The Kolbe Wisdom™ is the only theory focused on how people instinctively take action when free to be themselves. RNRF LLC Founder Regina O’Brien has been a Kolbe Certified Consultant since 2011 and one of the few available in the Greater Boston area. Through her long-time practice, she has the skills to identify people’s natural talents and help them to utilize those talents to minimize stress while getting more done. Regina is also equipped with the knowledge to help organizations and teams communicate and collaborate more effectively, reduce turnover, and increase engagement through strengths-based actions.
Photo by Vlad Hilitanu on Unsplash
The Kolbe Wisdom™
There are three parts of the human mind. Two of them (your Cognitive and Affective mind) are well known and discussed. The third is the hidden key to improving human performance. This is what Kathy Kolbe calls your “Conative” mind and is where your instincts live.
| The Cognitive Mind | The Affective Mind | The Conative Mind |
| This part of your mind defines your “intelligence.” It grows as you learn and is ever changing. IQ tests are the most common form of testing; however, anyone that has taken a test more than once knows that the results only showcase a portion of a person’s true ability to learn, retain and recall information. | A person’s affective strengths lie in their ability to use emotion effectively. Assessments such as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator measure a person’s reaction to circumstances and assigns a “personality type” that defines the emotional tools that you use to cope, grow and communicate in your daily life. Like the cognitive mind, your affective traits evolve and fluctuate given your experiences and circumstances. | Simply put, conation drives action. Actions drive performance. To understand how you and others achieve peak performance, you need to understand the conative part of the mind. While philosophers through the centuries discussed the existence of conation, Kathy Kolbe was the first to identify its key attributes and how to measure them. |
| What You Know | Why You Do The Things You Do | How You Do The Things You Do |
Kolbe’s Four Action Modes®
The Action Modes are the modern breakthrough in understanding and explaining conation. Kathy Kolbe’s key insight was that everyone has a strength in how they operate in each of these Action Modes. Each person’s method of operation, or “M.O.” (a.k.a. Modus Operandi), is their strength in that area.
- FACT FINDER: The instinctive need to probe and the way we gather and share information (i.e., research). Behavior ranges from gathering detailed information and documenting strategies to simplifying and clarifying options. This Action Mode deals with detail and complexity, providing the perspective of the past.
- FOLLOW THRU: The instinctive need to pattern and the way we organize and design. Behavior ranges from being systematic and structured to being adaptable and flexible. This Action Mode deals with structure and order and provides focus and continuity.
- QUICK START: The instinctive need to experiment and improvise and the way we deal with risk and uncertainty. Behavior ranges from driving change and innovation to stabilizing and preventing chaos. This Action Mode deals with originality and risk-taking and provides intuition and a sense of vision.
- IMPLEMENTOR: The instinctive need to demonstrate and the way we handle space and tangibles, and how to tinker with the physical world around us. Behavior ranges from making things more concrete by building solutions to being more abstract by imagining a solution. This Action Mode deals with physical space and provides durability and a sense of the tangible.
Using The Kolbe Wisdom in Your Organization
The information shared via the Kolbe Wisdom is immediately actionable – once you have insight into your own result, and the result of your team, not only do you have a shared language to use when communicating with each other, you also have deeper insight into how to get things done together in a more effective way.
The Kolbe A™ Index: As a first step, each team member completes the Kolbe A Index. The Index is online and requires 15-20 minutes or less to complete, with a one-hour debrief with each individual and a Kolbe Certified Consultant.
The Kolbe Team Seminar: Three-hour workshop (best delivered in-person, but online can be accommodated)
- Dive into the Kolbe Concept®; understand yourself and each other better by inventorying the instinctive talents on the team
- Discuss how to best leverage these talents so team members consistently and effectively work together through interactive play
- Learn strategies to manage or avoid team breakdowns, and how to use provided tools to improve communication
Customized reporting and presentation materials and outputs from the workshop will be provided and can be retained for internal reference only.
How The Kolbe Wisdom Lives On
The Kolbe Wisdom isn’t just a quiz result or a fun team experience – it’s something that stays with a team long after. Yes, some teams like to remind each other of their results with tabletop displays or putting their result in their Slack names or email signatures. The real way that the Kolbe continues to persist in helping teams be their very best is through actions – once a team understands their Kolbe results, they will naturally organize their work to benefit each other. And if they aren’t able to do that organically due to systems or processes, they now have a shared language that isn’t based around personality or emotions to communicate how they can work together more effectively.
*The Kolbe System™ and each of the other marks identified with a ™ or ® symbol are trademarks owned by Kathy Kolbe or Kolbe Corp, and are used here with permission as a Kolbe Certified™ Consultant.