Sustainable Development Goals, enabled by the Inner Development Goals: Being - being 100% YouQ

Article Content

Introduction
We cannot solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them
When we don’t see, it’s easier to assume
Linear Thinking’s Expectation Gap in Exponential Change
Social VUCA caused by the 4th Industrial Revolution
When Change is on steroids, connection & collaboration at work must evolve
We need new perspective
The law of the Adjacent Possible
Measuring, sparking & sustaining Innovation & change
9a. YouQ and AQ Ability
9b. AQ Environment
Process (Ego to Eco) enabling Inner-vation, results in Vertical literacy
Conclusions

Introduction

The subject of change and innovation has been the subject of my work and life for 30+ years. I have not only worked with it in a corporate environment, given it significant thought, but it would be fair to say that my personal life has been an experiment in this context, with the key purpose of finding meaningful, practical, useful, and applicable answers, not just limited to the micro realms of my own personal development but of understanding and communicating how a different angle or perspective on being human, could apply to all of us at a macro level. Whether this be in the world of industry, business or society, enabling sustainable change and Innovation. ‘Sustainable’ in this context means solutions that have been designed not just for short-term success, but pass the test of multifaceted perspectives of what success would look like from a longer-term, environmental, social and human perspective.

Because today, at the beginning of 2023, the stakes of ensuring we are doing the right things are high. Enabling sustainable change and innovation in this way will require a fundamental shift in attitude, in how we and businesses operate going forward, a shift that might initially require courageous humility and optimism in equal doses.

The purpose of the following blog is to provide a more scientific exploration of how innovation works. To show that the key ingredients which activate that source of creativity and inspiration, rather than being the sole ability of a few talented prodigies or geniuses, form part of an underlying natural law or process by which anyone can engage and benefit. I wish to actively counter the idea and false assumption that being adaptable, or innovative generally is an ability restricted to the lucky few characters who are usually associated with financial success, those who habitually like to put on pedestals, like Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, et al.

In the context of enabling sustainable change and innovation, this article covers how a different angle, shift in attitude or perspective on being human, could improve our individual to adapt at a micro level, and has meaningful and provable implications on all of us at a macro level, and could have far-reaching consequences. Perhaps a perspective that gives hope to anyone interested in wishing to be part of enabling change at an individual and organisational or system level.

While we would not consider redesigning our kitchens without considering the less visible aspects of the kitchen e.g., out-of-date electricals, plumbing etc. the shocking fact is that most of us are metaphorically doing this with our own lives, at home, at work, with our projects, businesses, public policies, and approaches to change and innovation generally. So, it shouldn’t be a surprise to find the state of our world at a macro level, reflecting that fact back to us.

The good news though, is that if we start looking with an unusual level of interest and focus, in a different direction for solutions, a path less taken, perhaps we really have a chance of pulling the metaphorical rabbit out of the hat before the curtains come down. At this point, what have we got to lose, except everything that allows us to exist on a liveable planet?

2. We cannot solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them

This is a quote that many (including myself) have attributed to Einstein, but I since discovered, what he wrote was slightly different. In a telegram to a set of wealthy Americans, asking for donations to campaign for peaceful uses of nuclear power, over it’s escalating use in weapons was:

“A new type of thinking is essential if mankind is to survive and move toward higher levels” Albert Einstein [i]

Either way though, his message is similarly important, urgent, and relevant in 1946 as it is today. If you were wanting to come up with a brand-new way of doing things or find game-changing innovative solutions to complex global problems, (and let’s face it, we really need to), it would hardly make sense to start from the place you normally approach things.

That would be like designing a new kitchen, only covering the aspects we ‘can’ see e.g. cupboards, shelves, sinks, cookers etc. and ignoring that which we ‘cannot’ see: like the out-of-date electricals, plumbing, lack of compliance to legal building requirements, underlying structural problems or perhaps the impact a new kitchen has on the environment. While these latter concerns lie in the unseen, they’re still critically important factors for consideration before starting any project. That’s if we don’t want to find ourselves in the loop of negative externalities or unintended consequences. It would be considered a huge lack of foresight to start building without considering such fundamental issues.

