The AEM-Cube™

The AEM-Cube™ is an online instrument for individuals to help them identify their optimal contribution to a team or organization's work. The AEM-Cube assesses an individual's cognitive approach on three dimensions - Attachment, Exploration, and Management of Complexity. The assessment itself takes only a few minutes.

Developed by our colleagues at Human Insight, "the Cube" has some distinct advantages over other tools that you may have have encountered or be currently using:

  • It focuses on the idea of cognitive diversity, not skills. While other dimensions of diversity are important (and clearly linked to an organization's performance), it's possible for a team that is very diverse in terms of skills, age, gender, ethnicity, etc. to still have much the same mental approach to challenges. In fact, most of us tend to hire people who are like us! That may be comfortable, but if you need new solutions and approaches you need cognitive diversity.
  • It's specifically designed for use in complex situations. The more complex the challenge a team faces, the more important cognitive diversity is. Research reported in the Harvard Business Review underscores this point.
  • Its findings can be overlaid with organizational strategy. How you think about your team's composition should be grounded in the specific context in which your organization finds itself. Are you a start-up? Trying to develop new products? Maturing and wanting to build on early success? Trying to respond to disruption? While each of these stages calls for different skills, you also need to shape the cognitive profile of your team for maximum impact.

Human Insight has approved a small number of people in the US to administer and interpret the AEM-Cube, and (because of our long partnership with Human Insight) the Lab is fortunate to have three of these certified professionals on our team.

You can register for the AEM-Cube here. You'll have a choice of the following - pick the one that makes the most sense:

  • AEM-Cube self-reflection: You'll complete the online assessment based on your own self-understanding; a report will automatically be generated and emailed to you. We recommend you also sign up for an individual debriefing session with one of our certified professionals to help you interpret your results in the context of your work and career trajectory.
  • AEM-Cube 360: You'll complete the online assessment, and will ask as many colleagues as you'd like (at least 3 is recommended) to provide their anonymous observations of your mental approach to challenges. Again, we recommend you sign up for an individual debriefing session.

To really get the most out of the AEM-Cube for your team or organization, you'll want to know not only your own cognitive orientation but that of your teammates as well. After you've each registered to take the assessment individually, you'll be able to order a team profile/debrief. We'll analyze how the individual profiles work together, and how that constellation provides both strengths and challenges, depending on the context of your work together. This will include both a written report and a session to present and discuss the findings.

Still have questions? Send 'em our way.