Juggling Flaming Torches on a Unicycle: How AQ can Become the Startup Founder's Secret Weapon
Michael Wilkinson
CEO at EVERYTHING | Former Ops Director at Crowdcube | Creating the Future of Financial Wellbeing
Have you ever tried juggling flaming torches while riding a unicycle on a tight-wire? I’d guess not, and I’d be lying if I said I had either (I did see a unicyclist juggling the other day but that’s a story for another time). But the twists, turns, bumps, lumps, pandemics and wars will be a common thread many of you will recognise if you’re in the business of building a business.
So What's AQ And Why Am I Talking About It?
No doubt you know about IQ and EQ and will have your own opinion on their relevance or importance. But have you heard of AQ — Adaptability Quotient? McKinsey & Company research states that companies that focus on adaptability see a 30% boost in operational performance[12]. Whilst it's not a widely recognised characteristic as a predictor of success, it soon will be. According to Harvard Business Review, AQ is THE key factor in both individual and company success when faced with uncertainty [1]. After all, how you react to the unexpected is what separates you from a statistic. And in today's world, statistics get hacked, disrupted, and blown up. Adaptability is what allows individuals and organisations to thrive, rather than survive.
In short, your Adaptability Quotient (AQ) is the measure of how well you adjust your ship, your product, your service, and your strategy when the market changes in unpredictable ways. As Ross Thornley, co-founder of AQai, says [2]:
“In today’s rapidly changing world, AQ is the new competitive advantage”
The Comeback Kids
I suspect you’ll know countless examples of startups from your own networks that adapted and delivered in the face of impending doom. I’d love to hear about them another time. But, here are a few of my faves:
Twitter: The Side Project That Saved the Company
Twitter started its life as a side project at a podcasting company called Odeo. In case you’re wondering, Odeo should be referred to in the past tense. The entire company was on the verge of being sold in a bankruptcy firesale because of iTunes. Instead of going down with the ship, the side project team ran with a new idea centred around microblogging that morphed into Twitter or X or whatever the hell it’s become now [4].
Instagram: Check-In Chaos to Content Colossus
"Remember to check in on Burbn" (said no-one ever). Apart from perhaps Kevin Systrom, a Kentucky whiskey lover, who created the ‘aptly’ named location-based iPhone app. It was complicated, clunky, confusing and basically garbage. Burbn let users check in at particular locations, make plans for future check-ins, earn points when they did and post pictures of their meets.
But did old Kev and Mike give up? I’m guessing you know the answer. They spotted that the photo-sharing feature was the only popular aspect of the app, stripped that baby down to its core and ‘The Gram’ was born. I suppose they’ve done ok.
YouTube: Failed Hookups That Worked Out Well
No this isn’t your mother consoling you about your school dating record. YouTube was originally conceived as Tune In Hook Up. It’s safe to say, not many did. But people were uploading a variety of videos and content outside of their dating profiles. They rebranded as YouTube and the rest is history.?
One of the founders Steve Chen had a few choice words to say:
“We realised the users were telling us what they wanted and it wasn’t what we had. We just needed to listen and adapt.”
Ok, I'm hearing you shout: “Yes, yes I’ve heard those examples before. It’s old news.” Give me a bit more time to join the dots and I’ll make it relevant to YOU. Right, onwards…
The Startup Immune System: Navigating Internal Resistance
More often than not the biggest hurdles to change are internal. The “startup immune system” relates to our old friend, organisational resistance to change[5]. Overcoming this is, put simply, hard, but not impossible.
You cannot simply set your startup ablaze with change and expect everyone to spring into action like a well drilled special forces unit. There's a reason the term "burning platform" is so popular in Silicon Valley but harder to sell internally.
If you’ve not heard of it before, it refers to a very specific kind of pain message that relays a sense of serious urgency to encourage people to adopt radical change — whether it's a message to others within a company or a message to yourself to make that critical career move. We all have individual and organisational immune systems that prefer the status quo to radical change. However, it’s possible for leaders to build a culture of adaptability without resorting to fear tactics and it starts with how you hire.
How to Hire More Adaptable People
I could write a whole series of articles on this but I'll save you the pain. Here are a couple of ways to assess for Adaptability Quotient (AQ) and build a resilient, high performing team capable of traversing whatever is thrown at them.
Assess for Adaptability Quotient (AQ)
The AQai assessment is one way to evaluate candidates on their adaptability across multiple dimensions, including mindset, unlearning, emotional range, hope, thinking style and a whole lot more [6]. Not an official plug but if you’ve not heard of them before go check out the science behind it from their founder Ross Thornley, MABP (after you’ve finished reading this of course).
Aligning On Motivational Diversity
Nope this has nothing to do with DIE. In his book Decoding AQ, Mark McLaughlin explains that motivators are a big factor in an individual's capacity to be adaptable. Candidates that score highly on both intrinsic and extrinsic motivators are more likely to be adaptable [7].
Find out what ‘truly’ motivates your candidates. Then keep digging a few layers down to find the truth. Do they like winning, sharing the glory, big bonuses, building something new, changing the world, innovating or hopefully a mix of a few? Hiring those straddling both brackets, and aligning these motivations with your startup’s goals, will help build a more adaptable team.
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How Adaptable Are You?
Ok, so you’ve got AQ hiring sorted. But what about the current ship, crew and course? Keeping tabs on your adaptability is like checking the weather before a sailing trip – you need to know if you'll be sailing in calm or stormy waters, and it’s also helpful to know if any of your crew know how to sail, or if you, the captain, does.
