Happy Friday 👋 !

After years in advertising and digital media, I made a career pivot that changed everything. Working alongside Salim Ismail at OpenExO, I discovered the ExO framework—a blueprint for building organizations that achieve 10x impact by leveraging exponential technologies and 11 key attributes.

The more I learned about emerging and converging technologies, the more I thought: We’re not ready for this!

Why? Technology is accelerating at breakneck speed, but most of us are still using yesterday's playbook to solve tomorrow's problems.

The gap between technological advancement and human adaptability is widening. And that's exactly where opportunity lives—if you know how to bridge it. And that’s what led me to dive into adaptability and discover tools and processes that help people embrace change and uncertainty. Because, after all, it’s people that drive successful transformations.

The Power of Experimentation

Among all the powerful attributes in the ExO Framework, one stood out as transformational for me: Experimentation.

When I started framing new initiatives as experiments rather than make-or-break decisions, something shifted. The pressure lessened. Fear of failure transformed into curiosity about outcomes. Each experiment became a low-stakes way to gather intelligence and data and make smarter decisions.

As one of 11 ExO attributes it’s vital that companies who want to scale experiment continually and feed the insights back into the company to have continual learning. There are structures for running good experiments and you should definitely check out resources like Strategyzer, where you'll find lots of free info.

Let’s look at how experimentation ties to adaptability and how you can use it to strengthen key AQ attributes - and maybe have a Eureka moment along the way.

The Science: How Experimentation Rewires Your Adaptability

Adaptability isn't a personality trait you're born with—it's a skill you can develop, a muscle you can build. Here's how strategic experimentation strengthens the core dimensions that matter most:

AQ Abilities Get A Workout

Unlearning → Experimentation makes you comfortable questioning assumptions. Instead of clinging to "the way we've always done it," you become genuinely curious about what might work better. You start asking “What if we tested doing this another way” or “Let’s test this message and see what response we get.”

Mental Flexibility → Each experiment trains your brain to hold multiple perspectives simultaneously and pivot with purpose when data points in a new direction. You may have a preconceived idea of what the results will be and you need to hold your mind open for exact opposite results. (And be careful to not bring your bias into the design of the experiment.)

Resilience → By normalizing small, safe failures, you build emotional recovery directly into your workflow. You don't avoid setbacks—you learn from them and use them strategically.

Your Environment and Culture Get Stronger

Team Support → Teams that experiment well ask "What did we learn?" instead of "Who's to blame?" This creates psychological safety and the trust necessary for breakthrough innovation. The best experiments happen when teams share insights openly - and not just the successful experiments as the failures may be more insightful. Individual experiments can turn into collective intelligence.

Work Stress → With a structured, continual experimentation approach, risk is reduced. You’re not going “all in” on a completely new path and so the stakes are more manageable. Your brain has space for creativity and learning instead of just survival or stress mode.

Your Experimentation Playbook: 5 Key Elements

Every effective experiment needs these components:

✅ Clear hypothesis — What specific idea, theory are you testing?

✅ Defined timeframe — Start with a 1-2 week experiment to gain practice and get quick learnings

✅ Measurable results — Define success criteria upfront

✅ Safe-to-fail design — Contain risk while maximizing learning potential

✅ Shared insights — Document and discuss outcomes, regardless of results

3 High-Impact Experiments You Can Launch This Month

Ready to put this into practice? Here are three ideas for experiments you could run at work:

📌 Experiment #1: The Meeting Makeover

Test: Cut your longest recurring meeting in half and move updates to async

Hypothesis: We can maintain quality decisions while reclaiming focused work time

Timeline: 2 weeks

Success metric: Team satisfaction scores and decision velocity

📌 Experiment #2: The Feedback Frequency Shift

Test: Replace monthly reviews with weekly 10-minute "Start/Stop/Continue" check-ins

Hypothesis: More frequent, lightweight feedback improves alignment and prevents small issues from becoming big problems

Timeline: 4 weeks

Success metric: Team clarity and responsiveness to course corrections

📌 Experiment #3: The AI Assistant Trial

Test: Use AI tools for one specific recurring task (meeting notes, content drafts, or data analysis)

Hypothesis: Automation can reduce administrative burden and free up strategic thinking time

Timeline: 1 week

Success metric: Hours saved and quality of output

⚡️ Whatever experiments you choose, include some notes about how the process impacted your adaptability. Did it help with Unlearning or Team Support? Maybe it failed and your resilience was strengthened because you realized the experiment failed; you didn’t.

The Compound Effect of Small Tests

Experimentation isn't just about finding better processes. It's about fundamentally changing how you and your team approach uncertainty.

Each experiment builds your confidence in navigating the unknown. Over time, this creates a culture where change becomes opportunity rather than threat.

The organizations winning in today's landscape aren't the ones with perfect strategies—they're the ones that learn and adapt fastest.

Your Next Move

Choose one experiment from the list above, or design your own using the five-element framework. Start small, learn fast, and let the data guide your next decision.

What will you test first? Reply and share your experiment—I'd love to celebrate your results and learn from your insights.

Have a great weekend!

Ann
​www.adaptsuccess.com​

Gear Up for Change is your weekly dose of practical wisdom for unlocking adaptability and thriving in an AI-accelerated world. Forward this to a colleague who needs to hear this message and they can subscribe here.

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Want to Gear Up for Change Faster? Here are 3 Next Steps:

📌 Get Your FREE AI Leadership Edge Scorecard. How prepared are you to lead your team and thrive through change? Find out in less than 5 minutes.

📌 Measure Your AQ Take a 25-minute assessment to discover your Adaptability Quotient (AQ). Learn how to thrive in times of change and create a strategy for your growth. Gear up for the rest of 2025 using our companion AQme Workbook. (Tip: check with your manager -- you can probably expense this!) Learn more here.

📌 Make Change Part of Your Team’s Agenda Want to empower your team to navigate change more effectively? Hit reply and tell me about your team's main challenges and disruptions, and we'll set up a call to outline a tailored workshop for your next offsite.

Issue #49, 26 September 2025