaptability leaders prepare properly, but they don't become, and this is important, they don't become emotionally attached to their plans. That's the difference. They understand that the plan is a tool, it isn't the mission. And I saw variations of that throughout my military career in Northern Ireland, Iraq, Afghanistan, specialist operations, training, policing, investigations, different teams, different environments, different pressures. You'd prepare based on the information available to you at the time, and then new information arrived. And sometimes you you had to change. What I've realized looking back is that some Of the chamas leaders weren't necessarily the ones who knew exactly what was going to happen. Nobody did. They were comfortable knowing that they didn't know everything. That's a very different kind of confidence. Not, hey, I'm the leader, I've got all the answers. But whatever happens, we'll work it out together. And teams can feel that. Absolutely, they can feel that. And that's probably one of my favorite descriptions of adaptability, confidence without ego. You need enough confidence to make a decision. Of course you do. But not so much ego that you can't change it. That's bloody difficult. I find that hard, still. Especially as you become more senior. Because once you've announced the plan, people have heard you. Maybe you've briefed the board. Maybe you've briefed a hundred people. Maybe you've told the customer that it will happen. Maybe you've stood in front of the team and said, This is what we're doing, guys. Then the information changes. And suddenly you realise that's no longer the best option. Now what? Well, some leaders double down on on this. Not because the plan remains incorrect, because changing it feels Like admitting they were wrong. That's very dangerous. That's a huge difference between being wrong and making the best decision you could at the time of the information available. If the information changes, the decision may need to change. That's not weakness. That's really, really good leadership. And ironically, I think people trust you more when you're prepared to say, right, things have changed. Here's what we know now. So we're adjusting rather than spending three weeks pretending everything's still going beautifully while the building is metaphorically on fucking fire behind you. I've had to relearn this outside the military. When I left the army after twenty three and whatever years, that was adaptability massively. Because suddenly all those things I'd become competent at, all that experience, the language, the structure, the rank, the organization, gone. Now I'm walking into heavy engineering, new environment, new terminologies, new people, new systems. And there are people who've forgotten more about engineering than I ever knew. You have two choices, I believe. You can walk in thinking, I was an RSM. I know how to lead people. Or you can shut up occasionally. You can listen. You can learn, ask questions. work out which parts of your experience transfer and which don't. That is clear adaptability. The values transfer, discipline, ownership, integrity, standards, people, planning, communic communication, key. Decision making, those remained, absolutely. But how I applied them, that needed to change. Purpose anchored execution Flexible. And that's something I think military levers sometimes struggle with. What made you successful in one environment might not work identically somewhere else. Have a think about that. It doesn't mean your experiences have no value. Far from it. It means you've got to translate it. I've seen this repeatedly with projects. We begin with here's what we think the problem is. You then go to the Gemba, the place of work. You talk to people, you observe the work, you gather the information, and suddenly the problem you thought you had isn't actually the problem. Brilliant. That's not project failure. That's adaptability and learning. This is why I'm so passionate about going to see the work on the Gemba, because PowerPoint doesn't argue with you. A spreadsheet rarely says, Chris, you're out of your mind. You've completely misunderstood this. But people and processes do. Reality does. And this is where the lean thinking and adaptability fit beautifully together. The plan, do, check, act. PDCA cycle. We sometimes obsess over the plan, but the whole bloody point is that you then do, see what happens, then you check, learn, and then act. Adjust. That's adaptation. Built into improvement. Kaizen isn't create the perfect answer first time. It's try something, learn. Improve and try again. Because innovation without adaptability is almost impossible. If you're doing something genuinely new, how could you possibly know everything before you start? You can't. If you do know the exact outcome, you're probably not innovating at all. You're implementing. Whether it's machine monitoring programs, digital systems, robotics, AI, new workflows, new products entering, a different training approach. You're going to discover things. Something won't integrate. People won't use something the way you expected. The technology has limitations. The process behaves differently. Great. You've