What is your organizational Kolbe?

At a recent Kolbe team synergy workshop a client asked: “as an organization, what is our Kolbe Assessment overall?” I explained that so far we were working with a small sample of one senior team and so it would be difficult if not impossible to predict. However, I asked them if knowing what they know about their people, and what they know about their own Kolbe results, could they come up with a general range for each mode?

It was a great point of discussion not so much about numbers as it was about readiness and observed work styles. As a financial organization we all agreed that there would likely be a moderate to high amount of Fact Finder and Follow-Thru. Most of the discussion centered on Quick Start. While the team I was working with had a financial services impressive 65% initiating Quick Start , it was felt that the organization likely was a mix of preventive and lower modifying Quick Starts with a range of 2-4. The team leader told me prior to the meeting that the team had a very important change mandate that needed to be communicated and operationalized quickly. It will be interesting to see what challenges we discover as we progress.

Can an organizational Kolbe be modified? Without a large scale change in people, no. However we can help individuals understand how and why they take action and how and why they may need to take action out of their instincts to achieve their goals. By understanding our instincts we can more deeply appreciate not only our own modis operandi  but those of our co-workers and team members.

If you are working as a sole practitioner it is a great opportunity to build the perfect team. By utilizing a virtual and on-call team we can start to concentrate on what we see as the thing we are really good at. By having a team of opposite initiating instincts we see possibilities opening up that till now remained hidden. Organizations looking to modify their organizational Kolbe can also look to on-call resources to compensate for ‘missing modes.’ As a 9 Quick Start just by being in the room with a team makes a difference to the energy and action.

The first part of taking an organization’s Kolbe Index range is employing the assessments in a systematic manner to understand first, the leadership team and then the organization itself. The knowledge this exercise brings is in itself valuable. The application of the knowledge…..priceless.