But the shocking fact is, that this is what most of us are doing, pretty much most of the time, and not just with kitchen renovations. But with our own lives, at home, at work, with our projects, businesses, public policies, and approaches to change and innovation generally. So it shouldn’t be a surprise to find the state of our world reflecting that back to us. The good news though, is that if we start looking with an unusual level of interest and focus, in a different direction for solutions, a path less taken, perhaps we really have a chance of pulling the metaphorical rabbit out of the hat before the curtains come down.

**Figure 1:** Innerv-ating you or your organisation in 2023

Bill O’Brien (a previous CEO of Hanover Insurance in his most significant insights from leading change in his own company) is quoted to have said: “The success of an intervention depends on the interior condition of the intervener.” Or in other words: the success of our actions as innovators or leaders of change does not depend on what we do or how we do it, but on the inner place from which we operate. The power of accessing that unseen creative source of potential within us is that the implications can be known or felt by those around us.

The word Inner-vation in the title of this article is a catch-all word, I made up for the purposes of this piece. I did so, to give visibility to the less well-known cousin of Innovation.

There is the Doing part of Innovation that we all know i.e. the processes e.g. double diamond and Service or CX Design.
Then there is the less known Being part of Innovation: what I am calling Inner-vation, or innovating with our inner selves or state of awareness, that aspect of ourselves we don’t usually see or is harder to see.

So, as Science is the systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world through observation, experimentation, and the testing of theories against the evidence obtained, …let's take that lens and investigate the sticky challenge of leading the human side of real and sustainable change or innovation?

As a race, we have proved ourselves to be quite adept at innovating and finding new ways of doing this, but we have managed to do it in a way that is completely out of balance and connection with our natural environment, each other, and ourselves. As Otto Scharmer (Senior Lecturer at MIT Sloan School of Management and co-founder of the Presencing Institute) has said many times, ‘we live in a time of massive institutional failure, collectively creating results that nobody wants.’ But if something is failing there is usually a cause, and just now, it might simply be the case that not enough of us have cottoned onto what the cause is.

This article is a truly positive, proactive and practical proposal, being written primarily for oranisations seeking to be the solutions to the complex problems that we as a world find ourselves in. It is to provide some of the insights I have gained from direct experience on how to enable sustainable change and Innovation in organisations, not just through the practical methodologies that we all know for these processes, but the lesser-known inner processes, and why they work.

Great minds appear to have made astonishing achievements, as they were able to conceive of theories or hypotheses that have created significant leaps in our technical evolution, such that we call them geniuses.

Because our brains tend to think in a linear way, we see these people in isolation from their environment and surroundings. Rather than being geniuses, miss the fact that they might have reached their conclusions by taking consistent steps, small and big, on a path that brought them over time to a greater number of different points of potential and possibility, upon which they considered, compared and took action.

Perhaps what we can learn from these people relates more to their attitude in relation to their environment, than it does genius. Perhaps attitude and perspective is what differentiated them from the people around them.

I know from personal experience, that our individual potential is so much higher, deeper, and wonder-filled, as human beings than anything close to what we are taught, or what we think, particularly when contrasted with where we as a global society appear to find ourselves today. I’ve had some time to combine my 20+ years of practical experience in Change and Innovation and completing a recent MBA at the Stockholm School of Economics to consider what worked, what didn’t, and why.

While we individually and collectively have such a huge and untapped source of potential, it might seem insultingly simplistic to say this, but most of us are simply looking in the wrong direction for where to find real, viable and sustainable solutions. Because we largely tend to focus on the manifest world, ignoring the incalculable potential of our collective inner-verses.

It is understandable that many feel powerless to affect meaningful change in the complex state the world seems to be in, but it makes more sense when we understand that almost everything we have been taught or learned about how to resolve problems has inadvertently resulted from habitually ignoring what I, for simplicity’s sake, will refer to as the unseen within.

