In today’s rapidly evolving business landscape, Adaptability Intelligence isn’t just an advantage—it’s essential for survival and success. The A.C.E. Model, developed by AQai, provides a comprehensive framework for understanding and measuring your Adaptability Quotient (AQ) through three interconnected dimensions: Ability, Character, and Environment.
This research-based model recognizes that Adaptability isn’t one-dimensional. Your inherent skills, your personality traits, and the organizational context in which you operate all shape it. Each dimension is composed of five subdimensions that together paint a complete picture of how, why, and when you adapt to change.
The AQme assessment measures these dimensions to provide actionable insights—not judgments. Your AQ score is a snapshot in time, assessed within your business context, focusing on how you respond during periods of uncertainty and change. Most importantly, these scores can improve through coaching, skill development, and environmental adjustments.
Let’s explore each dimension of the A.C.E. Model:
- Ability
- Grit
- Mental Flexibility
- Mindset
- Resilience
- Unlearn
- Character
- Emotional Range
- Extraversion
- Hope
- Motivational Style
- Thinking Style
- Environment
- Company Support
- Emotional Health
- Team Support
- Work Environment
- Work Stress
Ability: How and to What Degree Do I Adapt?
AQ Ability examines the core skills that enable you to respond effectively to change. These are trainable capabilities that determine your resilience, confidence in facing new challenges, and capacity to thrive when circumstances shift. Think of these as your Adaptability toolkit—the practical skills you deploy when change arrives.
The 5 Subdimensions of AQ Ability:
Grit
Your capacity to maintain commitment and push through obstacles when pursuing meaningful objectives.
High-grit individuals demonstrate unwavering dedication and determination. They’re passionate about their goals, rarely deterred by setbacks, and possess the tenacity to see difficult tasks through to completion. However, in some cases excessive grit may lead to someone sticking to a failed approach too long. Those with lower grit may struggle to maintain focus when challenges arise, often abandoning goals before achieving them or losing momentum when the path becomes difficult.
Mental Flexibility
Your openness to managing multiple priorities and finding value in conflicting perspectives or approaches.
Highly flexible individuals excel at pivoting between tasks, generating creative solutions, and finding opportunities in friction points. They’re comfortable holding contradictory ideas simultaneously and can adapt their thinking based on new information. Less flexible individuals prefer straightforward, single-track plans and may feel overwhelmed when juggling multiple competing priorities or when facing unexpected complications.
Mindset
Your fundamental perspective on whether change will lead to favorable or unfavorable results.
Those with a positive mindset approach new situations with optimism and confidence, viewing uncertainty as an opportunity for growth and achievement. They adapt readily and pursue goals with enthusiasm. Conversely, individuals with a more negative mindset perceive change as threatening, avoid it when possible, and expect disappointing outcomes. They may see little benefit in adaptation efforts.
Resilience
Your speed and effectiveness in recovering from difficulties, setbacks or disappointments.
While grit measures persistence in pursuing goals, resilience captures your bounce-back ability when setbacks occur. Highly resilient individuals recover swiftly from challenges, viewing obstacles as learning experiences rather than defeats. They’re less prone to stress and burnout and remain open to transformation. Those with lower resilience take longer to rebound from adversity, find change overwhelming, and strongly prefer predictable, stable conditions.
Unlearn
Your willingness to intentionally cast aside outdated knowledge, information or assumptions and reconsider situations from a fresh perspective based on current data.
Strong unlearners actively embrace new knowledge and adjust their thinking when circumstances change. They’re enthusiastic about exploring different approaches, experimenting with novel ideas, and modifying their habits or beliefs when presented with new evidence. Those less inclined to unlearn prefer familiar methods and established knowledge. They find comfort in the status quo, and questioning their existing expertise may feel like a threat to their authority or competence.
Character: Who Adapts and Why?
AQ Character reveals the personality factors that shape your preferences and approach when navigating change. Unlike static personality assessments, this dimension recognizes that your traits can evolve based on new experiences, knowledge, and contexts. Understanding these aspects improves communication, enables more effective feedback exchanges, and helps align your personal style with your Adaptability goals.
The 5 Subdimensions of AQ Character:
Emotional Range
Your natural tendency toward psychological stress or calm when facing unexpected situations.
This dimension operates on a spectrum from Reactive to Collected. Collected individuals maintain composure during turbulent times, managing their emotions effectively and remaining relatively untroubled by surprises. Reactive individuals experience emotions intensely and visibly—they may feel easily provoked, anxious, or overwhelmed by change and find it challenging to regulate their emotional responses. Many people fall somewhere in between, experiencing moments of reactivity while generally maintaining adequate emotional control.
Extraversion
Your preference for social interaction or solitude specifically during periods of change.
Extraverts generally draw energy from being around others, thrive in collaborative settings, and may actively seek out group engagement. They tend to be enthusiastic about social opportunities. Introverts typically recharge through solitude, prefer quieter settings, and may find large social gatherings draining. However, in the specific context of change, these dynamics may shift from the person’s default behavior. A person with high change extraversion may crave group reassurance during a crisis, when they might normally be more shy. A person with low change extraversion may be more comfortable processing change independently or in smaller, more intimate groups, perhaps because of a reluctance to appear unprepared or not in the know, when otherwise they might be more outgoing.
