Adaptability + Visibility: The Career Competencies You Need To Develop Right Now
Change at work isn't new.
You've navigated new leaders, new priorities, new technology, new processes, reorganizations, budget cuts, and expanded responsibilities throughout your career.
But something feels different right now.
The pace of change has made adaptability a much more important career competency.
And adaptability alone isn't enough.
Adaptability helps you create value as things change. Visibility helps others recognize the value you're creating.
You need both.
You Don't Have to Like the Change
Adaptability is often misunderstood.
Being adaptable doesn't mean you have to be excited about every new initiative your company announces.
It doesn't mean you have to pretend an organizational restructure isn't difficult.
It doesn't mean you must immediately embrace every new technology, process, responsibility, or leadership decision.
You can question a change.
You can disagree with it.
You can be frustrated by it.
You don't have to like every change to adapt to it. Adaptability is what happens next.
Once you realize something around you has changed, what do you do?
— Do you keep doing things the way you've always done them?
— Do you wait for someone to tell you exactly what to do?
Or do you start asking questions?
— What do I need to understand?
— What do I need to learn?
— What can I try?
— Who knows something about this that I don't?
Now that's adaptability.
It's not how enthusiastically you respond to change. It's what you choose to do next.
You Don't Have to Know Everything
After 15 years in your career, you've built a lot of expertise, credibility, and competence.
You know things…so many things.
People probably come to you because of your insider knowledge.
And then something new comes along, and suddenly you don't know.
How uncomfortable.
Learning readiness isn't knowing everything. It is being willing to find out.
That's an important distinction, especially when it comes to technology.
Your organization uses Microsoft Copilot today. Another employer uses a completely different tool. A year from now, you’ll be learning something that doesn't even exist…yet.
The specific technology isn't the point.
The technology isn't the career competency. Your willingness to learn how to work with new technology is.
The tool is a skill. Learning how to respond when the tool changes is a competency.
— Are you willing to experiment?
— Can you stay curious?
— Can you ask questions when you don't know something?
— Can you figure out where a tool might make your work better and where your experience and judgment still matter?
— Can you move from "I've never done that" to "I haven't learned that yet"?
Because the tool will change.
Your ability to learn doesn't have to.
You Saved an Hour. Now What?
Implementing AI within organizations hinges on one big promise: time savings.
You can use AI to summarize a meeting, organize your notes, help document a process, analyze information, brainstorm ideas, or give you a starting point for something that used to take much longer.
Something that once took an hour now takes 20 minutes.
Great!
What are you doing with the other 40?
That's the question I see missing in a lot of conversations about AI and productivity.
The true value isn't only in the time savings AI delivers. It's what you choose to do with that extra capacity you've created.
— Could you use that time to finally tackle a problem you've been putting off?
— Could you build a relationship you haven't made time for?
— Think more strategically about a project?
— Improve a process?
— Help someone on your team?
— Learn something that will make you more valuable six months from now?
Getting something done faster is useful.
But if all that happens is another task immediately fills the space, you haven't necessarily created more value for your career.
The opportunity is deciding, with purpose, how to reallocate that capacity.
Don't Make People Guess
Here's where adaptability and visibility come together.
You learned the new system.
You figured out how to use the technology.
You redesigned the process.
You helped your team navigate the change.
You solved the problem.
…And then you went right back to work.
Does anyone know what you did?
For years, I have said that going to work, doing your job, and keeping your head down isn't a career strategy.
And visibility doesn't mean walking around announcing everything you've accomplished. all. the. time.
Professional visibility doesn't require you to constantly talk about yourself. It requires you to strategically share the value you're creating.
How?
Tell your manager what you tried and what happened.
Share what you learned in a team meeting.
Document the process that worked so somebody else doesn't have to start from zero.
Show a colleague how you solved the problem.
When you're giving an update, don't stop at what you did. Explain what changed because you did it.
You're not bragging.
You're giving people information they need to understand your contribution.
Want to Think Differently About Your Professional Visibility?
Sandra Wint and I explored what intentional visibility actually looks like, why your work doesn't always speak for itself, and how to become more visible without feeling like you're bragging in Episode 049 of Exposing the Hidden Reality: Intentional Visibility.
Give the episode a listen:
Your Learning, Expanded
There's another reason to make your work visible.
You can help someone else.
Maybe you experimented with a new tool and found a better way to complete a task.
Maybe something didn't work, and now you know what you'd do differently.
Maybe you found a way to eliminate three unnecessary steps from a process.
Don't keep it all in your head.
Your adaptability creates something worth sharing. Your visibility allows that learning and impact to expand.
When someone else can build on the foundation of your learning, your adaptability starts creating value beyond your own work and direct impact.
And people begin to understand something else about you.
You're not only someone who gets the work done.
You're someone who learns, experiments, solves problems, improves how work gets done, and helps other people do the same.
That's a career story worth making visible.
Look Back Before You Look Forward
If the last six months at work have felt like one change after another, take a few minutes and look backward.
Not at everything you've had to put up with.
Look at what you've learned because of it.
Ask yourself:
What have I learned?
What have I changed?
What have I figured out?
What can I do today that I couldn't do six months ago?
Where have I created capacity?
What value did I create because I adapted?
And then ask one more:
Who knows?
Because you can become more adaptable, more knowledgeable, more efficient, and more valuable without the people making decisions about your career understanding any of it.
Don't make them guess.
Adaptability helps you create value as things change. Visibility helps others recognize the value you're creating.
You can't predict every change that's coming.
You need to know that when change arrives, you're willing to figure out what comes next.
And when you do, make sure the value you create doesn't stay invisible.