‘Why would anyone waste time on paying attention to what we don’t see?’ I hear you ask. This is a fair point when we consider how many problems we see and find in our immediate surroundings which remain unsolved. At a time of unprecedented Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Environmental and Legal (PESTEL) Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity (VUCA). And onalmost every level and system by which we operate. It can be tempting to disengage to keep things simple, and while it is not a complete solution, there is in fact some value in doing so. (See below: VUCA PESTEL trends in 2022)

**Figure 2:** **VUCA PESTEL trends in 2022** (References [ii])

But the question is, how can considering ‘the unseen’ be helpful with such a bleak-looking picture?Well, my argument for doing so is because, for whatever reason, we as a global community today are faced relentlessly with the unseen in the form of VUCA in all areas of life (PESTEL), with increasing regularity, speed, and intensity in the manifest world of what we ‘can’ see.

Perhaps precisely because the state of continuous, volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous and accelerating change does not appear to be changing any time soon, becoming acquainted with this realm in place of avoiding it, shutting down or resisting it, might be a lot less unhinged than it sounds. Also, what have we got to lose? The modus operendi is far from delivering. We need something new.

3. When we don’t see, it’s easier to assume

None of us are old enough to remember a time when we thought the world was flat, and that the sun revolved around the earth, or when stars were believed to be pinpricks on a giant blanket that covered the sky to create night-time. They are not unreasonable conclusions to draw in the absence of any other explanations, but we now know them not to be true. We created and believed in narratives that made sense because we didn’t know any better. But doing so did not make it any truer. It just gave us a way to feel comfortable in being able to explain that which at that time remained unseen, unknown, and unexplainable, and importantly closed down the potential for discovery in the process.

Those who discovered the wiring under the boards, or had insights that themselves supported critical insights, innovations, and changes that today are ubiquitous; were those prepared to question, reassess, and suspend assumptions to really look again. These people were the real innovators and change makers of their times, particularly when their discoveries were sometimes considered heretical by the authorities of the age. I argue that while an enhanced intelligence may have played it’s part, that it was in fact these people’s ability to hold an open and curious perspective that allowed them to see and understand that which we now take for granted, but at the time was ‘the new’ or in other words, that which remained until that time perhaps simply unseen.

My argument is that when so much today can be automated without human intervention, the real value of people is that which remains largely unexplored and unseen, the inner value of being. Being is where the inner sediment of where meaning lies, the quantum aspect of our unseen potential and creativity. BEING is also the first and foundational Inner development Goals created to support the Sustainable Develoment Goals.

**Figure 3:** The 5 Inner Development Goals

Being (our relationship to ourselves) is the arena that we should be exploring and inner-vating from, to discover the new with the same innovative curiosity, we have used to explore our outer world. Inner-vation will be what develops the very vehicle responsible for ‘creating results that nobody wants’; supporting our ability to maintain open, curious, and multidimensional perspectives despite and because of the difficulty and pressure catalysed by VUCA. But as with the kitchens, we continue building without consideration of the wiring under the boards and are surprised when our electrics blow up. (Mental Health & Burnout crisis, Great Resignation)

Author Nassim Nicholas Taleb has identified and calls “antifragile” a category of things that not only gain from chaos but need it to survive and flourish. His book by the same name is an investigation of opacity, luck, uncertainty, probability, human error, risk, and decision-making in a world we don’t understand. He observed that just as human muscles and bones get stronger when subjected to stress and tension, many things in life benefit from stress, disorder, volatility, and turmoil, concluding that we undervalue the role of antifragility in fuelling progress and advances in our society. Could holding a different inner perspective to VUCA, or changing the way we relate to it, perhaps grow muscles we are unaware of?

Developing a state of inner awareness, that is continually attentive to held assumptions, beliefs, or national, societal, and inner narratives, that without awareness, sit like smudges on the lenses of our inner spectacles, undermining and obscuring our ability to respond accurately, effectively, appropriately and wisely.

Through a lack of inner-vation, this metaphorical inner lens I refer to, has largely become unconscious or invisible to us. The same lens through which we judge, relate to, and conclude concerning what is real and true. The view from which we subsequently make individual and collective decisions outwardly, about others. Whether that be nations, our natural environment, inwardly toward ourselves, and significantly to each other.

While inner-vating, has always been within our power and remit to explore, it has also seemed to be an elusively difficult thing for most of us to do successfully. Where it doesn’t become deeply frustrating, or like exploring a suffocatingly small box of personal narratives that leads nowhere useful.

