Resilience - Strengthening your AQ

Resilience, it keeps popping up all over the web as something new.

Truly it has been around in nature for millions of years and we see it everyday in various forms. The ability to problem-solve and change based on a new situation. The ability to adapt to changing conditions on a multitude of levels. Adaptability Quotient is measuring that capability and is the measures one’s resilience.

Why is it important to focus on developing your AQ? It comes down to personal confidence in an ever-changing world of work. The realization of the conditions in our 4th industrial revolution will be unsettleing to many people. We have to rethink the nature of work in the future. A strong AQ (Resilience) gives us the freedom to connect new elements to imagine solutions to complex or wicked problems. If your worrying constantly about your job you will less likely be a risk-taker. Risk-taking is key component to innovation. Without this ability to wander into uncharted territory we will not fully grasp the scope of what is possible. In the world of design we talk about starting to solve a problem with a divergent process or to create as many ideas as possible in problem-solving. Of course there has to be a balanced of delivering something in the innovation mix but without wild ideas we won’t find some of the answers to the big challenges of our time.

Quite often I have observed that for every wild idea there is a measure of brilliance. The real genius is spotting the diamond in the mountain of coal. Flashes of association come to some after listening to another persons wild idea.

Building this Resilience (AQ) is quite a natural process. Many of the exercises in developing better AQ are things we mastered as a child but have gotten away from.

More to come later in developing your own AQ fitness routine…