Adaptability Quotient (AQ) has become something of a buzzword in the business world recently, but what does it mean for your business and how can you apply it?
Here, we’ll explain what AQ is, why small-business leaders should care about it, and how you can shift practices to ensure your employees and your business are adaptable enough to stay competitive as the world around you changes.
What is AQ?
According to Advantage, from a business standpoint, AQ is “the ability to adjust course, product, service, and strategy in response to unanticipated changes in the market.”
On a personal level, AQ measures an individual’s ability to adjust to change in real time. This ability to adapt is essential for employees who want to continue to succeed in their professional environments. For some, this may mean developing new skills or new ways of interacting with others.
When it comes to individuals, those with high AQ…
Keep an open mind, so they see the world with fresh eyes and remain open to possibilities.
Keep an open heart, so they can try to see any situation through another person’s eyes.
Keep an open will, letting go of identity and ego to sit with the discomfort of the unknown.
Furthermore, those with a high AQ tend to be motivated by curiosity and widely exploring the world around them. Adaptable employees seek out diverse skills sets and information knowing that it will better prepare them to handle the unknown events of the future. Naturally, this forward-thinking mindset allows them to support their business’s needs as they change and grow.
Why Should SMBs Care about AQ?
Between Intelligence Quotients (IQ) and Emotional Quotients (EQ), you may think that there are enough quotients to track in the hiring process, but AQ is an essential measure for evaluating prospective employees. Even NASA considers adaptability as it screens for the next generation of astronauts! But what does it mean for SMBs or startups?
As customer demands, market trends, and technology continue to change, startups and SMBs will only be able to keep up if they have the ability to adjust and adapt to change. This isn’t news: The Harvard Business Review announced that adaptability is the new competitive advantage back in 2011, and this has only become more true in the years since.
Therefore, the people most likely to thrive and help a startup succeed are those who can easily adapt to evolving situations. It’s even more critical for business leaders to become comfortable with adapting as the way they respond influences how their teams will react.
How SMBs and Startups Can Increase Their AQ
AQ may sound as ephemeral as EQ, but there are concrete things you can do to increase your teams’ AQ, and our recommendations start at the top:
Model the high-AQ behavior you want to see in your employees. To do this effectively, make time to regularly check in with yourself and with your leadership team for openness of mind, heart, and will. Leaders who model adaptability and open mindedness will find their employees more willing to explore their own ideas. This will help you create an environment that encourages appropriate reactions to stress or change.
When hiring, read resumes for signs of adaptability in addition to core competencies. Look at the skills a candidate has that don’t check a box on the list of core requirements. Does this person speak additional languages or have experience volunteering to organize events for a nonprofit? These may not seem relevant to their daily tasks in the role you’re hiring for, but these are the kinds of experiences that may indicate that a candidate is able to adapt and evolve as things change.
Incorporate adaptability assessments into your hiring process. Do some research and think about the questions that will help you gauge one’s adaptability. There are several existing adaptability assessment guides out there as well. When interviewing candidates, pay attention to how they talk about past experiences. For example, if you ask about a time when something changed unexpectedly or a disagreement they had over a decision with a co-worker - adaptable people will be more enthusiastic and positive when discussing how they navigated these challenges.
Of course, a helpful thing any business can do to improve their collective AQ is to maintain open lines of communication, encourage people to take risks and pursue their ideas within the organization. This sets a precedent which makes it easier for leadership to turn to employees when they need pivot or solve a problem the organization is facing.
Model Adaptability to Lead Your Business Forward
As Raman Chadra from the Junto Institute told us, “At startups, it’s important for the leadership and executives to influence adaptability. It starts there. A company’s adaptability when it is small is influenced by the founders and executive.”
Adaptability isn’t a discrete skill or a quality you can acquire over the course of a weekend seminar – it takes years of practice responding mindfully to challenges as they arise. As business leaders, you have a lot of power to influence your team and to move your business forward.
Small businesses and startups that operate with the intention of accepting and adjusting to change are the ones most likely to endure and ultimately succeed in the rapidly changing world in which we live.