Quotes About Adaptation

The planet has survived everything, in its time. It will certainly survive us.

Life will find a way.

The purpose of life is to stay alive. Watch any animal in nature--all it tries to do is stay alive. It doesn't care about beliefs or philosophy. Whenever any animal's behavior puts it out of touch with the realities of its existence, it becomes exinct.

This is what you do. You make a future for yourself out of the raw material at hand.

Yet he saw that in all places there was originality, resulting from the human efforts at decoration and ingenious methods of survival.

I don't mean to be critical, but you have been away from civilization for quite a long time. One's perspectives can narrow.

Joining a new company is akin to an organ transplant—and you're the new organ. If you're not thoughtful in adapting to the new situation, you could end up being attacked by the organizational immune system and rejected.

Once people perceive that change is going to happen, the game often shifts from outright opposition to a competition to influence what sort of change will occur.

Joining a new company is akin to an organ transplant—and you're the new organ.

The danger comes when people think you have what political columnist George Will once described as "a learning curve as flat as Kansas.

Accelerate everyone. Finally, you need to help all those in your organization—direct reports, bosses, and peers—accelerate their own transitions. The fact that you're in transition means they are too.

Joining a new company is akin to an organ transplant—and you're the new organ. If you're not thoughtful in adapting to the new situation, you could end up being attacked by the organizational immune system and rejected. Witness David's challenges at Energix.

To overcome these barriers and succeed in joining a new company, you should focus on four pillars of effective onboarding: business orientation, stakeholder connection, alignment of expectations, and cultural adaptation.

How will you make it your own?

successful in rapidly scaling the learning curve, building key relationships, and getting early wins,

Transition failures happen because new leaders either misunderstand the essential demands of the situation or lack the skill and flexibility to adapt to them.

do whatever it takes to get into the transition

you can decide to learn and adapt, or you can become brittle and fail.

Building "ambidextrous" organizations that can do both of these well is a challenge. See Michael L. Tushman and Charles O'Reilly III, Winning Through Innovation: A Practical Guide to Leading Organizational Change and Renewal, rev. ed. (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2002).

The first task in making a successful transition is to accelerate your learning.

Clarify expectations early and often. Begin managing expectations from the moment you consider taking a new role. Focus on expectations during the interview process. You are in trouble if your boss expects you to fix things fast when you know the business has serious structural problems. It's wise to get bad news on the table early and to lower unrealistic expectations. Then check in regularly to make sure your boss's expectations have not shifted. Revisiting

it is essential to figure out what you need to know about your new organization and then to learn it as rapidly as you can. The more efficiently and effectively you learn, the more quickly you will close your window of vulnerability.

They put me in the job because of my skills and accomplishments," the reasoning goes. "So that must be what they expect me to do here." This thinking is destructive, because doing what you know how to do (and avoiding what you don't) can appear to work, at least for a while. You can exist in a state of denial, believing that because you're being efficient, you're being effective. You may keep believing this until the moment the walls come crashing down around you.

To adapt successfully, you need to understand what the culture is overall and how it's manifested in the organization or unit you're joining (because different units may have different subcultures). In doing this, it helps to think of yourself as an anthropologist sent to study a newly discovered civilization.