It can be a quite shocking thing to realise that we don’t see clearly or worse than that, have probably not seen clearly for most of our lives. So shocking in fact that most of us choose to remain sure that we do know something and hold onto that fact like a buoy in a stormy sea, to avoid facing into what too often seems unknowable.

However, improving our abilities in vertical literacy, might well be the last undiscovered wilderness, the last place we collectively look, to find that missing puzzle piece, setting the context for finding the key parts we are missing, that lead us to collectively continuing ‘to create results or outcomes that no-one wants.’

4. Linear Thinking’s Expectation Gap in Exponential Change

**Figure 4:** Getting from there to here: **Linear thinking**

Typically, we think in a linear way. (See Figure 4 above) Where we remember the past as if it happened in an incremental and predictable way, forgetting that much of the reality of how we ended up being where we are, was in fact (See Figure 5 below) many random, non-linear individual steps, chance meetings, events, inspirations, and coincidences, with a few consistently applied intentions over time, largely resulting in where we have ended up today.

**Figure 5:** Getting from there to here: **The reality**

5. Social VUCA caused by the 4th Industrial Revolution

The world is undergoing a fourth industrial revolution fuelled by significantly increased computing capacity, and accelerated by connectivity and smart or intelligent automation, powered by what are referred to as exponential technologies, and we are not inwardly ready or prepared.

It is because or our linear thinking, the unconscious patterning of our minds to expect incremental change, that we incorrectly predict a future based on how we perceive our pasts have evolved to the present day. This unconscious patterns combined with a significantly faster pace of change in reality, results in an expectation gap, that leads to a kind of anxiety I call Social VUCA, characterised by the complexity of social phenomena like: the Mental health & burnout crisis; uncertainty about the future of work; the volatility created by AI-augmented polarisation and the ambiguity in business and people’s lives of the ‘Great Resignation’ (Ref: Figure 2 VUCA PESTEL trends in 2022)

**Figure 6:** Expected Incremental Linear change vs the reality of Exponential change

6. When Change is on steroids, connection & collaboration at work must evolve

These days, new organisations are designed for connection and collaboration, with strategic partnerships being empowered through externally facing API's (application programming interfaces - a software intermediary that allowing applications to talk to each other). While in the past most organisations have had internal API's where they are connecting your internal infrastructure to itself, today, with a new spirit of speed, agility and transparency, APIs are being developed outwards to connect with third-party services. In addition, they don't suffer the financial disadvantage and complexity of transforming their legacy systems to it.

We are today in a collective behavioural conundrum, where when perspective is most needed to navigate uncertainty, we are least likely to have it. This is because as human beings with brains susceptible to amygdala hijacks (1) we are blinded, often unconsciously, by the inner pressure created in us by the heady cocktail created by volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (VUCA) accentuated by the unprecedented acceleration of change.

7. We need a new perspective

We are today in a collective behavioural conundrum, where when perspective is most needed to navigate uncertainty, we are least likely to have it. This is because as human beings with brains susceptible to amygdala hijacks (1) we are blinded, often unconsciously, by the inner pressure created in us by the heady cocktail created by volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (VUCA) accentuated by the unprecedented acceleration of change.

How to conceive of the new when we are conditioned to think in a linear way, and particularly when our brains do not appear to function very well in this context. If we are asked about what we plan to do in the next week, it is not that easy for our brains to come up with everything we could or might do. It can ‘feel’ too overwhelming. A little like the diagram in Figure below.

8. The law of the Adjacent Possible

Stewart Kauffman is a Theoretical Biologist (a branch of biology that employs theoretical analysis, mathematical models, and abstractions of living organisms to investigate the principles that govern the structure, development, and behaviour of systems generally) who studied the origins of molecular organisation based on the study of random networks exhibiting a kind of self-organization. Fascinatingly his analysis has shown that ecosystems, economic systems, and even cultural systems may all evolve according to similar general laws.

