Everything You Need to Know About Adaptability in Business in 2026

“The only constant in business is change”

“Disruption isn’t coming, it’s already here”

“It’s not the smartest who will survive, it’s the most adaptable”

You might have seen such quotes popping up in your social media feed more and more often. It is the reality we live in. There’s some bad news and good news about it. 

Bad news: There’s no outsourcing for adaptability. Adaptability is still one of the core skills in business that no AI prompt can do for us. AI might provide us with data and ideas, but it’s still us, humans, who need to BE adaptable actively. So WE have to be the ones who do the work.

Good news: There are effective ways to measure and improve adaptability. Adaptability IS measurable and improvable. If you know how, you’re far more ahead to achieve long-lasting success in business and career than others.

The worst news: It’s a matter of survival. Unfortunately, adaptability has become “the skill of the moment” for a reason:

• More Fortune 500 companies are going bankrupt or merging than ever in history (Source).
• The median age of an S&P 500 top 10 company in 2018 was 52 years less than in 2000s – that is, 33 years, compared to 85 years. The prediction for 2027 is just 12 years (McKinsey).  
• The speed of technological change is much faster now than ever (World Economic Forum).
• We’re as interconnected as ever, and new geopolitical events pop up regularly, affecting us even if they’re happening far away. 

This is becoming a challenge even for the most flexible and resilient leaders and businesses. 

So yes, one can say “Meh, it’s a phase, things will get back to normal soon”. Yes, no one can predict the future (we can only guess). At the same time, all the information above points to the same trends and tendencies.

The speed of change is growing, not even leaving “The Big Guys” behind. Yes, even those who were once invincible are affected.That’s why learning about adaptability and perfecting the skills is not just the new competitive advantage in business – it might be a matter of “to be or not to be” for the team, company, or someone’s career.

Topics covered in the blog

That’s why I created this blog – so that the most crucial, practical, and realistic info about adaptability would be found in one place for anyone who wants to become more adaptable in business.

As I’m a certified AQ (Adaptability Intelligence) Level 2 professional and adaptability skills trainer, my approach is – as much fact- and science-based info, as simple and as hands-on, practical as possible.  (More about Elina Andersone)

In this blog, you’ll learn:

• what adaptability is in business;
• the benefits of it;
• examples of adaptability in business, teams, individual career;
• what adaptability consists of,
• how to measure and improve adaptability.

Sounds good? Let’s go.

What is Adaptability in Business?

In simple terms, adaptability is the ability to adjust your thoughts, mindsets, and actions to deal with new or changing situations, circumstances effectively. So, it’s not enough to ‘know’ – you need to prove you’re adaptable with action. That’s why adaptability needs to be practical more than theoretical.

If you want a more detailed definition with smarter words – 

Adaptability is our capacity to adjust our thoughts and behaviors to respond to uncertainty, new information, novelty, changed circumstances, conditions, or events successfully. 

Why does adaptability matter in business and career?

7 Benefits of Adaptability at Work and Business

Why should we even care about this skill? Let’s see the benefits of adaptability, proven by science and statistics:

1. Increased Performance. Employees with high adaptability achieve more. To be more precise, they are 2.5 times more likely to have higher performance and contribute more to organizational success (McKinsey)
2. Higher Productivity: Highly adaptive, resilient workers are 45% more likely to report high levels of productivity compared to those with low resilience scores (ADP Global Workplace Study 2022).
3. Higher Revenue. Companies that prioritize adaptability are 3.5 times more likely to outperform their peers in terms of revenue growth (Gartner)
4. Improved Leadership. 71% of executives said that adaptability was the most important leadership quality in these times (Harvard Business Review)
5. Outperforming Peers: Organizations that excel at adapting to change are 1.5 times more likely to outperform their industry peers (McKinsey & Company).
6. Successful Reskilling: The World Economic Forum (WEF) reports that 50% of employees will need to be reskilled by 2025 due to rapid changes in technology and market demands, underscoring the need for adaptability.
7. Innovation & Shareholder Returns: The most innovative companies, which often demonstrate high adaptability, produce greater shareholder returns and build resilience and competitive advantage (BCG’s 2023 global survey).

