From Insights to Impact | Part 2 of 5

As skills and workplace expectations continue to evolve, learning leaders need to help employees do more than acquire new knowledge. They need to develop the ability to question assumptions, embrace feedback, and adapt how they work.

The Skills We Need Keep Changing. Can We Change With Them?

New tools, new workflows, and new expectations arrive faster than most job descriptions can keep up with. Organizations respond the way they should: by investing in helping employees build new skills. That investment always matters. But there’s a quieter question sitting underneath it. If the skills in demand keep shifting, how well are people equipped to shift with them?

That’s the heart of adaptability: recognizing that something has changed, adjusting our approach, and continuing to learn rather than relying only on what worked in the past. Across Season 3 of our NovoEdTalks podcast series, learning and talent leaders kept returning to adaptability, often when asked what capability matters most. Sara Cavallucci of GS1 gave one of the clearest answers. As she called out, adaptability matters much more as a critical capability in environments where the skills and approaches organizations rely on are continually evolving.

Notice what she doesn’t name: a specific tool, platform, or technical skill. Reading the situation and adjusting is a capability that outlasts any particular piece of technology, which is exactly why it deserves as much attention as the so-called skills of the moment. 

Watch NovoEdTalks Podcast Episode 93, “Learning That Sticks,” with Sara Cavallucci

Learning Something New Is Only Half the Equation

Most development efforts are built around addition: Here’s a new skill, a new process, a new system to learn. But adding new knowledge on top of old habits only works if the old habits get examined first. People also need to recognize when an existing assumption or way of working has stopped serving them.

Sara Loncka of Experience Institute described what that looks like in practice:

“The most important thing that we think people can do is to release themselves from past experiences and how past experiences help us make future decisions, but actually spend some intentional time checking those assumptions about why we do what we do and build new ones.”

Notice the word intentional. Unlearning isn’t about abandoning everything we know, and it doesn’t happen automatically. It’s a deliberate process of asking why we do what we do, deciding what’s still worth keeping, and making room for new approaches. Past experience is valuable. It just shouldn’t be the only thing guiding the next decision.

Watch NovoEdTalks Podcast Episode 94, “Stop Optimizing for Convenience,” with Sara Loncka

Growth Mindset Is More Than Being Open to Change

Many organizations say they value growth. Far fewer create the conditions in which a growth mindset can actually develop and flourish. The gap between the two is wide, and it’s worth being honest about why.

Alex Kinney of Octapharma USA was direct about this paradox, recognizing the difficulty of implementing a growth mindset at an organizational level. “It’s not something that’s easy,” he acknowledges. “Having a growth mindset is really hard. It takes a lot of work.”

Watch NovoEdTalks Podcast Episode 106, “Beyond the Training Factory,” with Alex Kinney

Adaptability takes effort. It asks people to stay open to feedback, to experiment when the outcome is uncertain, and to tolerate the discomfort of not being immediately good at something new. Monica Anderton of DS Smith framed the mindset that makes this growth mindset possible:

“What’s the worst thing that can happen? OK, it doesn’t work out. But at least you tried, you learned, you evolve, and you go at it again.”

Watch NovoEdTalks Podcast Episode 99, “Leadership Personas,” with Monica Anderton

That’s an easy sentiment to agree with and a hard one to live by, especially in an organization where mistakes are costly or quietly penalized. A growth mindset can’t simply be encouraged through messaging. It has to be reinforced by the learning experiences and everyday opportunities that give people a real chance to practice it.

You Can’t Build Adaptability Through Content Consumption Alone

Can adaptability be developed? NovoEd’s Chief Learning Strategist Todd Moran’s answer is yes, at the level of the individual, the team, and the organization. But, as he says in the video below, “you have to do it differently.”

The “differently” is the important part. Fixed, isolated content assets, the kind of packages with “consume, consume, consume” written all over them, aren’t built to develop the ability to learn, unlearn, and adjust. Those abilities grow through experience, which means learning has to give people something to do and someone to do it with.