One of the four biological laws he identified was the “Adjacent Possible” describing how a system (or organisation) under investigation in its current state (the Actual), with its existing components, expands into its Adjacent Possible (the Possible). Where the adjacent possible are all the elements outside but near or related to that organisation or system. He showed that opportunities become available to the current system, by expanding into new unforeseen possibilities by building new connections and adapting or transforming those elements into applicable, useable components for the existing organisation or system.

**Figure 8**: Adjacent Possible - unforeseen possibilities

He observed that autonomous agents of an organism, by continuing to explore and expand into an adjacent possible as fast as they could get away with it, were increasing the diversity of what can happen next. He believed that the complex systems best able to adapt, are those poised at the edge of what is known and chaos and disorder.

Innovation or expanding on any domain always requires leaving our existing boundaries to explore possibilities beyond our existing horizon, or increasing the discoverable space for innovation whether externally or internally within ourselves. Expanding this space in both dimensions has in it the power for uniting attitudes, ideas, methods, approaches, and technologies in novel ways to deliver the new in better ways. The adjacent possible is wonderful process and I propose should be the target for enabling successful exploration and expansion. Steven Johnson (Author of Where Good Ideas come from) said “The strange and beautiful truth about the adjacent possible is that its boundaries grow as you explore them. Each new combination opens up the possibility of other new combinations”.

**Figure 9:** Expanding Boundaries & Possibilities

Kauffman’s findings can be applied to any complex adaptive system, including innovation in large organisations. So, perhaps as a note of caution, he also contended that if autonomous agents moved from the Actual to the Possible too quickly, they had the capacity to destroy their internal organisation (the Actual), believing that nature might have installed some kind of internal gating mechanism to prevent that from happening.

What mathematical scientists investigating the Kauffman’s adjacent possible discovered was that all the systems they investigated are split between these two strategies at an 80:20 ratio. Where 80% remained within the realms of exploiting the known, by utilising & improving, while 20% focussed on exploration and transformation. So it seems that the wise balance, you could also say a conservative balance, between exploitation and exploration, is already in place and perhaps needed by our systems or the people working in our organisations.

Behaviourly there appears to be a pattern in the different strategies we humans display in the space of the Possible. Some prefer following already known paths, which in the above diagram would be utilising what already exists and improving it, whereas others prefer casting off into new adventures of exploration.

The key then is to be able to find these adaptable, innovative people within our organisations, who are more happy with ambiguous tasks, spend time searching for new possibilities. Who seek out new ideas for products, services, processes and even market-opportunities, so that their natural abilities can be identified, individually improved and supported by the organisation. While similarly recognising the benefit to the organisation of those individuals or teams who leverage their existing knowledge and experience and focus on revising existing products/services or processes in order to maximise value.

9. Measuring, sparking & sustaining Innovation & change

9a. Being and YouQ

We are all born with a capacity for simply being in this world, a ‘Being’ that requires no doing to be meaningful. But most of us have collectively lost the art of Being, as we are trained out of this capacity in pursuit of doing and succeeding as though a person can only have value if they are achieving and delivering. But as written in Daniel Kahneman’s ‘Thinking Fast, Thinking Slow’ we have got into the habit of making important decisions from Thinking Fast and therefore less accurately, rather than balancing our thinking capacity with equal doses of ‘Thinking Slow’.

For 2 years people globally were required to isolate and remain at home. In effect an enforced, prolonged state of ongoing ‘being’. The Covid pandemic had the very sudden, abrupt, and unplanned effect of stopping, almost overnight, our seemingly unstoppable momentum of ‘doing’ for 2 whole years. It is both incredibly interesting and would be surprising if this forced non-doing had not, resulted in some form of habit-breaking introspection and collective rethinking of priorities. This appears, for example to have resulted in about 4 million people (of a 160 million workforce) in the US quitting their jobs each month—the highest quit rate on record in what is being dubbed the Great Resignation or Great Exploration.[i]

This is not about suggesting there is anything wrong with ‘doing’, just that for our ‘doing’ to have real meaning and value, requires reconnecting with Being, and “cultivating our inner life and developing and deepening our relationship to our thoughts, feelings, and body to help us be present, intentional and non-reactive when we face complexity”. So, when we think about supporting an attitude that inspires innovation and change in the context of Kauffman’s law of Adjacent Possible. Individually we are looking to enhance our ability for the same natural open curiosity, as when we first came as beings into this world. Which as a workplace skill I refer to as:

YouQ: Your ability to know and be authentically pure and real you…no matter the circumstances you find yourself in.