learned something. The dangerous organization is the one where everybody has already spent two hundred and fifty thousand pounds. Nobody wants to admit the idea needs changing. That's when ego and sunk costs become very expensive. Adaptive organizations ask, what have we learnt? Not how do we prove the original decision was right. Massive, massive difference. And this is where psychological safety matters. Amy Edmondson's work has been hugely influential here and stripped off the academic language. The principle is incredibly practical. Can somebody tell you something isn't working without getting their head bitten off? Because if the answer is no, your organization has a serious adaptability problem. People will see problems. They just won't tell you. Imagine a machine operator saying, Chris, that new process you've introduced is shit. It isn't working. There are two broad responses. One, well, you haven't given it enough time. This came from senior management. Just follow the process. Brilliant. Guess how many problems that operator tells you about next time? Probably none. Or okay, show me. Four words. Okay, show me. Let's go and look what's happening. What did we expect? What's actually happening? And what have we missed? What could we change? Now you've got learning. And you've also told that person your knowledge matters. That's how adaptability becomes cultural rather than just something the boss claims to value. Grassroots football is another brilliant classroom for this. You can spend all week, all week thinking about Sunday formation, pro positions, who plays where, and what the other team's like, what you're working on. Then the game starts, and I tell you, within five minutes sometimes not even five minutes. None of it looks quite how it did in your head or on your whiteboard. The opposition does something unexpected, players struggle. someone gets hurt, weather is awful, confidence, energy, whatever. And you've got to decide do I stubbornly stick with what I planned? Or do I respond to what's actually happening? But there's another side. If I change everything every 30 seconds, the kids haven't got a clue what's happening either. And that's not adaptability. That's chaos. That's absolutely controlled chaos. And there's an important leadership lesson hiding in there. Adaptability needs stability around it. People need some things that don't keep changing, purpose or values or standards or some form of direction. If every Monday morning the strategy is different, that's not really an agile business. That's a confused one. A very confused one. This is where I think the old conversation about adaptability sometimes gets it wrong. We're told you need to embrace change, okay. But what shouldn't change? That's just as important. And for me, integrity shouldn't change because the environment gets difficult. How you treat people shouldn't suddenly disappear under pressure. Safety doesn't become optional because production is behind. Customer value Shouldn't disappear because a metric is inconvenient. Your fundamental purpose shouldn't change every time something gets difficult. It's quite simple. The route can change. The method can change. The technology can adapt and change. The structure can change. Timetables can change. But there need to be anchors. Otherwise, you're not adapting. You're you're just literally drifting along. And that's another trap some leaders become addicted to change. New structure, new initiative, new system, new meetings, new priorities. New bloody colour scheme for the for the website. W whatever it is. Everything is constantly moving and then they say people are resistant to change. Maybe. Just maybe. People are just knackered. Change fatigue is real. And I see it quite a lot. And leaders need judgment. Not every problem requires transformation. Sometimes the process is fine. Sometimes people just need time to stabilize. Sometimes the best leadership decision isn't stop, sorry, is stop changing things for five minutes and let the system breathe. Let it work. As long as it's safe. And that's a bit adaptability too. Knowing when not to change. And I promised myself when I changed the format of this podcast that I wouldn't turn it into university lectures, especially now I'm actually talking to universities, which is quite strange. I'll do a podcast on that shortly. So I'll keep this bit simple. Ronald Heifetz and colleagues made a useful distinction between technical problems and adaptive changes. Technical problems generally have Known solutions. Something breaks, expertise exists. Apply the solution. Adaptive challenges are different. The answer isn't already sitting in a manual. People may need to change their behaviors. Assumptions need challenging. Different groups see the problem differently. Learning is required. And that's much harder. And leaders often make the mistake of treating an adaptive problem as though it's a technical problem. Culture problem, question mark, write a policy, engagement problem, send a survey, communication problem, create another meeting, Jesus. Leadership problem. Put everyone on a leadership course. Those things might help. But if the underlying problem requires people