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their work colleague (person 2) than towards their spouse (person 1). Here none of the behaviours towards their colleague are in the unacceptable zone. They also appear to be able to flex much more – to show a much broader range of behaviour – towards their colleague than towards their spouse. For example, they can be both assertive and unassertive at work. This does not imply that they are behaving any more appropriately with their work colleague, however, since the ideal is to behave according to the particular demands of the situation. It may be that they are more unassertive with person 2 but would generally benefit from being more assertive with them. This brings out two key aspects to do with behavioural flexibility. To flex properly we need to take account of:

the who, and

the why.

The person who is the target of our behaviour, as well as the context or conditions for the behaviour, are important for flex. If we cannot take adequate account of both these aspects, it is likely that we are allowing our habits and our automatic pilot to determine what happens. We may even be ignoring 9/10ths of our ‘personality’. This may be OK sometimes, but more often than not will be less effective for us, them, and the outcomes of what we do. Good intentions are good, but never as good as actually doing the right thing in the right situation to the right person.

32. The optimal behavioural range

Figure 3 below shows the perfect range of behaviour that ideally a person should aim for.

3. Being able to cope with anything

Having the broad spectrum of behaviours shown above, on all the fifteen dimensions of behaviour, would demonstrate ultimate flex. Not just 1/10th of the potential behaviours are at the person’s disposal but the full complement, the full ‘10/10ths’. And there is absolutely no reason why in principle everyone could not achieve this. After all we all have the potential to develop behaviours and responses that we don’t naturally have. In practice I have not seen anybody score near 100 (the maximum possible) for behaviour flexibility on the FIT Profiler. People do often show that they have behaviours on both sides of some of the behavioural dimensions (so they report being both extrovert and introvert, for example), even though they may not completely flex across the entire range, or on all of the fifteen dimensions.

33. Making the most of a situation includes you too

In an ideal world, if you want to get the most from a situation, it would be the situational demands – and not your natural tendencies or habits – that would determine your response and behaviour. Precisely which behaviour is needed from you will not be just a matter of those situational demands, however, because what is right for you also has to be taken into account. The role of the five constancies in FIT Science is to guide you to do what is right for you.

Coherence is important too.

Maximising the situational opportunities means including yourself in the equation too. Being 100 per cent fearless, 100 per cent self-responsible, 100 per cent in balance, 100 per cent backed by conscience and 100 per cent aware (i.e. having 100 per cent FIT integrity) may not guarantee that the behaviour is right for you. This is because, as humans, we also have drives, desires, motivations, thoughts, intentions, reflections and memories. We live in a social world and we communicate with each other and have a social context to take account of too. FIT integrity and the constancies cannot take account of all these aspects of the self. We need to be coherent (in ourselves and in the social world), as well as making the most of our world – something we will return to in the next section of the book.

34. flex transition – relabelling feelings and repetition

Knowing what the right thing is for you in a given situation and doing it, however, are quite different things. People find the pull of natural and habitual behaviours very strong indeed. One reason for this is the feeling of discomfort people get when they try behaviours they are