*Editor’s Note: This transcript has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Kathy:

How do our adaptability and our ability, character, and environment aptitudes play a critical role in individual effectiveness? Please explain how each of the following ingrained starling habits is supported by individuals highly effective in adaptability:

• AWARENESS: Step up to lead
• BELIEF: Step back to empower leadership
• CONNECT: Act as one

Ross:

If we use the thread of the murmuration metaphor, there are various things happening around the ability, character, and environment of each individual and the collective team. It’s about the communication flow, both internal and external.

An external factor might be like a hawk that an individual has the skills and awareness to see. The individual has the agency and authority to say, “We were going in this direction, and that was fine, but I can unlearn on a dime because the environment has shifted. I need to make a new decision right now.”

My own effectiveness depends on being able to be aware, not blinkered to new data, and equally, the environment must respect my signal that I’ve seen something that’s either an opportunity or a danger. The effectiveness of an individual is both in being the observer who identifies the hawk and in the awareness of individuals to the left and right who might not have seen it but can respond and adapt to the signal.

The challenge is balancing between mis-data and misrepresentation. We might make a course correction, then realize it wasn’t a hawk but a shadow, so we can move back again and continually reevaluate. I think effectiveness is the permission to continually flow and move toward an overall objective. There’s a paradox with adaptability. Our brains work to create circuits of neurons—those that wire together fire together. We might see, hear, or read something that triggers the same thought pattern. For instance, I can say “starling” and that will trigger what you’ve learned about starlings from various sources.

This is similar to how habits work—we get a trigger, which might be linked to motivation (following BJ Fogg’s work). Some people form connections between being sad and eating ice cream, or between social settings and smoking. We’ve learned these connections and get a dopamine hit when we engage in these habits, which creates a myelin sheath around those neurons, making the connection stronger.

This is great for habits, effectiveness, and learning through repetition. We get a reward because it gave us the result we wanted, which further increases the strength of that circuit. The challenge comes when what you’ve learned is no longer true or effective.

For example, if communication once had to be via written letter on horseback, and now it’s digital, we have to unlearn our old relationship with communication. If something doesn’t work for long enough, we might adapt ourselves and force changes in old habits into effective new ones. But when we work in teams, me not being effective now affects others.

The habit can become either a spiral of negativity or positivity, depending on whether it’s achieving the desired outcome. It can be really valuable when it works and we become efficient, but if it only works slightly, human nature tends to try it again and again, thinking, “I just need to try it one more time.” The challenge is discerning the difference between a cul-de-sac and a dip, as Seth Godin wrote about. Is it, “I’m going to get through this if I keep following the same behaviors,” or is it a cul-de-sac where I need to turn around?

If we get occasional positive feedback, we keep thinking it’s a dip that will eventually improve, rather than recognizing a cul-de-sac where we need to adopt something new. This habit is hard to break, especially collectively, and particularly if we tell ourselves stories based on limited data inputs. What we need to do is “lay new snow.” If you ski continually, you create ruts and tracks that are easy to follow because you know there are no rocks, you know how they run. What we need is fresh snow so that no pathways exist anymore, and we’re open to new pathways and new mental flexibility.

This is the balance between mental flexibility to embrace fresh solutions and being able to deal with unlearning a pathway that’s always been trodden but is no longer working.

Kathy:

What you’re saying is that lack of adaptability affects the body from a health perspective?

Ross:

Absolutely. Look at Dr. Amanda Blake’s work from Stanford on somatic intelligence. We have neural transmitter feeds more dense in the fascia around our muscles than in our brains. We physically hold the trauma of success or failure in our bodies, and it can take up to eight hours to dissipate.

You might be tense after a bad phone call or meeting. Mentally you might deal with it, but physically the body has an “after burn” that lasts much longer. If we can’t get into coherence or balance in our nervous system through breath work or other techniques, and we face another negative stimulus before we’ve recovered, our body never gets a moment to rest.

Many people have never realized what a functional system feels like. We’ve come to tolerate an impaired body and impaired ability to function, which contributes to many modern diseases. We’re in dysfunction, not in ease—”dis-ease” literally means the body is not at ease, and that comes from our inability to adapt to our environment or new systems.

The frequency and energy when you’re around other people will have a physical effect on you, changing your brain chemistry. Some people will make you more adaptable just by their presence, while others might make you less adaptable. When people are in positions of influence—by title, rank, or perception—their energy and flow can have a greater effect on you.

Kathy:

So much of this happens on an unconscious level for us, like the murmuration of starlings. It’s trying to build some consciousness to some of those decisions, while being at peace with allowing the unconscious to have our back.

Ross:

Exactly. In psychology, they call it selective attention—our awareness is attuned to what we’re looking for. Dan Sullivan said, “Our ears only hear and our eyes only see what our brain is looking for.” While we think we’re being aware, we’re aware on our terms—we hear what we want to hear and see what we want to see.

