Across a six-month Adaptability Accelerator cohort for accomplished women in career transition, AQme® baseline and close assessments showed Hope and Resilience rising in five of six participants while their environmental conditions did not improve.
Six live virtual sessions across six months, with monthly coaching, office hours and a private participant community in between.
Hope rose in five of the six participants who completed both assessments.
Resilience rose in five of the six participants who completed both assessments.
Overall AQ increased in four of six participants, with the largest individual gain recorded at 94 points.
The Adaptability Accelerator is a six-month programme from The Wolf Kamins Group for accomplished women in the mid-to-late stages of their careers who have identified a need for significant career transition. Each participant completed the AQme® assessment at baseline and at programme close, with AQ® integrated throughout six live sessions. Across the six participants with both measurements, Hope rose in five (mean change +14.3), Resilience rose in five (mean change +5.8) and overall AQ increased in four, while the conditions surrounding participants did not improve. Participants converted that internal shift into defined target markets, prepared pitches, interviews for ideal roles and paid consulting assignments.
Participants in this cohort enrolled individually, drawn from unrelated employers across government, defence, healthcare, financial services and the nonprofit sector. Most brought fifteen or more years of specialist expertise. Each was performing well against conventional external measures, and each reported an inability to progress.
The Adaptability Accelerator is a six-month development programme for accomplished women in the mid-to-late stages of their careers who have identified a need for significant career transition. Participants in this cohort enrolled individually, drawn from unrelated employers across government, defence, healthcare, financial services and the nonprofit sector. Most brought fifteen or more years of specialist expertise. Each was performing well against conventional external measures, and each reported an inability to progress.
A stalled transition does not remain static; it compounds. Each month of uncertainty deepened the erosion of hope and hardened the imposter narrative, so that decisive action became progressively harder. The expertise these participants held was itself at risk of being discounted, by them, because they could not articulate how it transferred to an unfamiliar context.
The costs were simultaneously economic and personal, and they did not fall on the individual alone. Prolonged transition produces lost earnings and under-employment relative to capability. It also removes experienced practitioners from the organisational system at precisely the seniority at which their judgement is least replaceable.
Cost of inaction for the individual: continued stasis and a diminishing sense of agency; diminished wellbeing and a reduced sense of professional accomplishment and impact; acceptance of a role beneath demonstrated expertise; abandonment of the transition altogether; lost earnings and under-employment relative to capability.
Cost of inaction for the wider system: senior, experienced practitioners lost or under-deployed; institutional knowledge left under-utilised; avoidable attrition of hard-won capability for departing employers.
The Wolf Kamins Group delivered six live virtual sessions across six months. Each participant completed the AQme® assessment at baseline and again at programme close, with an individual debrief of her baseline results. AQ® was integrated throughout the programme: the five Abilities and the A.C.E. model provided a consistent analytic vocabulary that participants applied across sessions addressing imposter syndrome, transferable skills, values, the personal board of directors, unlearning and integration.
Each session followed a consistent arc of grounding, teaching, self-assessment, paired breakout, debrief and written commitment. Workbooks were completed as pre-work so that live time was reserved for discussion. Monthly coaching, scheduled office hours and a private participant community operated between sessions.
Resilience, one of the five learned Abilities, rose in five of the six participants who completed both assessments, with a mean change of +5.8 from baseline to programme close. The five Abilities gave participants a consistent vocabulary to apply across sessions on imposter syndrome, transferable skills, values, unlearning and integration.
Hope rose in five of the six participants, with a mean change of +14.3, the largest developmental gain recorded across the cohort. Participants who had initially characterised themselves as stuck, lost or fraudulent were, by programme close, articulating specific next steps and a future they could describe concretely.
The principal finding is that measured adaptability increased while the environmental conditions surrounding participants did not improve. The internal shift produced documentable external action: defined target markets, ideal client profiles, pricing models, marketing materials and prepared pitches, converting into interviews for ideal roles and paid consulting assignments.
AQ® measures adaptability, the capacity to navigate change, complexity and uncertainty, across three dimensions: Ability, Character and Environment. Unlike engagement surveys or personality tests, AQ® measures what people can do when the ground shifts, not how they feel or who they are. In the Adaptability Accelerator, AQ® was not a single diagnostic at the outset but the analytic vocabulary running through every session, and the baseline and close measurements made the shift visible: Hope rose by a mean of 14.3 and Resilience by 5.8 in five of six participants, even as their environmental conditions declined.
The principal finding is that measured adaptability increased while the conditions surrounding participants did not improve.
Hope and resilience increased. Hope rose in five of the six participants who completed both assessments, and resilience rose in the same proportion. Overall AQ increased in four of six, with the largest individual gain recorded at 94 points.