That’s just the benefits of adaptability in general. If we dug deeper into its different sub-parts, it would be much more. 

Now, how does adaptability look in practice? Let’s look at some examples. 

Examples of adaptability at work

Below you’ll see the examples on 3 different levels: individual, team, and organization.

3 examples of individual adaptability

1. A leader adapting to a new team

You’re a leader who champions a decentralized, autonomous work model. You started to manage a team that is used to strict, rigid leadership. The team is initially skeptical, saying they lack the feeling of a “firm, stable leader”.  So you adapt your strategy (to push the new model on the team), and start with small, collaborative pilot projects instead, allowing the team to build trust and confidence in their own decision-making gradually. 

2. A project manager adapting to a new software program

You’re a project manager, and you learn that the company is adopting a new project management tool. You’re asked to use it as well. Instead of complaining or resisting, you take the initiative to watch tutorials, ask questions, and become proficient in the new system, helping the whole team transition smoothly.

3. An accountant adapting to changes in the industry

You’re an accountant who notices the increasing automation of traditional accounting tasks. You also recognize the growing demand for data-related roles. So you proactively enroll in courses and bootcamps to become a Business intelligence developer. This allows you to transition to a new, more fulfilling, and better-paid role successfully.

Now, how does team adaptability look?

3 examples of adaptability in teams

For this part, I chose to share examples that compare teams that are adaptable vs. those that are not.

1. Rigid sales pitch vs. adapting to customer needs

Sales team B stuck to outdated pitches, wasted their time and effort, and lost clients.

Sales team A saw the results and and thought, “Alright, if we want to be better than that, we need to be different.” So they put systems in place to spot changing client priorities early and adjust their offers accordingly. It allowed them to gain an edge over competitors and improve their sales numbers.

2. Resisting new technology vs. implementing it.

Two teams at the same company needed to adopt AI in their work. Team B resisted the new technology and sabotaged adoption. They did their best to find workarounds and complained to each other, their managers, and their families about how useless AI is.  

Team A had a different approach. They embraced training, shared mistakes in the process openly, collaborated in adopting the new features, and quickly turned them into efficiency gains. The road to implementation wasn’t smooth – but the result made them more productive.

Team B continues to complain to this day, calling Team A ‘lucky’.

3. To launch or not to launch? New feature development

Team B had spent much time, effort and budget developing the product. When they saw that market conditions had changed, they still decided to launch the product as it was. It was too hard to let go. 

The launch flopped.

Team A, after developing another product, found itself in the same situation. They re-prioritized tasks and collaborated to problem-solve, strengthening client relationships, improving sales, and becoming even more cohesive in the future.

If you got confused – Team A in all the examples is Team Adaptable 🙂

OK, that is team adaptability. How does organizational adaptability look?

3 Examples of organizational adaptability 

Let’s look at the real-world examples.

1. Industry Disruption 

A retailer that adapts to the new reality and pivots to a new business model early becomes a market leader. For example, Netflix seized the opportunity to shift from DVD rentals to online streaming using cutting-edge technology, becoming one of the market leaders. Source

2. Talent Retention

Companies that adapt and embrace hybrid models (that is, experimenting with ways that work for them specifically (not really sticking to how it used to be – 100% work at the office) attract and retain top people. (Here’s a Stanford study)

3. Crisis Management

Companies that reframe crises as opportunities (the opposite of freaking out and hoping to “wait the crises out”) emerge stronger. For example, during the 2008 recession Hyundai introduced the Assurance program – they promised customers they could return their car if they lost their job. This program allowed them to gain market share. More here

Wrapping the examples up – 

As you see, the examples on all 3 levels have something in common. Adaptable people are not fighting the reality – they are accepting, and “surfing” it to get the most out of the situation and circumstances.

And that is not easy, and it takes intentional work. But it’s worth it. 