Hope
Your tendency to maintain confidence in achieving goals and your ability to identify alternative routes when obstacles appear.
Hopeful individuals see possibilities even in difficult circumstances. They maintain confidence in their ability to overcome challenges and approach uncertainty with a sense of capability and optimism. Those with lower hope struggle to envision positive outcomes, may lack confidence in their capacity to succeed, and sometimes lack the motivation to make significant effort toward their goals, expecting disappointment.
Motivational Style
Your internal drive system, ambition, and what compels you to pursue goals and embrace change.
Highly motivated individuals are energized by novelty and calculated risks. They’re willing to take bold chances to achieve their objectives and actively seek opportunities for advancement—they “play to win.” At the opposite end are those who “play to protect,” prioritizing safety and caution. They carefully evaluate options to avoid negative outcomes and may need the fear of failure to spur them into action, making them more tentative and slower to adapt.
Thinking Style
Your preferred approach to processing information and making sense of uncertainty in your work environment.
This spectrum ranges from big-picture thinking to detail-oriented focus. Big-picture thinkers excel at seeing overarching patterns and objectives but may overlook important implementation details or underestimate the resources required for execution. Detail-oriented individuals focus intensely on specifics, requiring concrete, step-by-step processes—but they risk getting lost in minutiae and losing sight of broader goals. In the middle are connectors—practical facilitators who bridge vision and execution, getting things accomplished through effective planning and implementation.
Environment: When Does Someone Adapt and to What Degree?
AQ Environment recognizes that no one operates in isolation. The organizational context surrounding you significantly influences your Adaptability at any given moment. This dimension assesses when and to what degree you can adapt based on your circumstances, providing an objective framework for understanding how your work environment supports or hinders your ability to navigate change and uncertainty.
The 5 Subdimensions of AQ Environment:
Company Support
The extent to which your organization demonstrates that it values your contributions and cares about your overall well-being.
In environments with strong company support, employees feel genuinely valued as individuals, fostering loyalty, engagement, and willingness to tackle new challenges. When company support is lacking, employees may feel like interchangeable parts, leading to disengagement, isolation, or “quiet quitting.” The optimal balance provides sufficient support to make individuals feel appreciated but not suffocated. Giving them appropriate autonomy and independence, as well as a helping hand when needed, without micromanaging.
Emotional Health
The organizational climate balancing the ratio of positive versus negative experiences and the resources available for individuals to flourish at work.
Organizations that prioritize emotional health through recognition, appropriate resources, and positive culture enable their teams to approach change with enthusiasm and resilience. Employees in such environments tend to be joyful, energized, and capable of handling challenges with a positive outlook. In contrast, toxic organizational cultures breed suspicion toward change, creating high levels of stress, fear, anxiety, or apathy. These environments typically struggle with retention and innovation.
Team Support
The degree of psychological safety employees experience when sharing ideas, expressing opinions, and working through challenges.
High team support creates an atmosphere where individuals feel comfortable being authentic, taking calculated risks, requesting assistance, and voicing dissenting opinions or raising difficult topics. Low team support environments feel competitive and rigid, where people stay silent, keep their heads down, and fear penalties for deviating from established norms. It’s important to note this is team-specific—moving to a different team can dramatically change an individual’s experience of support.
Work Environment
How effectively the organization enables learning, knowledge sharing, and adaptation through its systems and culture.
Strong work environments actively facilitate innovation through systems and processes that support experimentation, reward creative thinking, and encourage learning from failures. These organizations empower employees to disrupt conventions, iterate freely, and share insights openly. Weak work environments are closed and rigid, where unconventional thinking carries risk, mistakes have serious repercussions, and employees lack meaningful mechanisms for suggesting improvements or pushing boundaries.
Work Stress
How appropriately the organization balances workload demands and performance expectations.
While moderate stress can drive growth and innovation, extreme stress levels undermine Adaptability. High-stress environments leave employees feeling overwhelmed, burned out, and lacking time for professional development or new initiatives—harmful to both individuals and organizational innovation. Surprisingly, extremely low-stress environments can also be problematic, as excessive comfort can lead to complacency and stagnation when there’s insufficient motivation for growth and improvement.
Understanding Your Complete AQ Profile
The power of the A.C.E. Model lies in its holistic approach. Your Adaptability Intelligence isn’t determined by a single factor but by the interaction of your abilities, character traits, and environmental context. There are no universally “good” or “bad” scores—the AQme assessment reveals your current Adaptability profile and provides strategic insights for improvement.
Whether you’re seeking to enhance personal resilience, improve team dynamics, or create organizational conditions that foster Adaptability, understanding all three dimensions of the A.C.E. Model provides the foundation for open discussion, meaningful growth and transformation.Ready to discover your Adaptability Quotient? Contact us today to get started with an AQme assessment for yourself or your team.