Participants' self-description shifted. Individuals who had initially characterised themselves as stuck, lost or fraudulent were, by programme close, articulating specific next steps and a future they could describe concretely. Self-doubt was not eliminated; it was reinterpreted as a normal feature of transition rather than a judgement on capability.
The internal shift produced documentable external action, and the market responded. Participants reported constructing the practical apparatus of a transition: defined target markets, ideal client profiles, pricing models, marketing materials and prepared pitches. That work converted into hard-won interviews for ideal roles and paid consulting assignments. Participants were not simply better prepared; the external market was confirming that they were delivering value in a new direction.
Sample comprises six participants completing both assessments. Findings are reported as within-individual change over time and are not statistically significant at this sample size. No team-level effect is claimed, as no baseline team report exists for comparison. The design does not permit causal attribution.
I uncovered blind spots I didn't know I had, recognized patterns of negative thinking that had been shaping my decisions, and revisited my core values, only to find they had evolved in ways that completely reframed my next chapter.
Cohort participant, The Adaptability Accelerator
A public cohort drawn from unrelated employers across government, defence, healthcare, financial services and the nonprofit sector.
Six participants completed the AQme® assessment at baseline and again at programme close.
Measured adaptability increased while the conditions surrounding participants did not improve.
Hope rose in five of the six participants who completed both assessments.
Resilience rose in five of the six participants who completed both assessments.
Overall AQ increased in four of six participants, with the largest individual gain recorded at 94 points.
Most participants brought fifteen or more years of specialist expertise to the programme.
Each session followed a consistent arc of grounding, teaching, self-assessment, paired breakout, debrief and written commitment.
Government, defence, healthcare, financial services and the nonprofit sector.
I'm not running away from anything. I'm running toward what's next, with optimism and clarity I didn't have six months ago.
Dr. Johanna Wolf is a psychologist with over 20 years of experience helping individuals, teams, and organizations unlock their full potential through self-awareness, emotional intelligence, and human-centered leadership. She brings a unique blend of clinical and consulting expertise, along with extensive experience supporting the military. She is dedicated to fostering growth, resilience, and high performance. Johanna served in the Peace Corps in Romania, and has dedicated most of her career to public service. Now, she is pivoting to bring her expertise to a wider audience, supporting clients across sectors—including national security, military, non-profit and corporate—to build strength, enhance collaboration, and achieve lasting results. As the founder and owner of Hungry Wolf Consulting & co-founder of The Wolf Kamins Group she specializes in leadership development, performance optimization, and psychological health. Known for her ability to translate complex human dynamics into actionable strategies, she has guided elite service members, executives, and teams through meaningful transformation and growth. Most recently, she served as a consulting psychologist with a joint special operations unit. Johanna holds a B.A. in International Relations and Hispanic & Italian Studies from The Johns Hopkins University and a Doctor of Psychology (Psy D) from George Washington University. She completed her internship at Harvard Medical School and her post-doctoral training through Boston University. She lives in Potomac, Maryland, with her husband, three boys, and two Cavapoos. She is passionate about empowering others to realize their potential and lead with authenticity.
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The Adaptability Accelerator is a six-month development programme from The Wolf Kamins Group for accomplished women in the mid-to-late stages of their careers who have identified a need for significant career transition. Participants enrol individually and complete the AQme® assessment at baseline and again at programme close, with AQ® integrated throughout six live virtual sessions.
Eight participants enrolled, drawn from unrelated employers across government, defence, healthcare, financial services and the nonprofit sector. Most brought fifteen or more years of specialist expertise. Each was performing well against conventional external measures, and each reported an inability to progress. Six completed both the baseline and close assessments.
Measured adaptability increased while the conditions surrounding participants did not improve. Hope rose in five of six participants (mean change +14.3) and Resilience rose in the same proportion (mean change +5.8). Overall AQ increased in four of six, with the largest individual gain recorded at 94 points. Findings are reported as within-individual change over time and are not statistically significant at this sample size.
AQ® was integrated throughout the six months, not administered once as a single diagnostic. The five Abilities and the A.C.E. model provided a consistent analytic vocabulary that participants applied across sessions on imposter syndrome, transferable skills, values, the personal board of directors, unlearning and integration. Each participant received an individual debrief of her baseline results.
The Wolf Kamins Group delivered the programme. Johanna Wolf, Psy.D., PCC, is a consulting psychologist and AQ® Certified Partner Level 3; Liz Kamins, MBA, is an organisational strategist and AQ® Certified Partner Level 1. The firm advises CHROs, chief executives and senior leadership teams on the human dimensions of organisational disruption, with professional roots in defence and special operations, financial services and government.
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