**Figure 11:** The relationship between YouQ and 'Being' of the Inner Development Goals

There is a common misperception that ‘people resist change’, but as Ron Heifetz (among the world’s foremost authorities on Adaptive leadership) points out ‘really…people love change when they know or expect it will be a good thing’.

When we are connected with the being part of our humanity, we are connected with meaning. From that place then, all our ‘doings’ whatever they are, can become inwardly meaningful. When our lives are experienced as meaningful, we tend to expect good things. When we expect good things, we are so much less likely to resist change.

Supporting Innovation and Change requires:

Supporting ‘Thinking fast and thinking slow’ through Being (or developing YouQ)
Improving people’s individual AQ Ability, or their Adaptability skills
But also creating the right AQ Environment, or the adaptability temperature of people’s work environment

Peter Drukker is famed as saying

“Well…If you can't measure it, you can't improve it.”

But I also contend, you can’t measure it, if you can’t identify it. So growing people’s AQ ability and AQ Environment requires measuring these dimensions. Which can now be done by doing a short, science-based assessment. The Adaptability Quotient assessment developed by Singing Sphere partners: AQai uniquely employs artificial intelligence to create a unique assessment experience for each individual. Additionally, this technology enables the assessment of several different components of adaptability in the current work context of each individual respondent. The construct of the AQai Adaptability assessment reports at three levels of workplace enablement – individual (AQ Ability), team or group and organizational (AQ Environment).

9b. YouQ and AQ Ability

**Figure 12:** Skill of the future: YouQ - the Pure You quotient

YouQ (the skill of remaining relaxed and open you) is what will enable and support 5 critical and measurable Adaptability skills (AQ Ability). Critical, because these are the skills that enable us to lean into unknown possibilities, as autonomous agents of innovation, in open Exploration mode. To explore Kauffman’s Adjacent possible (See Figure 12 below). But to do this consistently and over the long term, no matter the obstacles requires Grit. To recover from the setbacks which will invariably cross our paths, we need to develop our Resilience. Resilience is supported by maintaining a general outlook that changes and adapting will result in positive outcomes rather than negative ones, or in other words, having the right attitude or Mindset. While Mental Flexibility allows us to manage ongoing and consistent complexity, by encouraging the ability to hold contradictory ideas in our mind, and perhaps importantly recognise when to let go of old skills that got us here, to learn new ones that will get us there - the ability to Unlearn.

So inner-vation, to cultivate our inner life, we need specific tools and methods provided by a self lead online Leading Adaptable Teams: YouQ for AQ that focuses on developing YouQ (the skill of remaining relaxed and open you) through deepening their relationship to their thoughts, feelings, and body, thereby helping them be present, intentional and non-reactive when facing volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity with an open perspective.

**Figure 13:** Adaptability enables exploring the Adjacent Possible

9c. AQ Environment

For many years Steven Johnson (author of twelve books, largely on the intersection of science, technology, and personal experience) investigated this question of where good ideas come from. He looked at this problem from an environmental perspective, looking at what kind of spaces have historically led to unusual rates of creativity and innovation. He began to see recurring patterns again and again that he saw as crucial to creating environments that are unusually innovative. One he called the slow hunch, where breakthrough ideas almost never came in a moment of great insight or in a sudden stroke of inspiration, but that the most important ideas take a long time to evolve and lie dormant in the background, where it has anything from 2-3 years or sometimes 10 or 20 years to incubate and mature that it suddenly becomes viable.

He saw that this was partly because good ideas normally came from the collision between smaller hunches, perhaps hidden in another person or people’s mind, where in the collision they formed something bigger than the original creating the real breakthrough.

When he investigated supportive environments, he saw how the coffee houses in the Age of Enlightenment or the Parisian salons of modernism were such engines of creativity, because they created a space where ideas could mingle and swap and create new forms. This is interesting when we consider Kauffman’s Adjacent Possible which gives rise to the idea or possibility that specific conditions, or steps on a path in which ideas given the right circumstances can become available, conceivable, and possible for those with the eyes to see at a point in time.