Todd points to a set of experiences that make the difference:

• Experimentation and application: trying new approaches on real work, where the stakes and the lessons are real
• Coaching and mentoring: one-to-one guidance that helps people see their own blind spots and work through them
• Feedback and reflection: the chance to take in input, think about it, and adjust
• Collaboration: learning from how others approach the same challenges
• Practice: repeated opportunities to try the new approach until it becomes natural

If the goal is a workforce that can learn, unlearn, and take feedback, Moran says, “you have to give people opportunities to do that.” Telling people to be adaptable isn’t the same as giving them the chance to practice being adaptable.

Christopher Chappell of Weis Markets described the disposition this kind of design is meant to build:

“Have that willingness to learn and relearn and unlearn and be agile in your ability to incorporate new things into your work.”

Watch NovoEdTalks Podcast Episode 97, “The Future of Work Requires ‘Meta Skills’,” with Christopher Chappell

Building Adaptability Across the Organization

It’s one thing to help a single person become more adaptable. It’s another to build that capacity across a workforce of thousands. Moran is clear that the second challenge can’t be solved with a collection of isolated learning events. As he puts it, it requires thinking holistically about “how do you culture that growth mindset across an organization of tens of thousands of individuals.”

In practice, that means shifting from treating adaptability as a skill to be taught toward treating it as something that gets built into how people learn and work together. Employees need ongoing chances to interact with one another, receive feedback, and apply new approaches in the flow of their jobs. L&D can help by creating environments that encourage experimentation, coaching, reflection, and continuous improvement, rather than relying on a single course to do the job.

Brandon Springle of Shaw Industries added an important nuance about what adapting actually asks of people:

“I believe that you can [upskill] and learn these new things, but you need to let go of what you used to do… Are you agile enough to let this thing go but keep what you need from that and then move on to what next.”

Watch NovoEdTalks Podcast Episode 104, ”Leading with Care and Challenge,” with Brandon Springle

The key phrase is “keep what you need.” Adaptability isn’t about discarding experience. It’s about being nimble enough to separate what still works from what doesn’t and moving forward with the former.

From Insights to Impact: What L&D Leaders Can Do Differently

The conversations in this article point to a handful of questions worth bringing to your next planning session:

1. Look beyond individual skills. Are we helping employees develop the ability to adapt as their roles and responsibilities change?
2. Challenge existing assumptions. Where might established ways of working be preventing employees from adopting new approaches?
3. Create opportunities to experiment. Can employees test new ideas, learn from mistakes, and adjust without unnecessary risk?
4. Make learning collaborative. How can coaching, mentoring, peer learning, and feedback support continuous development?
5. Build adaptability into everyday work. Are we creating ongoing opportunities to learn and improve, rather than relying on isolated training events?

A useful place to start is the third question. Look for one place in your organization where people already have a reason to try something new, and ask whether the learning around it gives them room to experiment, get feedback, and reflect.

The most valuable capability may not be what employees know today, but their ability to keep learning, question what they know, and adapt to what comes next.

Keep Connecting the Dots

Developing adaptability requires more than teaching new skills. Organizations need to create opportunities for employees to continually learn, unlearn, experiment, and adjust.

Across our From Insights to Impact series, we’re bringing together perspectives from NovoEdTalks guests and NovoEd Chief Learning Strategist Todd Moran to help learning leaders translate industry insights into meaningful action. 

This is the second of five conversations in the ongoing From Insights to Impact series. If this topic resonated, read Beyond Content Delivery: Designing Learning for Performance next. Part 1 in the series explores why learning leaders are shifting their focus from what employees complete to what they’re actually able to do in their roles. And, stay tuned for Parts 3 – 5 in the weeks to come, including our next installment, “Creating Space to Get It Wrong: Why Psychological Safety Matters for Learning.”