The Adapt Cycle is a framework designed to help individuals analyze and modify their behaviors to improve effectiveness when interacting across cultures. It consists of five steps—understanding, analyzing, deciding, applying, and assessing—each with associated personal attributes like curiosity and resilience. By using the Adapt Cycle, individuals can recognize their strengths, manage cultural differences systematically, and enhance their cross-cultural relationships.

1. The
ADAPT
Cycle
MindLines
Terence Brake
TMA World │ Head of Learning and Innovation

2. The ADAPT Cycle
The ADAPT Cycle is a change process aimed at helping you
analyze and modify your behaviours when working across
cultures.
Increasingly, we are interacting with people
from different cultural groups – both
globally and domestically.
These interactions can be difficult because
our different cultural influences shape how
we each understand the world around us.
We develop different expectations about
how to best relate to others, how to
communicate effectively, how to manage
time and power and how to think about
problems.

3. The ADAPT Cycle
The ADAPT Cycle is a change process aimed at helping you
analyze and modify your behaviours when working across
cultures.
Such differences can challenge our sense of
reality.
What we have taken-for-granted about how
the world does – or should – work can be
thrown into turmoil.
When our expectations about what is right or
wrong or normal are challenged, we can
become frustrated and impatient, even
angry.
Such dysfunctional behaviours
undermine our ability to develop
productive cross-cultural relationships.

4. The ADAPT Cycle
Being adaptive is a critical skill for our complex world. Being adaptive
doesn’t mean changing your personality or your cultural identity, it
means making small changes in behaviour to increase interpersonal
effectiveness.
The ADAPT Cycle consists of five steps:
Each step
in the
ADAPT Cycle
has a
goal
and a relevant
set of
personal
attributes

5. The ADAPT Cycle
Step Goals Personal Attributes
Reach an initial understanding Curiosity
Analyze
of the situation Perceptiveness
Determine a reasonable Self-Awareness
Decide adaptation(s) based on your
initial understanding Tolerance for Ambiguity
Confidence
Apply Make adaptation(s)
Risk-Taking
Assess effectiveness of Mindfulness
Process
the adaptation(s) Restraint
Make a further adaptation(s) Flexibility
Tune
as needed Resilience

6. The ADAPT Cycle
The final element in the
ADAPT Cycle are sets of
Personal Indicators that relate
to each of the Attributes. TIME TO ADAPT
The Indicators are behaviours
that individuals tend to
demonstrate when possessing an
Attribute to a high degree.

7. The ADAPT Cycle
Curiosity:
Analyze
A desire to learn
People who are curious tend to demonstrate:
● A wide range of interests
● A questioning mind
● A desire to look beyond the ‘obvious’
● An enthusiasm for exploring and trying different
things
● A high level of satisfaction in learning something new

8. The ADAPT Cycle
Perceptiveness:
Analyze
An ability to recognize differences and their
potential implications
People who are perceptive tend to demonstrate:
● An open mind
● An ability to observe, listen and make accurate
interpretations
● A sensitivity to different contexts
● An ability to penetrate below the surface
● An ability to demonstrate farsightedness

9. The ADAPT Cycle
Confidence:
Apply
A strong belief that things will work out
People who are confident tend to demonstrate:
● A clear sense of self, requiring little validation from
others
● A trust in their abilities to succeed in unfamiliar
environments
● A willingness to put themselves in challenging
situations
● A willingness to admit mistakes, apologize and move
on
● An ease with giving credit where credit is due

10. The ADAPT Cycle
Risk-Taking:
Apply
Ability to act in the face of unpredictability
People who are risk takers tend to demonstrate:
● An independent spirit
● An excitement about stepping into the unknown
● A readiness to take the initiative, experiment and test
assumptions
● An ability to reframe potential challenges as
opportunities
● An ability to manage fear and anxiety

11. The ADAPT Cycle
Mindfulness:
Process
Ability to focus attention on the here and now
People who are mindful tend to demonstrate:
● An ability to avoid distraction
● A sensitivity to verbal and non-verbal communication
signals
● An ability to sense changes in self and others
● An ability to not force new information into old mental
models
● An ability to be empathic

12. The ADAPT Cycle
Restraint:
Process
Ability to slow down reactions
People who show restraint tend to demonstrate:
● A respect for the feelings of others
● An ability to control emotions
● A high degree of patience
● An ability to suspend judgments
● A willingness to invest time in reflection

13. The ADAPT Cycle
Flexibility:
Tune
Ability to learn continuously and change approach
People who are flexible tend to demonstrate:
● A lack of defensiveness
● An ability to be creative and spontaneous
● A desire for getting results
● An inner sense of security
● An ability to transform feedback into practical lessons

14. The ADAPT Cycle
Resilience:
Tune
Ability to recover quickly and keep going
People who show resilience tend to demonstrate:
● An optimistic view of the future
● A passion for achieving goals
● An ability to cope with stress
● An ability to manage self-defeating thoughts and
feelings
● A high level of resourcefulness in coping with difficulties

15. The ADAPT Cycle
The ADAPT Cycle can be useful before, during, or after a cross-
cultural interaction:
Before
• Anticipate cultural differences by using a tool such as the TMA
World Country Navigator.
• When you have identified likely cultural differences between yourself
and your counterpart(s):
 Analyze possible challenges
 Identify possible adaptations you can make to increase the
probability of a productive interaction

16. The ADAPT Cycle
The ADAPT Cycle can be useful before, during, or after a cross-
cultural interaction:
During
• Pay attention to what is happening in real-time – are the challenges
the ones you expected?
• If not, slow down and return to the Analyze step
 What unexpected differences are making an impact?
 Revisit the Decide step as well to identify more appropriate
adaptations you could make

17. The ADAPT Cycle
The ADAPT Cycle can be useful before, during, or after a cross-
cultural interaction:
After
(Review the interaction following the steps of the Cycle)
• How well did I analyze the differences most likely to be
encountered?
• Did I choose the most appropriate adaptations based on my early
analysis?
• Did I apply the adaptations effectively?
• Did I pay attention to how well my adaptations were making for a
smooth and productive interaction?
 Did I also pay attention to how I was responding?
 And, did I self-manage my reactions to keep relations positive?
• Did I make the right modifications when I needed to? What lessons
have I learned?

18. The ADAPT Cycle
By using The ADAPT Cycle, you will be able to:
• Recognize your own strengths and developmental challenges in
terms of cultural adaptability
• Increase your productivity through applying greater cultural due
diligence
• Act more systematically in preparing for and managing cultural
differences
• Act more out of choice than
habit in cross-cultural situations
• Recognize the role your own
cultural orientations play in
cross-cultural interactions

19. The ADAPT Cycle
By using The ADAPT Cycle, you will be able to:
• Approach cross-cultural relationships with patience - for
yourself and others
• Increase your tolerance for dealing with the ambiguity and
uncertainty of cross-cultural relations
• Increase your ability to ‘read’ cultural differences in real time
rather than rely on stereotypes
• More consciously and effectively
build bridges between cultural
differences.

20. To learn more about how TMA World can help
your organization, please contact us at
enquiries@tmaworld.com
or visit
http://www.tmaworld.com/training-solutions/