Mental agility is different from being smart or intelligent. It is more about being curious, assessing new information and making appropriate adjustments.
Having mental agility leads to:
Resilience
Mental Agility and Perspective
Mental agility is the willingness and ability to change one's opinions, beliefs or perspectives when there is compelling evidence to do so. Another way to think of it is having an Adaptive mindset.
Benefits of Mental Agility and Perspective
- Enhanced problem-solving and decision-making capability
- Efficiency
- Ingenuity
- Improved relationship satisfaction
- Stronger relationships
- Better self-regulation
- Decreased anxiety
More About Mental Agility and Perspective
Openness and Curiosity
Openness to new knowledge and a curiosity to know if there are other ways of looking at an issue are both key pathways to developing mental agility. It is ok to acknowledge that we do not have expertise in every possible area. Being curious (caring about things you don’t know and seeking out new information and trying to understand it) can enhance our mental agility. Developing a range of trusted advisors and trusted sources of information we can go to when needed will help us in this quest.
Humility
Learning new things and changing our minds on an issue requires a degree of humility. So it helps if we can learn to accept and tolerate the discomfort that can be associated with this process.
Reflection and Self-Awareness
Time for reflection and self-awareness is a necessary part of this process. How we process new information is impacted by how we see and explain the world; how we see our own place in the world and what else is happening in our lives. It is also influenced by our past experiences and our biases.
Impacts on:
Strategies to Improve Mental Agility and Perspective
1. Be curious.
Next time you have an issue to deal with, be curious and ask yourself is there something you are not seeing? Could you see this in another way? What else might be true? How is your perspective being influenced by your fears and biases?
2. Get inspired.
Get inspired by other ingenious individuals. Read biographies of people that you admire, or take the time to go to public lectures, listen to podcasts or watch TED talks.
3. Seek out those with different ideas.
Consciously seek out communities at work that contain people who disagree with your or your field's dominant assumptions. Most people find that even those whose ideas are very different have some things in common, which can create better communication and collaboration in the long run.
Resources
The European Business Review, 2019 "Agility and Resilience: The Essential Qualities of Leadership in the Digital Age"
Website Article
