Why your team should take the Kolbe A Index

What is Kolbe?

You’ve probably heard of a plethora of personality assessments. You might have even taken one or more of them at some point in your career. We have! Rebecca and Shawn both used DiSC at a former employer. Sarah’s college job required StrengthsFinder. AJ recently tested out Working Genius. There’s Myers-Briggs and Enneagram and Predictive Index, the list goes on.

And then there’s the Kolbe A™ Index. (Pause for dramatic effect.)

Kolbe is different – and that’s not just some marketing language. It truly is different because Kolbe isn’t a personality assessment, and it doesn’t measure how smart you are either. It measures the conative part of your brain – how you instinctively take action when you’re striving.

Here’s why that matters: All three parts of your brain – the cognitive, affective and conative – work together. You operate using those three parts collectively, and while you likely have a good understanding of your own personality and cognitive abilities, unless you’ve taken the Kolbe A Index, you likely don’t know how to define your conative strengths. The Kolbe A is the only research-based assessment that measures the conative part of your brain. And the research that formed the Kolbe Theory continues still today…just ask the team at Kolbe Corp. 

What does the Kolbe A Index identify and how can it help me?

Leveraging Kolbe in our work with clients ties directly to the part of our philosophy that says “Everyone’s Unique.” We celebrate the uniqueness of your employees using all three parts of the mind and implement the full scope of Kolbe methodology and tools, summarized as The Kolbe System™. Kolbe tells you how you instinctively take action when problem solving. Knowing and understanding someone’s Kolbe A result is like having a playbook that can jumpstart your relationship and set them up for success in their role. After all, the job can likely be accomplished a few different ways. Giving someone the freedom to do things their way can have a bottom-line impact as it strengthens relationships, boosts productivity and increases confidence. In some cases, understanding the Kolbe A can rule out other perceived performance issues such as not caring or being lazy (affective) or lack of competence or skill (cognitive).

Upon completing the Kolbe A Index, you’ll get a four-number result that corresponds to four different strengths, but while the result itself seems simple, the implications and applications are robust: belonging, communication, onboarding, performance management, talent discovery and optimization. My result, for example, is 7-6-4-3, and my strengths are Specify, Maintain, Modify and Envision. I also get access to tips on how to lean into my results, I can compare my results to someone else’s to stimulate a good conversation about our relationship and I can set up my space to support the way I naturally take action. With these results mutually understood among team members, opportunities for team development and bottom-line growth abound. We have proven success in matching talent to specific roles, increased team effectiveness, improved interpersonal relationships and overall personal growth.

Kolbe as a Talent Engagement Strategy

Kolbe is not a one-and-done team building activity that fizzles out, though many leaders do weave it into team development days or off-site retreats. There are Kolbe solutions that can address a variety of issues and opportunities, including role alignment, burnout, hiring right-fit talent and team synergy. There’s more to the theory too, including Patterns of Problem Solving, Kathy’s Five Rules for Trusting Your Guts and tools such as The Commitment Clarifier. Our team has taken it a step further, using Kolbe as the foundation for some proprietary tools such as The Always Problems Action Guide and The Contribution Guide.

Continuous Learning Beyond the Kolbe A Index

The humanworks8 team has over 25 years of combined experience both learning about conation from theorist and Kolbe Corp. founder Kathy Kolbe and applying Kolbe Wisdom with business teams. We’re certified to administer Kolbe assessments, interpret results and form meaningful actions based on the results. Our team participates in Kathy Kolbe’s small group MasterClasses – We’ve attended 16 since they began in 2020, and that’s in addition to the annual KolbeCon conference and quarterly consultant meet-ups we speak at and attend. We’re committed to continuous learning about Kolbe, and AJ has taken his learning further be becoming a Kolbe Youth Certified™ Consultant, which allows him to work with children and families.

Be One of Kolbe’s 10 Million!

If you’re looking for proven expertise in Kolbe, our team is here to guide you through using Kolbe for your team or organization, but you should know that we’re part of a hundreds-strong Kolbe Certified™ Consultant network. We contribute toward Kolbe Corp.’s goal of reaching 10 million people in 10 years. 

Want to know more? Read more on our Kolbe service page or reach out!