Adaptability is the most important skill to maintaining a competitive edge in the ever-changing world, but many companies simply aren’t prepared to equip their employees–or themselves–with better skills of adaptation. Ross Thornly and Michael Raven, co-founders of AQai, have developed an innovative, research-based assessment to help employees and businesses prepare for massive changes.

This assessment uses a conversational chatbot to determine an individual’s adaptability as calculated by the ACE model: ability, character, and environment. Based on each individual’s interaction with the AI-driven chatbot, an inventory of the fifteen dimensions of adaptability is used to generate a change readiness and reskill index that quantifies not only how adaptable someone is, but also the entire team’s readiness to learn new skills. With this powerful tool, employees and businesses will be more ready than ever to launch into the future and embrace the changes that we are all facing.

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“The slowest period of change any of us will ever experience is right now.” [13:20]

“… improving adaptability is contextual to your vision, the skills you have, the level of desire you want, and your ability to create pathways and strategies around it. What I’ve just described there, essentially, is the core components of hope.” [17:17]

“A journey starts with a commitment to doing something in a certain way. And the way we did it was through collaborations.” [20:16]

“Character and personality aren’t actually as permanent as we are led to believe, and this fits into our belief of AQ being malleable.”  [33:16]

“It’s not just about feeling different–we are seeing people showing up as their authentic selves.” [43:34]

Addressing the problem of adaptability [8:15]

“The slowest period of change any of us will ever experience is right now.” [13:20]

For Thornly and Raven, the mission of helping businesses and employees adapt to change better came not from some deep sense of direction, but from recognizing that change was simply happening too quickly. Businesses were going under just because of an inability to adapt quickly enough. They saw a need for new tools, and that is how AQai was born.

After identifying that businesses need to be able to adapt more quickly, Thornly and Raven set out to understand what adaptability means in the first place. They then developed a way to assess adaptability, and from that they have found practical ways to help improve it.

The ability to adapt is crucial today because change is happening exponentially. Technologies that are advancing at an extraordinary rate are displacing work as they outstrip our brains’ processing power. Employees and businesses can keep their edge by learning how to adapt better to constant change.

Improve your adaptability [15:25]

“How easy improving adaptability is contextual to your vision, the skills you have, the level of desire you want, and your ability to create pathways and strategies around it. What I’ve just described there, essentially, is the core components of hope.” [17:17]

The first step in improving adaptability is, like in many endeavors, to have a vision of a future version of ourselves that is better than the version we are living today. This vision drives how much effort and time we will commit to improving our adaptability.

However, just having the vision for improvement does not mean it will be easy. Many types of adaptability are influenced by our surroundings. Working with people who are themselves adaptable and have a positive mindset towards change will influence our own ability to adapt.

Then we can bring our own skills and experiences to the table and use those to improve adaptability. Essentially, this is the foundation of hope, and it is what drives future growth in adaptability.

Understanding adaptability [20:14]

“A journey starts with a commitment to doing something in a certain way. And the way we did it was through collaborations.” [20:16]

Thornly and Raven set out to understand adaptability by first drawing on credible, reliable research that has already been done. The first task was to find out what components make up adaptability, which they uncovered through collaboration with professors and industry experts. In areas that lacked research, such as unlearning, they set out to create it themselves.

And it was a long journey. Over the course of eighteen months, they worked with IBM, the UN, and many other agencies to collect data to build and validate their model of adaptability. Artificial intelligence was a key tool in processing the massive amounts of data they gathered and determining what truly contributes to adaptability.

How adaptability works [29:40]

“Character and personality aren’t actually as permanent as we are led to believe, and this fits into our belief of AQ being malleable.”  [33:16]

Adaptability is built on the three pillars of ability, character, and environment. Ability is an individual’s preparedness and readiness to adapt to change. Character is similar to personality and relates to who adapts well and why. Environment is a factor missed by many models of adaptability and reflects the contexts that support or inhibit adaptation.

Then, based on their extensive research, Raven and Thornly situated the fifteen dimensions of adaptability within each of these three pillars. This science-based understanding also gives a roadmap to understanding an individual level of adaptability and a plan to improve it.

Based on this model, their assessment can assign a change readiness and a reskill index that quantifies both adaptability and the ability to reskill. This helps individuals achieve maximum productivity and fulfillment and informs management decisions about the most efficient investment of resources.

Assessing and improving adaptability [42:50]

“It’s not just about feeling different–we are seeing people showing up as their authentic selves.” [43:34]

The AQai assessment operates fundamentally differently than assessments we are used to. Rather than simply giving a series of statements to agree or disagree with, this assessment offers test-takers the opportunity to be their true selves as they interact with a conversational chatbot. Though some people find this medium offputting, many feel like it’s a breath of fresh air from consistently boring tests.

Beyond the chatbot interface, AI is also used to aid in the individualized coaching and improvement plans that help employees improve their adaptability. The innovative interface is not just a way to engage test-takers but also to provide them with continuing support.

Raven and Thornly have two other opportunities to improve adaptability, including an upcoming masterclass and a mini documentary that highlights their work.