A clear picture of how your organisation really works.

The ACT-Cube helps organisations understand how teams and business units interact, cooperate and contribute to strategy. It turns organisational culture from an abstract concept into something visible and actionable, helping leaders and teams have better conversations about performance, alignment and change.

What is the ACT-Cube?

The ACT-Cube is a three-dimensional organisational assessment tool that visualises culture and interaction patterns at team, business-unit and organisational level.

Attachment

Attachment shows whether a team or business unit mainly focuses on content (such as products, expertise and processes) or on relationships (such as clients, stakeholders and collaboration).

This dimension highlights how value is created and where energy and attention are directed.

Consistency

Consistency reflects whether teams act in line with what they say. It shows how clear values, priorities and agreements are experienced in day-to-day work.

High consistency supports trust, accountability and cooperation. Low consistency often points to friction, silos or cultural risk.

Time

The Time dimension shows where a group contributes along the Growth-Curve: from optimisation and execution to exploration, innovation and renewal.

Healthy organisations show strategic diversity, with different teams contributing at different points on this curve.

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Why these concepts matter

These three concepts turn the often invisible dynamics of teams and business units into clear signals for your organisation. They show where groups are focused, how reliably they act, and how they contribute to innovation, optimisation and renewal over time. This helps leaders see how well strategy, structure and behaviour are aligned across the organisation. It supports shaping teams and interactions with intent, reducing friction between units and strengthening performance and execution at every level.Unlike individual or engagement assessments, the ACT-Cube focuses on what emerges between people: behaviour, cooperation, trust and strategic contribution.

The Growth-Curve

Every organisation, team and project is constantly evolving along a pattern called the Growth-Curve: an initial period of slow growth characterised by a focus on renewal and innovation, followed by a period of growth acceleration and a focus on operational excellence, and lastly a period of slowing growth and a focus on optimisation. Understanding this Growth-Curve allows you to recognize current and upcoming strategic challenges and priorities for your organisation.

The ACT-Cube with the Growth-Curve

The ACT-Cube visualises how teams and business units contribute to the different phases of the Growth-Curve. This allows you to see whether the organisation has the right strategic diversity and alignment to anticipate these phases and perform effectively across them.

The horizontal axis displays progress in time and the vertical axis represents growth.

How the ACT-Cube works across
teams and organisations

The ACT-Cube can be used as a self-image (how teams see themselves) and as feedback (how teams perceive each other), making differences between intention and impact visible.

Team level

Understanding cooperation, focus and alignment within a team
Understand how a team operates as a collective: where its focus lies, how consistently it acts, and how effectively it works together to deliver results.
Key application
  • Team alignment and development
  • Improving cooperation and communication
  • Supporting team change initiatives
  • Clarifying roles and expectations
Typical insights
  • Team focus on people or content
  • Consistency of behaviour and decision-making
  • Alignment between intent and perception
  • Sources of friction within the team

Business-unit level

Clarifying contribution, interaction and strategic fit
Understand how a business unit contributes to the value chain, how it interacts with other units, and how reliably it delivers on its strategic role.
Key application
  • Business unit diagnostics
  • Improving cross-unit cooperation
  • Strategy-to-execution alignment
  • Identifying operational weak spots
Typical insights
  • Strategic contribution to the growth curve
  • Balance between optimisation and renewal
  • Consistency in delivery and interaction
  • Misalignment between self-image and feedback

Organisational level

Visualising culture, coherence and strategic responsiveness
Understand how the organisation functions as an ecosystem, how aligned its parts are, and how well it is positioned to sustain performance and change.
Key application
  • Organisational culture analysis
  • Large-scale change initiatives
  • Strategic alignment and governance
  • Monitoring cultural health over time
Typical insights
  • Overall cultural coherence
  • Strength of organisational consistency
  • Strategic diversity across units
  • Emerging risks to performance or change

What organisations gain from using the ACT-Cube

The ACT-Cube provides insight at multiple levels, helping organisations align team contributions and their strategic priorities from the ground up.
Common understanding
Gain a shared language for culture and strategy.
Leading indicator
Identify friction and misalignment before they lead to derailments.
Stronger collaboration
Improve cooperation between teams and functions.
Move efficiently
Support strategy execution and change initiatives.
Track improvements
Monitor cultural development over time.
Promote transparency
Support insight without blame and dialogue without defensiveness.

Real-World Applications

ACT-Cube integrates seamlessly into culture, strategy and organisational development initiatives. Whether you’re aligning teams, strengthening cooperation across business units, or navigating strategic change, ACT-Cube provides clear insights into how the organisational ecosystem is functioning and where meaningful improvement is possible.

Team Performance

Use ACT-Cube to shape teams, surface friction between roles and units and identify strengths and gaps in how teams contribute to strategy and delivery. Gain insight into how teams interact, coordinate and follow through, enabling focused dialogue, clearer alignment and targeted interventions that improve collective performance.

