By David Kolbe, CEO, Kolbe Corp
The marketing team wasn’t working, and Sarah was the star hire everyone expected to transform it. Stanford MBA, five years at top agencies, glowing references. The team and the company were data- and process-driven. The Chief Marketing Officer looked forward to Sarah’s new energy and insight to drive fresh analysis.
Sarah had access to all the market data and a budget for gathering whatever else she needed. There were well-established systems to keep the team on track. But nothing changed. Sarah’s proven knack for intuitive insight and bold yet calculated risk-taking was nowhere to be seen.
The CMO wondered what was wrong with Sarah. The truth was, nothing was wrong with her. The problem was that she wasn’t given the chance to use her strengths in simplifying complex problems and experimenting with novel solutions.
This is what happens when you keep hiring smart, capable people but don’t let them use their strengths. Spending months trying to fix them with coaching, training, and performance improvement plans isn’t going to be the solution.
You’re trying to solve the wrong problem.
For decades, organizations have measured two things about employees:
Skills – how smart they are and what training and experience they have
Temperament – how they interact with others and if they’re a culture fit
Both matter. But there’s a third part of the mind that actually drives performance:
Instinctive Strengths – how they naturally take action when solving problems; specifically, how people execute on the tasks of their job (what’s also known as conation)
The Key Factor People Don’t Know
Here’s what’s been missing from most productivity initiatives: they’ve been built on an incomplete understanding of how people actually work.
While Myers-Briggs® tells you whether someone is an introvert or extrovert and CliftonStrength® identifies what energizes them at work, the Kolbe A™ Index tells you how they will take action when free to do things their way.
Some people instinctively need to research thoroughly before acting. Others need to dive in and learn by doing. Neither is right nor wrong, but when you force someone to work against these instincts, productivity collapses.
Sarah wasn’t failing because she lacked intelligence or drive. She was pulled down when she was forced to operate in a way that thwarted her strengths.
The Missing Foundation
I worked with a sales team that was missing every quarterly target despite having experienced reps and solid leads. The Sales Director was convinced his team lacked discipline and follow-through.
The Director was naturally wired to create detailed processes and systematic tracking procedures. His team was full of people who thrived on taking risks and adapting quickly to opportunities—exactly what you need to close deals under pressure.
The Director expected everyone to work like he did, saddling the risk-takers with detailed procedures and constant reporting. They initially followed his systems, which sapped their energy and quickly became counterproductive. Eventually, they gave up and started ignoring the processes entirely, focusing on what actually moved deals forward. He saw this as insubordination. They saw his processes as obstacles to results. The relationship deteriorated while systems broke down.
When Good Teams Produce Poor Results
We made three strategic changes:
– Moved their best innovators into outbound roles where they could prospect and open new accounts, with systematic coordinators ensuring company processes and CRM requirements were handled
– Put process-oriented people in account management roles where they could provide consistent service and systematic follow-up for existing clients
– Created clear handoffs between hunting and farming so each person worked in their natural sweet spot while still being accountable for defined results
The results? The Director stopped feeling like he was fighting the team. People finally understood their different approaches to getting results. Rep satisfaction scores improved significantly. Most importantly, the team exceeded the next quarter’s targets.
The Solution That Actually Worked
You’ve been addressing surface-level behaviors instead of understanding the fundamental ways people operate. It’s like treating a fever without diagnosing the infection.
Once you understand how someone instinctively approaches problems, you have new, durable solutions to problems that seemed unsolvable:
– Leadership development actually sticks when it aligns with natural strengths
– Change management initiatives become easier and smoother when they adapt to how people naturally handle change
– Team collaboration improves when people understand each other’s approaches
Why Your Current Solutions Keep Failing
Leadership Development That Actually Develops
Before investing in more leadership training, understand how your emerging leaders naturally approach problems. Some instinctively drive innovation and change. Others naturally stabilize and improve existing systems. Both are valuable, but they need different development paths.
Making Distributed Work Actually Work
Remote collaboration fails when you force everyone to work the same way. Some people need detailed planning and structure to be effective remotely. Others thrive with flexibility and autonomy. Design systems that accommodate both styles instead of fighting against them.
Hiring for Performance, Not Interviews
Start hiring people whose instinctive problem-solving approach fits what the job actually requires. Which marketing role needs breakthrough innovation? Don’t hire the thorough researcher who wants to analyze every data point just because they have impressive credentials.
What This Means for Your Biggest HR Challenges
Start with your most persistent productivity problems—the teams that seem stuck, the high-performers who suddenly plateau, the conflicts that keep recurring despite intervention.
Instead of asking “What training do they need?” ask “Are we tapping into people’s strengths?”
Look at Sarah’s story. Once her manager understood she was built to simplify and innovate, they restructured her role. She became the catalyst that drove the team to break away from analysis paralysis and risk aversion. Unshackled, she fulfilled her promise and became the team’s greatest asset.
This doesn’t mean letting people do whatever they want. Leaders still define deliverables and hold people accountable for outcomes. The freedom is in how people achieve those defined results, not whether they achieve them.
A Simple Place to Start
You’ve been trying to change people instead of understanding them. You’ve been building productivity solutions on an incomplete foundation.
As you navigate leadership challenges, distributed teams, and pressure to deliver more with less, here’s what remains constant: people still need to solve problems and make decisions. The question is whether you’re working with their instinctive problem-solving abilities or against them.
When you align roles with how people are naturally wired to act, those persistent productivity problems finally start solving themselves.
The Bottom Line
David Kolbe, CEO of Kolbe Corp, has lived and breathed the Kolbe Concept® his whole life. He is an author, speaker, and visionary behind many of Kolbe’s products and innovations. He is known for his ability to help business leaders unleash innovation through their people. David has assisted thousands of professionals through seminars and speaking engagements on topics such as hiring, organizational design and team building. His expertise in legal, financial, intellectual property and management issues gives him an edge when turning innovation into profit. David’s lasting mark on Kolbe Corp began with helping to develop the original algorithm for the company’s flagship Kolbe ATM Index. Along with Kolbe Corp President Amy Bruske, David penned Do More, More Naturally, the go-to guide for effortless success.
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