In our previous post, we addressed the realities of assessment fatigue, and how communicating the “what’s in it for me” for your team members can overcome resistance and skepticism to drive buy-in. We focused on how the AQai Adaptability Assessment is a powerful tool for personal growth because learning to be adaptable isn’t just applicable at work–it’s a useful skill in our personal lives as well.
Today, we’re doing a deeper dive into how to communicate that message: what exactly your team wants and needs to hear, and provide some talking points to help you articulate those personal benefits in a way that gets your team fired up and excited for this new endeavor.
This is not your average assessment
Maybe they’ve been through some personal development exercises in the past or even taken a personality assessment, like a DISC or Motivators assessment. They might be wondering: how exactly is Adaptability Intelligence any different? What will I personally gain from this experience?
The AQai Adaptability Assessment is unique in that it not only reveals specific abilities and characteristics that support adaptability and what individuals need from their environment to be more adaptable, but it also illuminates a path toward how to become more adaptable. It provides a common, non-judgmental vocabulary that demystifies the concept and opens up the conversation. The assessment ensures you’re all speaking the same language, and you have measurable metrics to track progress toward building Adaptability Intelligence, instead of it feeling abstract and aspirational.
And this ‘Adaptability Intelligence’ is becoming an essential skill for both work and life.
The fact is that the world will change around you, whether you become adaptable or not. It’s happening at work, in every industry, in every country and on every continent. Technology and AI are forcing us to pivot, to learn new skills or potentially become obsolete. It’s happening in our personal lives – as we age, our kids grow up, our communities transform with economic change or the political crisis of the day.
The pace of change is coming at us faster every single day, making it harder and harder to keep up. If you don’t learn to adapt, you’ll feel chewed up and spit out.
Learning your personal Adaptability Quotient–the 15 factors that measure how you respond to shifting roles and circumstances and the environmental factors that help you thrive through change– is your secret weapon in a world of upheaval. The AQai Score is a powerful starting point on the path to greater Adaptability. Think of it like a diagnostic tool… Let’s say you hurt your knee while running and you go to the doctor. You wouldn’t want them to guess at the problem or experiment by trial and error with random treatments. You’d expect them to request an x-ray or maybe even an MRI to identify the issues and inform the treatment plan–a plan that would be very different for a sprain versus a fracture.
The AQai Adaptability Assessment works in a similar way: you have a pain point (struggling to adapt), and the AQai Assessment is the diagnostic tool that identifies the root causes, so you have objective data and a common language to discuss and inform a “treatment plan.”
But just like rehabbing a bum knee, building Adaptability Intelligence requires awareness, time, work and consistent re-evaluation to track your progress. It’s a journey.
But in order to embark on that journey, you must have a starting point. The Adaptability Assessment brings to light your current capacity to adapt and aligns you toward solutions to become more adaptable. That’s why the assessment is important: it shows you where you’re starting from, establishes a baseline from which to measure progress, and gives you the terminology to discuss it clearly as a team.
What Employees Need to Hear: Adaptability is a Competitive Advantage
Build buy-in by letting your team know that building Adaptability Intelligence isn’t merely a job skill, it is a way to future-proof their life. Through understanding their patterns of reaction to change, and building on this knowledge with practice and self-awareness, they can learn to anticipate and adapt default responses in times of crisis to achieve better outcomes. This gives them greater agency and helps them feel more capable of handling whatever might come their way. It can benefit their current job, their future career and even their personal life, including their family and community.
Here are six personal benefits you can emphasize to build buy-in for the assessment:
● You will learn what you need and how to ask for it.
In some ways, taking the Adaptability Assessment is like learning your ‘love language’ (Source: 5 Love Languages). It can help you learn how your character and abilities drive your behavior and response to change and what you need in terms of an environment to thrive.
With this knowledge, your team can learn to ask for what they need at work because they’ll have a common language to articulate it. It provides standardized terminology that’s unencumbered by ego, emotional charge or workplace stress to improve communication and help people get to solutions and support quickly, without feeling like “squeaky wheels.” The company has demonstrated its willingness to listen and try to accommodate those needs by simply offering the assessment. It’s the company’s way of saying, “we want your input,” and “here is the glossary that will help us understand your needs.”
But beyond the office, imagine the benefits of being able to articulate with similar clarity what we need in our relationships, with our spouse, our mother-in-law, or our children when it comes to navigating change. As our kids move out or off to college, being able to clarify our expectations for how that might change our marriage or our relationship with our children as adults is extremely beneficial. Having the language to articulate what you feel, or need can help prevent the miscommunication that often happens when emotions run hot and we don’t have the right words to articulate them.
● You’ll discover how to present yourself well.
Too often performance reviews focus on achieving metrics and goals, but less on how those achievements have contributed to the company’s success. Learning about your Adaptability style can help your team make the case for their value to the organization, feel more appreciated, and get noticed without being viewed as troublesome or disruptive. It teaches them how to harness their character and abilities to achieve goals, rather than letting them undermine their growth.
This is obviously applicable in so many personal situations as well. It can help us learn how to speak up for ourselves when our boundaries are being infringed or overcome obstacles to personal goals we might have around health, fitness, or hobbies.
● This is applicable in future roles.
Adaptability can give your team the courage to try new things—whether that’s a promotion, a different role in the current organization or a new role in a new organization. It can help them refine their resumes by focusing on what they bring to an organization, not just the tasks they perform.
Developing their Adaptability Intelligence can also help them learn what to ask about a new company or role, how to gauge the organization’s level of adaptability, and find out before making a commitment whether it’s an environment in which they can thrive.
These same skills could be applied when making decisions about joining a social or charitable club, a new church, or volunteering for the parent organization at a child’s school.
● You’ll start to look ahead instead of back.
By exploring and developing Adaptability Intelligence, we can start to see change as an opportunity rather than a burden. We can let go of baggage, stop ruminating on the past, and view even negative experiences as growth opportunities.
Adaptability can also help us figure out how to unlearn habits or behaviors that aren’t serving us well, and that alone can have so many benefits for our health, our relationships, our goals, and the decisions we make in our everyday lives.
● You’ll learn to trust yourself.
Gauging and developing Adaptability Intelligence can help us become more willing to experiment or go out of our comfort zone, knowing we can adapt if the results aren’t what we expected.
Whether it’s taking that international vacation we’ve always dreamed of, trying a class at the mixed martial arts studio in town, or even attempting a new recipe, developing our Adaptability Intelligence gives us the confidence to shoot for the moon, have audacious goals, and let go of imposter syndrome. The assessment can help identify the qualities and environment that can help us grow and those that might need a bit of work or more support, so we can address those on our own terms.
● You’ll build self-awareness.
Understanding how our character and abilities can be both strengths and weaknesses enables us to grow confidence and identify areas for improvement.
It can help us recognize and modulate our reactions when attributes like grit—which sounds like a strength—can sometimes become a weakness. It gives us the tools to stop and ask, “Am I displaying a little too much perseverance right now? Maybe I should ask for help.” Simply becoming more aware of how we handle change can illuminate some strategies to adapt better, learn to recognize when we react in undesirable ways, and pivot in the moment when a similar situation comes up down the road.
Becoming more adaptable is essential for embracing the future with enthusiasm and optimism. It can help us all feel more in control and less overwhelmed, no matter how big or small a change comes your way.
Articulating those benefits for your team can help them see “what’s in it for me” when taking the AQai Adaptability Assessment. It shows you care about your team’s success, as well as their personal well-being and future, and it’s a powerful way to build buy-in as you take the first step to building a more adaptable organization.
Are you ready to take the first step? Contact us today to get started with the AQai Adaptability Assessment!
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