Now, what are the sub-parts, or what adaptability consists of, and how to know whether you’re adaptable or not? Let’s explore in the next section.

How to measure adaptability? 

You cannot change what you cannot measure, right? Our LinkedIn and other social media feeds are full of content about adaptability, change management, flexibility, and agility. 

The problem is – most specialists usually cover just a small part of what affects you when you want (or need) to adapt. Which makes it harder to get results – because there is usually a part that is missing.

So, how to measure adaptability, not leaving anything useful out?

The most holistic way that I’ve found so far is the AQ (Adaptability intelligence) model.  It shows what our business adaptability consists of from 3 most important angles, and gives you specific benchmarks to work with while improving adaptability.

The model was invented by AQai, a data, health, and education technology company that crafted the AQ (Adaptability Intelligence) measuring model, based on research. Then they took what they found in the research and improved the model while collaborating with leaders across multiple industries – education, leadership, psychology – to make sure that the model is not only science-based, but also practically applicable.

Now there are tens of thousands of people who have already used this AQ model to improve their work and business.

What does adaptability at work consist of, according to the AQ model?

Our adaptability at work consists of 3 areas:

1. Skills

The 5 skills that impact our ability to adapt the most, are:

• grit,
• resilience,
• mental flexibility,
• unlearning, and
• AQ mindset. 

The AQ skills are the easiest area of our adaptability to change. They’re trainable and improvable (and, in my almost 6-year experience in training others, in a relatively short time).

If you’re considering a team adaptability training, see more here.

2. Character traits

These are sturdier, less flexible parts of ourselves that make us who we are. The 5 character traits that, according to the AQ model, affect our adaptability the most, are:

• Extroversion/Introversion,
• Emotion Range,
• Thinking style,
• Hope, and
• Motivation Style.

Character traits affect why you adapt, and give you useful info that helps you motivate and take care of yourself (or, if you’re a leader, of your team) during change. 

3. Environment.

If you planted a rose in the Arctic, you wouldn’t be surprised if it didn’t grow, right? It’s the same with people and their work environment. Even a skillful person won’t be able to adapt successfully if put in the wrong environment.

The Environment, according to the work of AQai, affects whether or not we’ll be able to adapt in the specific company and team we’re working in – even if our skills are TOP level. 

Specifically, our ability to adapt in our workplace is affected by our overall

• Work Stress levels,
• Company Support,
• Team Support,
• Work environment, and
• Emotional Health.

Now, terms of Environment are a bit more nuanced than AQ skills or character traits that you could understand just by the name. You have to know what it means. So if you’re interested in some of these terms, don’t hesitate to ask me on LinkedIn.

What does measuring adaptability look like?

Now you know what adaptability consists of.

Great.

Now, how does one learn how adaptable they are? By doing an AQ assessment.

Measuring adaptability individually

After you’ve done the assessment, you instantly gain access to the results in all areas just mentioned, plus a short description of what they mean, term by term, and suggestions on how to improve in any area you might be interested in.

Measuring adaptability in teams and organizations

If the whole team (or organisation) does the assessments, a profile of the whole team is created. Then it is possible to get information about the overall tendencies in the team, and discover their strengths and areas to work on as a team.

The best part about teams’ and organizations’ adaptability measurement is – you can analyse the results in a way that is already connected to some of your current challenges.

Common business challenges that the AQ model helps solve

Here’s a list of 7 important and common challenges in teams and organizations across many industries that the AQ Model can help address.

It’s not a full list, however, it’s a great start.

1. Implementing Change Successfully

The AQ model helps understand how change-ready your team or organization is overall. It gives important insights to leaders on how to support their employees during change, motivate them, and give them all that is necessary to implement change programs.

2. Employee Retention 

It is expensive to hire new people – in some companies, losing an employee means losing millions (because of lost team productivity, delay in product launch, hiring and onboarding expenses, etc.). AQ results can show if there is a risk of employees leaving, and allow you to understand what they need before the risk turns into reality.