Maybe giving us the comforting insight that just because we cannot conceive of a path, does not mean that it is not there, that if we perhaps just change the place from where we are thinking, relating and being, we can individually and collectively increase the possibilities and chances of what can happen next.

When considering, therefore, what opportunities there are for optimising an environment toward supporting an adaptable attitude or mindset (See Figure below) Company support is critical. This refers to the general perception people in an organisation have around the extent to which their organisation values their contributions and cares about their wellbeing. High levels of company support will not only increase job performance, satisfaction, and lower turnover but also improve people’s commitment to change. If employees see their company as generally supportive and caring they will be more likely to adapt to required change and align their goals to those of the company.

**Figure 14:** Adaptable environments support adaptable people

Emotional Health is also a key factor in the context of adaptability. It refers specifically to the degree in which you and your colleagues are thriving at work, from experiencing more positive moments and limiting the negative ones. Measurable Emotional Health focuses on the energy to engage in continuous change and adapt in times of the unknown.

To make your work environment engines of creativity where ideas can mingle and swap to create new forms, Team Support refers to a team environment in which everyone feels they can share new knowledge and information, that they are supported through challenges, and feel they can openly discuss their opinions. Employees who work in supportive teams and a facilitative Work Environment are more likely to try new ways to adapt in times of change and can build on team support to sustain adaptive behaviour over time. Work Environment, in the context of adaptability, does not represent physical workspace but the systems and methodologies in place around people. This would indicate whether an organisation is facilitative of disruption, experimentation, and adaption, or does it hamper these and create Work Stress? Work Stress in this context refers to a general sense of overwork within an organisation. It can limit employees’ adaptability as, even if they score positively in Mindset, they will not have adequate cognitive or time resources to effectively deal with change.

All these aspects of AQ Environment, as with (AQ Ability) are measurable, meaning it is possible to target improvements from an identifiable and measurable benchmark.

And it is interesting in that context to note, that from all of Steven Johnson’s research in the field of environment and where good ideas come from, he concluded by saying that the real lesson for him was that ‘chance favours the connected mind.’

10. Process (Ego to Eco) enabling Inner-vation, results in Vertical literacy

In an article by Artist, Activist and musician Brian Eno in The Economist "Brian Eno says a new global movement is emerging to save the planet - It’s all about relationships, he said "it’s in the nature of emergent systems that they don’t always announce themselves. They cannot, because they do not know what they are going to become". Ego to Eco-system thinking (inspired by Otto Scharmer of the Presencing Institutes Theory U) is one such movement, quietly responsible for instigating a global rethink of democracy, electoral systems, economics, migration, inequality, agriculture, women’s rights, resource extraction, common ownership and personal lifestyle choices, to name a few. Ego to Eco-system thinking is a scalable micro transitioning process already impacting the macro (Behavioural) transition to address the unconscious collective "creating of results nobody wants" by accessing a deeper source of potential within, free from the usual underlying structures and paradigms of thought. When these are ignored, they keep teams, organisations and nations locked into reenacting patterns of the past.

**Figure 15:** The Iceberg Model (Source: Presencing Institute)

Moving from Ego to Eco-system thinking, requires cultivating the inner condition and quality of attention & intention - a micro transition to access the source from which we wish to collectively operate. Inner-vating to develop our individual and collective vertical literacy.

**Figure 16:** Moving from Ego to Ecosystem thinking is enabled through Inner-vation, supporting an organisation’s Vertical literacy

Inner-vation is a combination of 3 key activities or inner micro transitions replacing the habit of judgment, cynicism and fear.

1. In place of the habit of judgement or downloading where we simply reconfirm old opinions or what we already think, the first inner micro transition is to open our minds. Suspending Judgement and moving to a factual kind of listening where new information is compared to existing or current views, and differences are simply noted.

