Adaptability – A Social Conundrum

Adaptability is the core function of human evolution; without this differentiating competence, we would still be in caves. The rise of the human species to the top of the food chain on earth is driven by observation and adaptation skills. These traits are fundamentally triggered by emotions of curiosity and learning. These behavioral traits were quite primal in humans, which activated the disproportionate cognitive competence at later stages of evolution.

Human evolution was all about physical, cognitive, and emotional upgradation, leaving our fellow animals far behind. Adaptability has become the natural behavioral attribute of humans for millions of centuries.

However, there has been visible degeneration of this cognitive competence since the formation of industrial societies. Human evolution seems to have slowed down for many decades, if not wholly stalled. Human regression is visibly on the rise. Withdrawal from core cognitive strengths appears to be a growing trend. Loss of adaptive capabilities is one of the deteriorating human competencies of this generation.

I clearly see four critical reasons for this severe and perilous trend.

Arrogance of mistaken identity Most humans, especially those living in developed and developing countries, are no longer threatened by physical survival. Survival of the fittest does not factor in 'adaptability' as a core competence for this generation. In fact, many youngsters are being coached by ignorant

parents and schools to 'be yourself,' as if they have attained complete enlightenment as teens and young adults.

Millions of young people are unfortunately shutting doors on huge possibilities of transformational learning at every stage of their life. Instead of teaching young people to be open-minded, curious, observant, and flexible with their beliefs, they are being callously led to believe that they are strong if they are rigid.

This irresponsible instruction makes morons out of many youngsters, who feel the beliefs they have formed in a short span of their life shouldn't be challenged by none.

Even before one is fully formed as an adult, the meaningless pride in being' myself' is hurting more than helping. I see many young people stuck in their small molds and incapacitated of accessible learning and adaptation.

Workplaces are exhibitive of arrogant young executives at entry, middle and even at top management levels crippled by their incompetence to synch their personal values, beliefs, and ideas with that of the organizations they work for.

'Being myself' can also be open-minded, learning-oriented, adaptive, mutually respectful, and receptive to new beliefs, values, and ideas. It need not be an incomplete, faulty, rigid, and arrogant being.

Social reward reversal

All human behavior is learnt. A 'reward and punish' system forms and reinforces most behaviors. If a society has stopped rewarding competence, congruent behavior, and valuable conduct, it is apparent that there will be fewer of these behaviors in that social system over time. The rise of social media platforms as instruments of social validation has upset the natural flow of the 'reward and punish' system. The system today stands almost reversed. Most of the bad, inefficient, and incongruent behaviors are being rewarded instead of being punished. We are currently travelling in that direction. Most social media platforms are flooded and congested by incongruent morons who serve each other's likes, views, shares, and whistles. It indirectly punishes good, congruent, and socially valuable behaviors, eventually amalgamating them into their cesspool or displacing them from the social system.

Behaviors like adaptability are primal, upbeat, result-oriented, and impactful for building valuable human capital are losing relevance, identity, and necessity.

There is an impending need to reward valuable and effective behaviors for promoting and permeating them. If massive corrective measures are not taken, societies will be ripped of compelling and valuable behaviors in less than one or two decades from now. At this point, there is hardly any social reward for being positive, congruent, adaptive, and open-minded. Those who are practising skills are self-initiated. There's very little credible and consistent instruction besides mere lip service from parents, schools, or social influencers in this critically important area for human development.

Degenerated role models

The industrial society we live in is all about consumption. Those who consume more are looked up to instead of those who contribute more. In fact, greatness is mostly about contributing more than you consume. Credible role models are in very little supply in a society blinded by my mere acquisition of materials for comparative emotional survival. Insecure dwarfs, reel and real actors, controversy mongers, sensation drivers, pathetic abusers, devious plotters, and chronic liars are mostly headline grabbers and role models in our society.

Those with higher intellect, knowledge, application competence, social focus and adaptability are not titled role models. These low lives are neither condemned nor questioned for their utter lack of social competence to adapt to a higher order of human life. Instead, they are promoted and elevated to higher roles socially and organizationally.

If this is the order of the day, what can you expect from future generations?

Conclusion

Humans seem to lose track of their evolutionary strengths and slide into the comfort of the status quo. In this case, it will be a short time before the human enterprise will face a severe dearth of mentally congruent human capital. We rapidly lose the capability to co-exist by adapting to the legitimate demands of family, social, institutional, and workplace settings through misplaced rigidity of 'self.' Many spousal relationships and families are broken and have caused irreparable disharmony among communities.

Functional organizations need a hierarchy of authority, whether a society, the workplace, or a family. In a distraught situation of one's incompetence to adapt to even primal competencies, regressive human societies are acting as if everything is normal. At the same time, most we hold dear is falling apart.

(Author is a Harvard Business School certified Organizational Strategist / A global expert in Emotional Intelligence)