“It is not the strongest of the species that survives nor the most intelligent, but the one most adaptable to change”.
This was written by a Louisiana professor of business management, not by Charles Darwin who earlier wrote “On the origin of species”.
What is important here is the “change”, which is crucial in ensuring that our careers or businesses continue to survive or thrive in this transformational era. But change also has negative connotations.
For example, when a wife complains bitterly about her husband, “He is no longer the man I married, he has changed!” Or it could be suicidal or mad for anyone to dump a successful career or business and change for something new and uncertain.
But the key to survival is not change per se, which can be for better or worse, but being adaptable to changes. It is a form of intelligence that has been omnipresent throughout the millennia and even more important today.
People are more familiar with intelligence quotient (IQ), which is a number representing a person’s reasoning ability (measured using problem-solving tests) as compared to the statistical norm or average for their age, taken as 100. But success in life is determined more by emotional intelligence (EQ). Interestingly, there are many types of intelligences.
Howard Gardener, an American psychologist, identified nine types of intelligence viz. logical-mathematical (number/reasoning smart), linguistic (word smart), existential (life smart), intra-personal (self-smart), interpersonal (people smart), musical (sound smart), spatial (picture smart), naturalist (nature smart) and bodily-kinaesthetic (body smart).
While these intelligences can be developed, people born with natural talents enjoy a huge advantage over others. In this transformational era, another type of intelligence, more important than IQ or EQ, is needed. It is AQ or adaptability intelligence.
That we must change to thrive in the future is a given, especially for careers and businesses most affected by disruptive technologies. But learning how to adapt can be too challenging even for huge corporations (such as Kodak) with billions at their disposal.
We should take cognisance that billions of our ancestors have succeeded throughout the millennia and continued the lineage. When faced with impending danger, those who have fled traditional homelands survived while those staying put were killed in wars or died of starvation in a drought.
Given the chance, these migrants worked doubly hard to rebuild their lives and contributed immensely to the economies of where they chose to settle. One example is the industrious and self-reliant Chinese diaspora around the world.
Another example in more recent times were the refugees that fled Vietnam by boat following the end of the Vietnam War in 1975, with the numbers peaking in 1978 and 1979. A total of 800,000 made it to neighbouring countries, while the rest were drowned in storms or thrown overboard by pirates.
Amazingly, it took only a few years for these boat people to return to Vietnam as foreign tourists, having acquired citizenship and prospered in their adoptive countries. They were prepared to uproot from Vietnam and adapt to new life in distant lands and they have succeeded.
In contrast, people who did not bother to change remained impoverish in many parts of Africa and Asia. This is made worse in societies afflicted by caste system, which is more pervasive than the glass ceiling faced by women executives.
China managed to leapfrog other countries because the government, businesses and ordinary folk are adaptive to new technologies, turning a largely agrarian society into a world factory, and is ranked top on embracing digital technology and artificial intelligence in daily life.
Thankfully in Malaysia, upward mobility is common for those not affected by self-inhibiting culture within the family or society. Simply by doing the best they can with limited resources, a generation of illiterate parents have produced children excelling in studies or businesses.
In fact, any Malaysian can earn a good income if determined to learn and work hard for a living. For example, it is not difficult to learn how to cook several popular dishes well, operate a stall and enjoy roaring business.
But putting in a little more effort is too much hard work and inconvenience for many Malaysians. Most prefer to adopt mediocracy as a way of life with little desire to excel, let alone adaptive. If AQ is lacking in a large number of Malaysians, the world will soon leave us behind.
Students who are good at rote learning may score high marks in exams, but such information can easily be obtained, stored or transmitted online. Graduates obtain academic qualifications after meeting tertiary institutions’ requirements, but these may be irrelevant to the industry.
Lifelong learning is necessary to succeed in any career or business, but this concept or practice is alien to most Malaysians. Many are satisfied with academic qualifications which may just be superficial knowledge that does not give them an edge over others.
In any transformational era, we must continuously adapt to changing scenarios by learning what we ought to know, unlearning knowledge that are outmoded, and relearning the fundamentals for a clearer and deeper understanding of the challenges ahead.
The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the New Sarawak Tribune.