3. Increasing Team Engagement and Performance

The never-ending challenge, right? The AQ model shows you how to improve performance and engagement, keeping employees satisfied, loyal, and caring about their work, and the growth of the organization.

4. Continuous Innovation

Innovation can give the upper hand in the fast-paced, highly competitive market. The AQ model gives useful insights on how to accelerate the speed and quality of innovation, and how to find the best talent for innovative projects, using your existing personnel more efficiently.

5. Reskilling & Upskilling 

You can reduce the costs of hiring new people for new roles if you know how to improve continuous learning and openness to change career paths in your existing employees. The AQ model shows you how to do that more successfully.

6. Leadership Development 

Change and innovation start from the top. With the AQ model, you’ll better understand how adaptable your leaders are, how to support them in navigating change, and give them useful tools on how they can support their teams in the uncertainty we live in today.

7. Improving and supporting employee well-being

Burned-out teams benefit no one. The results help understand the most important factors, from multiple angles, that affect the risk of burnout, high absenteeism, and greater turnover in teams. And then, of course, how to minimise the risk of that happening.

The adaptability has been measured – now what? Understanding the results

With individual assessments, you can see the results on your own. AQ professionals help to understand your results in a shorter time and how to implement them in your specific context and future vision via an online 1:1 call. 

For team assessments, the analysis is done by a certified AQ Level 2 professional. Why? Because we all know you have SO much time to research all 17 parts of AQ team results to understand what they mean, and how to apply them (irony, of course 🙂). Besides, information about which AQ areas affect the most common business challenges is available only in AQ Level 2 training. It could be extremely hard to get to the same conclusions yourself.

So, to efficiently use your adaptability results, it’s smarter to use professional help. And because of that, move from information to action as smartly and quickly as possible. 

Important note

Now, of course, there are other ways that people measure adaptability nowadays. Every specialist, business, and consultancy agency tries to create their own ‘signature framework’. You’re more than welcome to explore more. 

For me personally, the AQ model is the most trustworthy so far, as it’s 

• holistic, 
• based on science, and 
• gives space for the context

(as opposed to “The ONE key to success” frameworks, which are mostly based on a specific experience, not always applicable to other contexts). 

I’m all open to keep exploring, though, and when I find something better, I’ll let you know.

So, we’ve explored how to measure adaptability and what challenges this measurement can help us deal with. Now, how to improve it?

How to Improve Adaptability?

Now, the real, short answer is:

• Understand your situation and context
• Name where you want to be and why
• Set an action plan to get there
• Do the plan.

But it’s too obvious, right? You might have fallen asleep already. So, to make it more exciting, let’s put a twist on it. Let’s draw parallels to a question: “How do I improve my muscle strength?” The steps, more or less, are similar:

1. Understand your situation and context

The starting point for improving muscle strength will be different for: 

• a new mom, 
• a professional athlete in their early 20s, or 
• an office worker in their 40s. 

It’s the same with adaptability. Using vague advice sometimes might even harm you, if it’s out of your context. So it’s wise to understand your situation, context, and benchmark it.

Action step: Measure your adaptability with AQ assessment, or have some other form of ‘diagnostics’ to understand how adaptable you are now.

2. Name where you want to be (and why) 

• A new mom might want to get in good shape after birth to be an example.
• A professional athlete might want to win a competition to reach new heights in their career.
• An office worker might want to stay healthy and keep their energy levels high during the day.

It’s the same with adaptability. For one person, they want to reskill. For others, they need to lead their teams through change. For others, quicker innovation, higher productivity is the goal.

Understanding it all gives greater clarity and motivation to take action (Because, remember – adaptability is non-delegatable; you will have to change your behavior.).

Action step: Understand which metrics to improve, why they’re important to you, according to your professional (or business) goals.

3. Set an action plan to get there.

For the new mom, the muscle strength training could turn out to be a bad idea – let’s say because she needs to recover at first. So for her, the best action is to rest for 1-2 months.

For the athlete, an intense training program for 2 hours a day with a professional trainer is the best, starting tomorrow.