How can we relinquish and surrender to observe what is without our own filter or judgment? We’ve evolved to be really good filters, to be able to selectively be aware because there’s too much information. It’s why when we look at a murmuration of starlings, we see the point that moves or that’s different, but we don’t see what stays the same. True adaptable intelligence is the duality of being able to zoom in and zoom out. It speaks to your concept of “step up” and “step back”—awareness to step up and lead, and step back to empower, to see what you want to see and what you don’t want to see.

Kathy:

So, stepping up is to zoom in?

Ross:

It could be both. It’s the tension point—a hammock needs the friction of two opposing points to function. We have an obsession with balance and alignment, but often we only see one side of the equation.

I’ve struggled with the whole concept of work-life balance. What shifted for me was thinking of it like a heartbeat on a monitor—it goes up and down. You’re incredibly present in the top section and incredibly present in the bottom section. If you’re balanced in the middle, that’s a flatline—you’re dead.

Don’t try to be in the middle. Be incredibly present in whatever you’re doing at the moment, and don’t fear that you’re not doing the other thing, because you’ll be fully in that when the time comes. When you zoom out far enough, it will look like a straight line. But if you zoom in close enough, you’ll see all the variations.

Stepping up and stepping back depends on the zoom level. You need both of those dualities, both paradoxes, to be balanced, to be in flow, to be adaptable.

Kathy:

The ABCs of Murmuration have to be a cycle.

Ross:

Absolutely. To act as one, but then you need someone new to step up and lead, who sees something new, reads something different to create a new opportunity or direction. Change would never happen at the system, industry, government, or societal level if we all just acted as one.

The maverick helps realize these new pieces. It’s like a torchbearer in a dark cave—they illuminate what’s within their sphere of influence, but it’s not until they walk to the edge of where that light previously illuminated that they see other rooms and new opportunities.

We all have a torch of our vision. We walk to the edge to see and reveal new pieces, and then decide whether to turn left, right, up, or down. That act of being efficient and effective has been great for decades, but the drive for productivity and efficiency in an uncertain world has shifted. We’re now in an imagination economy, where it’s not about expertise but about experimentation and imagination.

The speed and pace of the cycle between mavericks and efficiency must be much faster now. Previously, we could operate the same way for decades or generations because change happened on a linear timescale. Now we’re on an exponential timescale—everything is shifting so quickly that we reach the edges of our vision within days instead of years.

Kathy:

So, you said, “Do I give myself permission to go where I’ve never been before?” Please talk about this more.

Ross:

Throughout our lives, we’ve been filtering things and often living lives that others want us to live. It starts with our parents, who influence what’s acceptable or permissible through what they feed us, where they take us, etc.

As we encounter new “tribes” beyond our home—like at kindergarten—we see the fringes of what’s possible for others. “I was never allowed to stand on the table at home, but Johnny is standing on the table.” We start to see differences in how people think, behave, and what they give themselves permission to do.

What we have permission to do is fostered by our society and environment. For different groups, there are different codes of what’s acceptable. At the fringes, when we give ourselves permission to be different, that might alienate us from the familiar—from family or friends—if we change our identity or role.

The permission to experience new things has to be singular—what’s acceptable to you. What’s acceptable to me might be unacceptable to someone else whose entire livelihood depends on a different set of values. We both influence our environment and are influenced by it—we contribute and are subjected to it simultaneously.

Kathy:

What is the “Laying New Snow” concept? Is it about opening new pathways with mental flexibility and embracing fresh solutions?

Ross:

“Laying new snow” can happen through an intentional endeavor—I’m going and laying it—or by surprise when it comes and happens, and suddenly I can’t see my usual pathway.

It can be intentional, where you’ve decided to lay new snow to find new areas and discoveries, or unintentional, where something happens overnight—a new technology comes or there’s a new impact on your market or team—and the pathway you had is no longer visible.

The unlearning part is where the old path is always there, and you’ve got to physically step out of that lane, out of that rut, to find new ways. From a mental flexibility perspective, when you lay new snow, it gives you the opportunity to see more, be aware of more, rather than having tunnel vision of always going down the same route.

Kathy:

Why would you want to “lay new snow”? Is it to:

• Thrive in dynamic environments
• Learn to trust your adaptability in a fast-changing environment
• Reach overarching objectives

Ross:

When the dynamic environment shifts, we need new pathways. Learning to trust your adaptability in fast-changing environments is about getting to a state of peace in that chaos to allow for creativity.

It’s like the gearbox in a car—the neutral state between each gear is really important. To go from first to second, it has to go via neutral. To go from forward to reverse, it has to go via neutral. When you’re in neutral, you have options. If I tried to go straight from first to reverse while traveling at speed, there would be a huge issue.