2. In place of the habit of cynicism, where we close our relating by for example holding onto a feeling of distrust of a person or that a situation isn't going to work out well, to a second inner micro transition of cognitive and emotional empathy and listening, whereby we remain open to situational possibility or seeing through another person’s eyes

3. In place of the habit of fear, where we for example do not do for fear of making mistakes, having made the 2 previous inner micro transitions of opening our minds and relating, we do from a place of open curiosity, generative listening and connection, whereby our actions show adaptability.

The outward result of these 3 inner micro transitions or attitude shifts and ease of flow is the process of becoming Vertically literate, and YouQ is the skill of Being vertically literate as a state.

**Figure 17:** Inner-vation steps of Open thinking, Open Relating and Open Adaptability - supported by impactful and practical YouQ tools & methods

Some other examples of how these individual collective transitions manifest at a macro level are that we move from:

**Figure 18:** Collective transitions of potential into the adjacent possible

11. Conclusions

The perception of successful innovation has tended to reside in an unreachable place of privilege, limited to those exclusive talents of a few prodigies. Plus there has been a longstanding and established notion that ‘people tend to resist change’. Additionally, mindset or attitude shifts within the context of culture change, innovation or performance historically have been very difficult to take real and lasting action on, because they have been tricky to identify, measure and subsequently impact.

However, to counter this, it would not only seem that hidden in natures mode of operation there is at least one law, the law of Adjacent possible, that would contradict what are perhaps assumptions more convenient to conclude, than question and unlearn that the world is flat. That we are innately able to be change. Perhaps possessing an innate ability, when individually reactivated, and supported by our environments to exhibit the qualities of innovative people - those of adaptability.

Having been brought up in my early years in developing countries, I regularly witnessed the ingenuity of people who effectively lived VUCA as their reality on the border of order and chaos on a daily basis, the perfect conditions for the adjacent possible. Perhaps in our desire to eliminate volatility from our lives, here in the West, the result has been to make our societies more fragile. Perhaps we are underestimating the benefit, value and advances that can result from consciously leaning into the adjacent possible, less from a perspective that VUCA is a problem and more from an exciting, individual and collective opportunity to inner-vate ourselves, developing our YouQ through more Being, to be more adaptable. So that in our drive to become more ‘antifragile’ we make sure we do it less at everybody else’s expense, and more from what is real and connected within, outwardly together and at scale. With this shift in attitude, we could finally be in a position to answer the universal call to action by the United Nations in 2015 to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure that by 2030 all people enjoy peace and prosperity.

If not now, when?
If not YouQ, then who?
Now we know how...WOW!

References

[i] Einstein, 1946, telegram as Chairman of the Emergency Committee of Atomic Scientists, quoted in the New York Times, May 25, 1946, bold Italics added

“Our world faces a crisis as yet unperceived by those possessing power to make great decisions for good or evil. The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.

We scientists who released this immense power have an overwhelming responsibility in this world life-and-death struggle to harness the atom for the benefit of mankind and not for humanity’s destruction.

Bethe, Condon, Szilard, Urey, and the Federation of American Scientists join me in this appeal, and beg you to support our efforts to bring realization to America that mankind’s destiny is being decided today—now—at this moment.

We need two hundred thousand dollars at once for a nation-wide campaign to let the people know that a new type of thinking is essential if mankind is to survive and move toward higher levels.

This appeal is sent to you only after long consideration of the immense crisis we face. Urgently request you send immediate check to me as chairman, Emergency Committee of Atomic Scientists, Princeton, N.J. We ask your help at this fateful moment as a sign that we scientists do not stand alone.

[ii] References for VUCA PESTEL trends in 2022

1. Ten trends to watch in the coming year - The Economist

2. Five financial trends that 2022 killed - The Economist

3. 2022: A Tumultuous Year in ESG and Sustainability - Harvard Business Review

4. 2022 has been a year of brutal inflation – The Economist

5. Enthusiasm for regulation, often in areas like the climate, shows no sign of flagging – The Economist

6. Beyond Burned out

7. A change in Iran could reshape the Middle East

8. The tech war between America and China is just getting started

9. Russia’s war is creating corporate winners and losers

10. Fueling the Fire: How Social Media Intensifies U.S. Political Polarization

11. The Great Resignation didn’t start with the pandemic