The Adaptive Cycle
There is a constant process of adaptation we experience in all aspects of our lives. Everything moves in cycles — whether in nature, personal lives, or professional settings [6]. Understanding which part of the cycle you are in can help you to navigate:
Have the Hard Conversations, Often
But how do you work out where you are in the cycle? Talk. Be honest. Be open. Create channels for your team to share concerns and ideas. Particularly important when you need to adapt, but…if you only have hard conversations when you're in a reorganisation phase, you'll undermine your ability to adapt by creating a "startup immune system" that rejects change.
How You and Your Team Can Become More Adaptable
Not as adaptable as you thought you were? Don’t worry, that’s normal. Adaptability isn't innate; it's a learnable skill. And like all learnable skills it requires time, attention and practice. Here are 6 ways you can develop AQ in yourself, your team and your startup:
1. Support Continuous Learning
Embrace curiosity and diversity of interests. Encourage courses, attend workshops, and explore topics related to your industry without a preset agenda. Embed this in calendars and encode it into your DNA. Recognise that you and your company cannot predict the future or understand what will be successful 3-5 years down the road. But you can support your people to learn and indulge their curiosity, rather than simply upskilling them for a specific project.
2. Unlearning as a Lifelong Process
You’ll have heard the age old adage two steps forwards, one step back. Well you’ll need to take the step back first to be able to step forwards here. People don’t like to feel like their hard learned and earned skills are no longer relevant, so an unwillingness to unlearn is one of the biggest blockers to building adaptability [16].
In 1899, Charles Duel, Director of the US patents office, said, “Everything that can be invented already has been invented.” Yes, it’s easy to laugh at the ridiculousness of that comment now but 10 years from now we'll look back on this time and see with greater clarity how we had been stuck in obsolete paradigms that constricted us. *sets iPhone reminder for 10 years time*
3. Listen, Like Actually Listen
Give everyone your whole attention. It’s hard to sit on a zoom call and not drift into thinking about what to say next or reply to that Slack message that’s been bugging you. But attention matters. Practice and preach active listening and empathetic communication and you will truly understand your team's motivations and concerns, and they will feel heard. It's a rarity in our frenzied digital world but just give it a go on your next call.
4. Reframe the Failure Process
"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work."
Courtesy of Tommy E, the true creator of the lightbulb (or was he?!?). Create a safe environment where failure = learning. Enough said on an already over-communicated topic.
5. Reinforce High EQ for Successful Change
Value and reinforce EQ as a leadership characteristic. Welcome constructive criticism and be open to feedback and criticism in the same way as any team member would be expected to. Reflect, listen and read viewpoints that differ to yours and empathise with the contrasts. High EQ can help you and your team navigate the emotional aspect of change [15]. Emotional adaptability is what helps you keep your team's morale up during the journey, and it always starts with you.
6. Question Everything, and Normalise It
Encourage your team to challenge the status quo and empower them to make decisions (and get things wrong). Make it a part of your routines. You could ask your team at the end of your weekly all-hands meeting to come up with all the ways things could go wrong over the next week, suggest alternatives to your OKRs or challenge them to come up with better ways of working. Turning this into a cultural habit, where it’s normalised to question ideas, processes, goals and ways of working, broadens your problem solving toolkit and allows the diversity inside a startup to become a competitive advantage [13].?
It’s Just a ‘Fad’
Don’t be Kodak! Who wouldn't and couldn’t unlearn their legacy business because they’d invested too much time and attention to it [17] (yes, yes I know they tried and 9/11 has a big part to play along with a false belief that airport x-ray machines would fry film, but it kinda proves my point).?
You NEED Adaptability to Succeed
Sometimes life just deals you a rough hand. Many potentially great ideas came along at the wrong time. In the words of that great business savant Mike Tyson, "Everybody's got a plan until they get punched in the face." Adaptability is no longer a nice to have; you need it to survive in the startup world. It's your Swiss Army knife, compass, life vest, and the wind in your sails. So, how will you react when you next get punched in the face?
Here are the real sources of any unintended wisdom:
Management Consultant & CFO @ Capstone Consulting | Business Strategist - Growth, Profits & Value Creation
3 个月Excellent article. Well judged adaptation and flexibility is vital for every business. More so for young business as opportunities and hurdles keep popping up. And inside the business you have to paddle fast and grow your capabilities ??
Start Attracting Clients Easily With A Video-Podcast That Only Takes 30 Minutes Per Week. | Songwriter With 150+ Million Streams | Music Creator with 500k Followers (@justinjmooremusic)
3 个月Great points, Michael... Adaptability seems like the new superpower for teams navigating uncertainty.?
Author & Keynote Speaker on Adaptability & The Future of Work. Serial Entrepreneur. Co-Founder of AQai - The World's Largest Community of Adaptability Certified Coaches. Host of DECODING AQ podcast
3 个月If the article piqued your interest, you might want to check out our short (15min) mini-documentary on the subject of adaptability and the future of work - ?? Watch here: https://lnkd.in/e_uzS9yA
Author & Keynote Speaker on Adaptability & The Future of Work. Serial Entrepreneur. Co-Founder of AQai - The World's Largest Community of Adaptability Certified Coaches. Host of DECODING AQ podcast
3 个月Great article, on point & deeply appreciate the shout outs Michael Wilkinson :)