Business-unit
Performance

Use ACT-Cube to clarify how business units contribute to the value chain, surface misalignment between units and identify strengths and gaps in strategic execution. Gain insight into how units interact, deliver on their role and are perceived by others, enabling targeted interventions that improve coordination, reliability and performance.

Organisational Performance

Use ACT-Cube to visualise how the organisation functions as an integrated ecosystem and where cultural or strategic weak spots may limit performance. Gain insight into alignment, consistency and strategic diversity across units, enabling leaders to strengthen execution, reduce systemic friction and improve overall organisational health.

Leadership Performance

Use ACT-Cube to support leadership teams in understanding how their direction, decisions and messaging are experienced across the organisation. Gain insight into consistency, alignment and strategic impact, enabling leaders to foster trust, guide change more effectively and strengthen organisational performance.

Get certified to work with the ACT-Cube

Our concise yet thorough certification process ensures that you get a deep understanding of the underlying behavioural constructs, can interpret profiles accurately, and apply the insights responsibly and effectively in development, coaching and team settings. This allows you to use the ACT-Cube completely independently, either in your own organisation or as an advisor for your clients.

Human Insight Academy

A self-paced online programme that guides you through the ACT-Cube framework using video modules, assignments and an exam. This pathway is ideal for individuals or distributed teams who prefer flexible learning with structured guidance.

In-person certification

A one and a half-day interactive training led by an ACT-Cube certification expert. This format includes hands-on exercises, case simulations and direct feedback followed by an exam to build confidence and skill in applying the ACT-Cube in real organisational situations.

Human Insight Platform

Once certified, practitioners gain access to the Human Insight Platform, where they can administer assessments, generate reports and apply the ACT-Cube across individuals, teams and organisations.

What the ACT-Cube process looks like

The ACT-Cube is an online assessment that fits smoothly into development, team and organisational programmes.

Invite participants

Individuals receive a secure online invite to complete the ACT-Cube at a time that suits them.

Complete the assessment

Participants answer a series of questions about their natural tendencies; this can be done on any modern device and should take no more than 10 minutes.

Receive report

Results are presented in clear, actionable reports at individual, team and organisational levels, visualising the cognitive diversity across your context.

Translate into action

Reports can be used in leadership programmes, team sessions and talent discussions to inform decisions, roles, collaboration and development priorities.
Assessing an entire team can be done in a matter of days, from initial contact to explaining the process, filling in the questionnaires and debriefing the results and putting these insights into practice. This can be done by a trainer or advisor, a business leader or even a member of the team.

Comprehensive reporting and insights

The ACT-Cube provides structured insights at team, business-unit and organisational levels. Each ACT-Cube project results in a clear, visual report that provides actionable insight.

Team level

  • Team-level ACT-Cube profile with clear interpretation.
  • Visual representation of attachment, time and consistency dynamics.
  • Insights into cooperation, alignment and team contribution.
  • Both self-image and inter-team feedback reporting available.

Business-unit level

  • Business unit ACT-Cube profiles across the value chain.
  • Visual comparison of self-images and feedback images between units.
  • Insights into strategic contribution, interaction and execution gaps.
  • Clear identification of misalignment, friction and weak links.

Organisation level

  • Integrated organisational ACT-Cube overview and ecosystem view.
  • Visual mapping of strategic diversity and cultural coherence.
  • Insights into consistency, alignment and systemic performance risks.
  • Benchmarking over time to track change and intervention impact.

Trusted by organisations and institutions worldwide

ACT-Cube is grounded in over 30 years of behavioural science and used across industries.

Research Foundation

  • Evidence-based behavioural frameworks linking insight to business performance
  • Referenced in academic and management literature
  • Proven impact on alignment, adaptability and sustainable growth

30+

Years of validated assessments

20+

Years of research

80,000+

Supported individuals

1,200

Organisational applications worldwide

What people say

I use the AEM-Cube as the foundation for consulting. These insights are extremely well suited for understanding diversity of perspective, which is an absolute requirement for doing business. We wholeheartedly recommend Human Insight as a partner and provider of assessments. Five stars.
Will Samson
transformation coach
CHECK
The insights from the AEM-Cube and the support from Human Insight have added enormous value to my teaching. I have used the instrument with thousands of students to help them understand their unique contributions. The AEM-Cube is of far greater value than any other assessment I have used over the past 30 years.
Scott Hutcheson
professor
Purdue University
25% of our senior management would be leaving due to retirement. Human Insight helped us redefine our recruitment and development program. They created an approach for developing young talent for leadership roles and onboarding new talent. This resulted in a 27% saving on recruitment and retention costs.
Ted Hoelter
VP of Engineering
FLIR

Contact Information

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  • info@human-insight.com
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    The Netherlands

Are you ready to put our insights into practice?

Reach out to learn more about the ACT-Cube, how it works, what it can do for you or just to share ideas.