to think and behave differently, a technical fix alone won't solve it. And there's another useful organizational idea called dynamic capabilities. Again. Don't worry about the titles or the jargon of these things. Dynamic capabilities. The practical idea is can your organization notice what's changing, respond, and reconfigure itself when needed? That's adaptability at organizational scale. Massive. And I think it comes down to a a handful of behaviors, not fifteen competencies on a on a friggin' framework somewhere. Just a few things. First, they stay curious. They ask, what's changed? What am I missing? What are the people closest to the work saying? That's very important. Very important. The people closest to the work, what are they seeing? And second, they separate ego from decision. Changing your mind because you've learned something, it's not weakness. Thirdly, they create options. One of the simplest questions I've used over the years, what else could we do? Not what's the answer? What are the options? Because options create a little bit of maneuver. Fourth, they communicate when the plan changes. This matters a hell of a lot. People can cope with change. They can. What they struggle with is confusion. If we're changing direction, tell them. What's changed? Why? What does it mean for you, for them, for the business? What stays the same? What happens next? Clarity. Guess what? It reduces people's anxiety. And fifth, they learn. Afterwards. Not blame. Learning. What worked, what didn't. What did we assume? What surprised us? And what will we do differently next time? That's where adaptability gets better. Experience is brilliant. Experience gives you pattern recognition. You've seen things before, you can sometimes spot problems earlier. But experience can also become I know how this works. And that's dangerous. Because maybe it doesn't work like that anymore. Maybe it's changed. That's why I love different. Generations working together. Experience says we've tried something like this before, young lad. Here's what went wrong. And the fresh thinking youngsters say, Okay, but if technology has changed the constraint, now we've got conversation, not old versus young or experience versus innovation. Both. And that's adaptability, and that's really important in a business. I've changed my mind about things plenty. And I hope to continue to as well. Because if I have exactly the same opinions at fifty that I had at twenty-five, after another twenty-five years of experience, what the hell have I been learning? Hmm. Ch changing your mind isn't always inconsistency. Sometimes it's evidence that learn learning occurred. And that doesn't mean becoming a windsock. Whatever direction the wind blows, off you go. Values matter to people, purpose matters to people, evidence matters, judgment matters. But being willing to say, I used to think this. I've learned something. I differently I think differently now. That's strength. So here's a challenge for you this week, as always. I don't want four actions. I want one. Because that's how we're doing the edge. Edge now. Think about one thing you're currently trying to force a project, process, relationship, career decision, something at home, whatever. And ask has reality changed? But I'm still trying to execute the original plan. That's it. Has something changed and I'm still plowing on with the same plan. Don't immediately change anything. Just ask the question. Maybe the plan is still right. Great. Curry on. But maybe you're holding on to it because changing direction feels like admitting failure. If that's the case, have another look. The objective isn't to prove your plan was right. The objective is to achieve the purpose. Adaptability isn't weakness. It isn't indecision. It isn't changing your mind every five minutes. It isn't abandoning standards and it definitely isn't winging it. If knowing what you're unwilling to compromise and being incredibly flexible about everything else, the military taught me that. Business reinforced it. Engineering reinforces it almost every day. Football teaches it every Friday and Sunday. Family, Jesus Mary. Family might teach it most of all. No plans. Try creating a perfect plan with three children and see how long that plan survives. So plan, prepare, set standards, know where you're going, absolutely. But when reality gives you A curveball or new information. Listen to it. Look at it. Learn and adjust. Because rigid leaders spend their energy defending yesterday's plan. Adaptability leaders use today's information to make tomorrow better. Thank you for listening to The Edge with Chris Campbell. If you know somebody currently trying to force a plan that clearly isn't fucking working, maybe send them this podcast. Don't write This is you, you prick. That wouldn't be nice. Just casually send them the link and let me take the blame. Please remember stay anchored in your purpose. Stay flexible in that execution. That's adaptability. That's leadership. And increasingly, I think that's where some of our biggest improvements could begin. Leadership lean, lasting impact, building better leaders, better systems, and better businesses. Until next time. Keep your edge.