I have to put it in a state of neutral or pause so that I can respond effectively. Learning to trust your adaptability in fast-changing environments is about recognizing the need for neutral in the mind so that we’re not exposed to extreme pressure, which allows for creativity and learning. Under extreme pressure, we tend to just react and go in ways we’ve been before, not explore new pathways.

There are four worlds of adaptation:

1. Thriving: The complete system is in harmony; humanity is in abundance.
2. Collapse: System failure or death due to failure to adapt.
3. Survival: Coping and maintaining with some scarcity and short-termism.
4. Growth: Individual, team, or organizational success with competitive advantage.

Between these worlds are different types of disruption and mindset shifts:

• From collapse to survival: Creative disruption
• From survival to growth: Positive disruption
• From growth to thriving: Transformational mindset shift

You can shortcut from thriving to survival without collapse if you avoid potential collapse through early unlearning. You can also shortcut from thriving directly to growth if you have high adaptability quotient (AQ). If you lack AQ and fail to adapt, you go into collapse.

Kathy:

Am I being intentionally flexible mentally and acting with grit?

• Am I being mentally flexible and exploring new opportunities?
• Am I persistent in finding solutions in face of challenges?
• Am I aware of building my vision like a torchbearer in dark caves: As I progress, are more paths revealed?

Ross:

There’s a relationship between goal hierarchy and grit, and between mental flexibility and strategies. How do I do something? I’m flexible about that. And once we do that enough, at some point, we’ll decide that we want to look at new options to apply our grit to. It’s cyclical, and it’s permission to apply grit with intentionality.

Society has shifted its perspective. Years ago, if someone had many different jobs on their CV, we’d view that negatively. Now we see it as having diverse experience.

Kathy:

 Is this my intentional character?

• Am I REACTING (immediate, knee-jerk reaction) OR RESPONDING (thoughtful, deliberate actions)?
• Am I aware that being in balance is not about being in the middle but being fully present in each moment?
• Am I aware that in order to have clarity on perspective I must zoom in and zoom out?

Ross:  

The link to Gödel’s Law is around zooming in and out but also borrowing the eyes of somebody else—the “jam jar effect” where we need someone else to be doing zoom in and out and recognize that they will see different things. Zoom in and zoom out is both an individual and team sport.

Kathy:

Am I intentionally aware of rapid changes in my external and internal environments?

Ross:

I would reframe that as “Am I intentionally increasing my awareness?” because awareness is not a finite state where you’re done once you’re aware.

What I’ve observed is that people can address problems when the entire environment changes, but it’s harder when just little sneaky bits change. Using a tennis analogy: if we’re playing on a grass court and some subtle changes happen—like the ground getting beaten up in a particular area causing an opponent to slip—many people won’t have that level of heightened awareness. They’re just playing their game.

It’s the subtle early warning signals that are crucial. In a linear world, ignoring these might not hurt you much, but now, spotting those little early bits could be the difference between thriving and struggling.

The energy of others around us affects our energy and can change our ability to adapt. I describe this using boats and wakes: behind a boat, you have a wake. If it’s a little boat, you have a little wake that might not affect you much if you’re in a small vessel. But if it’s a massive boat with force, energy, and speed, it can flip you over.

Leaders are often driving big boats without realizing the impact of their wake—how they adapt affects others through permission or modeling. That’s why deep work around leadership is about understanding the impact of their wake, their energy, how they enter a room, and how they respond to new ideas.

Kathy:

Am I intentionally addressing the impact of technology on my life?

Ross:

Technology is inert until we give it a purpose. We need both awareness and action: Am I aware of the influence of technology in my life? And am I preparing for it?

Technology can both challenge and enhance our cognitive abilities. Very soon, we’ll have the choice to be connected brain-to-cloud through brain-computer interfaces that will heighten our cognitive abilities.

Our identity and roles evolve with societal changes and technological advancements. When I started as a math teacher, a computer meant a person who computed, not a physical device. That meaning has completely changed, and we have to reprogram our understanding of what terms mean.

Imagine a jar of jam. If you’re a tiny person standing inside that jar, you can’t see the label on the outside. In other words, when you’re too close to a situation or too deeply involved in it, it can be hard to have an objective or complete perspective.

In terms of coaching and adaptability, individuals might be too engrossed in their own routines or habits to recognize the need for change or to see a different perspective. A coach’s role can be to act as an outside observer, helping the individual “read the label” by offering insights and alternative perspectives they might not have seen on their own. This promotes adaptability by encouraging individuals to step back, re-evaluate, and adjust their approach based on new information or understanding.

Kathy:

Wow, this has been a tremendous interview full of great information about adaptability, murmuration, and how we can navigate change effectively. I know we’ve reached our time limit, and I don’t want to keep you too long. Thank you, Ross, for sharing your insights and these powerful metaphors that help us understand how to thrive in our increasingly complex world.

Ross:

Thank you, Kathy.