You’ve decided it’s time to take the first step toward building Adaptability Intelligence, and you’re ready to get started with an AQai Adaptability Assessment for your team.
Congratulations! You’re about to unlock tremendous potential for navigating the changes that are sure to come.
But improving team adaptability is also itself an exercise in change, and despite the documented benefits, that alone can make it hard to get everyone on board. Becoming more adaptable means changing behaviors, rethinking attitudes, and embracing new ways of thinking, working, and communicating. And just like previous times when you’ve led your team through new challenges, you could meet with resistance or skepticism.
You’re excited, but what if your team isn’t? The last thing you want is for your team to approach the AQai Adaptability Assessment like a check-box exercise.
“In some organizations, training and assessment fatigue is real,” said Competitive Edge CEO Krista Sheets. “Whether it’s been in your organization or at a previous employer, people who’ve had bad prior experiences are right to be skeptical. They’ve sat through the sessions, taken the assessments, and talked about new programs ad nauseam. But in the absence of making it relatable to their daily realities or providing actionable steps to achieve these aspirational goals, it felt like a lot of time and energy wasted.”
Building Adaptability is Different
But unlike every other workplace program, Adaptability isn’t just a workplace skill. It’s also a personal development skill, and it has far-reaching value in the office and in your team’s personal lives outside the workplace.
We already know that developing Adaptability can have bottom-line benefits for the company, including reducing turnover, increasing engagement and productivity and boosting creativity and innovation. It also shows you care about your team’s success, their personal well-being and their future. This alone makes it a worthwhile investment, but the personal benefits for your employees are an outstanding bonus, and they are worth talking about.
“Adaptability is an investment not only in their professional success, but their personal success too,” Sheets said. “Just understanding your character traits, abilities, and what kind of environment you need to thrive can help you navigate so many issues with family, friends, and your community. Who wouldn’t want that?”
Adaptability is transferable to every aspect of our lives, and developing Adaptability Intelligence can help us all become not just better workers, but better partners, parents, neighbors and society members.
Communicating those personal benefits to your team before they dive into the assessment is essential–this understanding can help them to be honest, authentic and vulnerable in their responses, knowing they won’t be judged, and with the understanding that getting the baseline the assessment provides is the first step in helping them to grow.
The Need for Adaptability has Never Been Greater
As a society, we need this capability now more than ever. It seems everyone is stressed and overwhelmed, struggling with financial concerns, political upheaval and societal division. So many great employees come to work every day weighed down by personal burdens, and they need your support. Besides being the right thing to do, helping them develop adaptability is also good for your company’s financial performance.
“More than ever, it seems that instead of addressing and overcoming challenges, we’re trying to cover them up with a pill, create workarounds, exceptions or escapes where we can avoid the difficulty instead of facing it,” Sheets said. “While that might feel like the compassionate thing to do, it’s clearly not working.”
In fact, more people are suffering with mental health issues than ever before (Source: World Economic Forum). Our relationships are suffering (Source: Schoen Clinic). We feel emotionally disconnected (Source: University of Nevada). And our stress has direct consequences for our physical health (Source: National Library of Medicine).
We’re now seeing a wide-ranging epidemic of self-diagnosed neurodivergent conditions—anxiety, depression, ADHD and OCD—all manifestations of the inability to cope with our modern world (Source: National Library of Medicine) and the changes and challenges it presents.
“None of our coping mechanisms have made the world any easier or softer, but it’s made us softer, and we’re struggling because of it,” Sheets said. “The reality is these issues will remain whether you do anything to support your team or not, but the companies that help their people become more resilient will be more successful.”
The Best Way Out is Through
Robert Frost said, “The best way out is always through,” suggesting that avoiding change isn’t the answer.
The solution is learning to be adaptable. Just like a guitar player must develop calluses on their fingertips before becoming a proficient player, Adaptability Intelligence is the ongoing process of developing the fortitude, tools and perspective you need to thrive through change. It’s a skillset that will serve every individual as they continue to navigate every new change.
That’s why our partner, AQai, the company behind the AQai Adaptability Assessment, has embarked on a massive transformation initiative aimed at helping 100 million people by 2030 learn to adapt to the changing world around us. Beyond those who take the Assessment and participate in an Adaptability Intelligence program at work, AQai sees the potential ripple effect that building those foundational skills can have on those individuals’ families, co-workers, neighbors, etc. They can serve as mentors, leaders and role models in Adaptability to help those around them navigate change.
Feel Less Like a Victim With Adaptability
The AQai Adaptability Assessment can help your team get a baseline of where they stand in their ability to adapt today and gain a sense of how and in what areas they might improve. But more than just gathering data, the assessment kicks off a journey of self-discovery and improvement that can help them feel less like a victim of change and more like a participant or even a driver of it.
The assessment provides common vocabulary across the organization to discuss, understand and develop the components of Adaptability without fear, anxiety or risk. That’s why it’s so important for employees to trust that they can be honest and genuine in their responses-the Adaptability Assessment is an emotionally neutral foundation for discovery and growth, not ammunition for judgment.
Rather than reflexively digging in or becoming paralyzed with fear, learning to be more adaptable gives people agency. Whether it’s a tough project at work or a difficult client, or even a medical crisis with an aging parent, a new baby, or a challenging situation with their kids at school, the ability to adapt—which really means the ability to understand how you naturally adapt, and what circumstances and support resources allow you to function at your adaptable best—is empowering in any situation.
For every company, launching an Adaptability Intelligence initiative is a bold first step in creating an organization that’s ready to take on the future. Taking a little time to cultivate support and buy-in from your team will smooth that process and payoff quickly in terms of how rapidly they will learn to discuss and understand the fifteen factors that impact Adaptability. The good news is, the Adaptability Assessment offers many benefits that make it easier to build your team’s enthusiasm and excitement.
Emphasize the “What’s in it for me?”
Employees need to know that developing Adaptability isn’t merely about doing their jobs better; it’s that, but it is also about learning to cope better with personal stress and come away from challenges with lessons and skills we can carry through the rest of our lives, even if things don’t go well.
To build team enthusiasm, here’s a list of “What’s in it for me?” talking points that you may find helpful with employees who may be a little skeptical or reluctant. These can help focus the value on personal, real-life relevance, and long-term impact.
The Adaptability Assessment can help Individuals:
- Understand what kind of environment they personally need to thrive.
- Gain insight into their unique traits, abilities, and strengths.
- Improve how they handle stress—at work and at home.
- Build resilience that applies to real-life challenges like parenting, caregiving, or relationships.
- Feel less like a victim of change and more like an active participant in their own future.
- Learn practical tools to face uncertainty with confidence.
- Develop problem-solving skills that help them grow professionally and personally.
- Strengthen their ability to bounce back after setbacks.
- Manage their emotions to navigate daily demands smoothly and feel less overwhelmed.
- Improve communication and reduce conflict with others—inside and outside of work.
- Boost their confidence in high-pressure or unfamiliar situations.
- Become better equipped to deal with societal, financial, and personal challenges.
- Take part in something bigger to help shape a culture of resilience among their co-workers.
- Be seen and supported by your organization as a whole person, not just a job title.
Join a global movement to adapt more effectively to a rapidly changing world.
Articulating the personal advantages can make all the difference between your team dragging its feet and enthusiastically buying into the Adaptability Assessment. Explaining “what’s in it for me” for your team turns the AQai Adaptability Assessment into a personal growth opportunity that pays dividends now and in the future.
In our next installment, we’ll dive deeper into how your team can turn building Adaptability Intelligence into a personal advantage, so that you can bolster their commitment to taking the AQai Adaptability Assessment.
Stay tuned!