For the office worker, the best would be to start their day with a 45-minute group strength training at the local gym to make them accountable, give them energy for the whole day, and make sure the busy schedule hasn’t stepped in the way yet. For him, realistically, it’s best to begin with a weekly session.

It’s the same with adaptability. For some, improving adaptability skills on their own/ with once-a-week training, will be enough. For others, having a professional lead the way will be the best, or devoting to a mix of coaching, skill training, and re-strategising activities. Or, sometimes the best thing is to recover after a burnout and think about grandiose career plans later.

Action step: Create the most efficient way of getting where you want to be with realistic steps. Set a specific plan on how to improve in the areas most crucial to you, your goals, and context, and how you’ll know if you’re going in the right direction.

4. Do The Plan

The action plan is just the beginning. The most important thing is to follow through. 

You can improve your chances of following through by building an accountability system. Again, depending on your context, it might look like:

• Starting the day by reminding yourself of the plan and your why;
• Regular, planned time alone to come back to the plan and reflect on the results and/or lessons learned on the go;
• Regular team/group sessions to practice and/or train adaptability skills;
• Having the ‘buddy system’ with a colleague or a friend, keeping each other accountable;
• Putting the specific tasks from the plan into the calendar (and taking it as seriously as an important meeting, let’s say);
• Hiring a professional.

It’s OK to go off the plan when you meet the everyday reality. To some extent, it will happen in most cases.

So the most important thing here is to keep being in touch with reality – name the real situation and decide how to adjust to make it work anyway.

Change takes time and repetition – it’s the reality. There are no workarounds. At least for building human skills and abilities. 

How to train adaptability skills?

Just like any skill – with practice.

You can read all the books in the world that are recommended by 8-figure business owners, but if you don’t do the work, nothing will change.

The way I have been training adaptability skills since 2020 is with an experiential learning method. It goes like this:

• You’d do an interactive exercise or a simulation;
• Afterwards, you’d answer a couple of questions on what happened.
• Then I’d explain how the exercise is connected to the skill you’re training.
• Then, often we would connect the exercise with real life, the future goals, and how to use the principles from it there.

People do say they notice change within 4-8 weeks of training.

Other ways (because I wouldn’t want to say mine is the only one) include:

• Hiring executive/transformational/developmental coaches;
• Consulting with change management professionals for solving specific adaptability problems in teams and organizations;
• Looking at some online or local options for workshops focused on specific aspects of adaptability.

How to improve adaptability in teams and organizations

If our own adaptability depends on the context, then team and organizational adaptability are the same, just on steroids. 

That’s why the “7 steps to change any team” won’t work in most cases. 

The processes and structures, the industry, the market, the leadership, and team dynamics – just a few of many moving parts that are complex enough on their own – need to be put together to decide on the best path to improve.

So there won’t be an easy answer. The AQ team or organizational profile + debrief sessions to understand how to use the results practically is the best option I can give you.

Not to leave you too confused, though, some principles help teams and organizations more than others, and more often, from my experience.

6 Principles for More Adaptable Teams and Organizations

The principles are:

• Start from the Top: Leading by example works better than asking teams to be adaptable, while leadership sits on the bench, just watching.
• Foster Team Support: Creating an environment where employees feel supported and, thus, safe to voice ideas, take risks, and make mistakes pays off. It doesn’t mean no accountability; it means testing more, sharing more, and improving quicker because of that.
• Empower People: Encouraging autonomy makes people more invested in their work and gives leaders more time to lead.
• Make sure rigid process structures don’t stand in the way. If one needs a signature from 5 people to test a small thing, it will be hard to adapt even for the most adaptable genius.
• Staying in the ‘healthy stress zone’. If your teams are too stressed for too long, you’ll get the worst of even your best people (and their resignation). Stress is necessary for growth, but it has its limits. Help employees and leaders stay in the healthy zone.

So, this is the most useful info I could imagine to help you understand the adaptability practically. 

Was there something missing?

Let me know, I’ll be happy to add a section to the blog that can help you even more.