Building High-Performing Teams
Building High-Performing Teams with All 12 Kolbe Strengths
Most organizations believe their challenges are rooted in strategy, talent or execution. But what if the real issue isn’t who is on your team…it’s how they naturally take action?
Before we discovered Kolbe, that was our reality at The Entrepreneur’s Source. We had a leadership team filled with smart, driven, committed individuals. On paper, everything was right. Yet behind the scenes, we were stuck. Progress felt harder than it should. Decisions were slower. Frustration was building. We asked ourselves all the typical questions:
- Were these just growing pains?
- Was this the reality of working in an entrepreneurial organization?
- Was this simply what happens when you have a strong-willed visionary founder?
Then we discovered something that changed everything.
The Missing Piece: Conation
Most people are familiar with two parts of the mind: Cognitive – how you think (your IQ, your knowledge, your education and your resume) and Affective – how you feel (your motivation, your values, your behavioral style, your emotions), but Kolbe introduces a third, the mostly overlooked dimension: Conative – how you naturally take action.
This isn’t about personality. It’s not about intelligence. It’s about instinct, how you solve problems when you are free to be yourself. Your MO, modus operandi, meaning your method of operating or your way of working.
Kolbe measures this through four Action Modes:
- Fact Finder – how you gather and share information
- Follow Thru – how you organize
- Quick Start – how you handle risk and uncertainty
- Implementor – how you deal with tangible solutions
Within each of the four Action Modes, the Counteract, React, and Initiate zones reveal 12 different but equally valuable superpowers / strengths, showing how people naturally approach challenges, contribute to teams, and get results.
It has been proven that every high-performing team needs all four modes and all zones, on our leadership team, all of us initiated in Quick Start. Meaning we all had a similar way of how we handle risk and uncertainty, but we were lacking people who naturally minimize chaos and protect what’s already working. Needless to say, and in hindsight it should not be surprising, that things felt quite tumultuous.
So, what’s the big deal?
When Smart Teams Stall: The Danger of “Conative Cloning”
When we first assessed our leadership team, the results were eye-opening.
We were heavily over-indexed in Quick Start. That means we had natural innovators, idea generators, and risk-takers. On the surface, that sounds like a strength. In reality, it created imbalance. We had plenty of ideas, constant change, energy and urgency but we lacked structure, consistency, follow-through and practical execution. Without realizing it, we had built a leadership team that solved problems exactly like our founder, what Kolbe calls conative cloning. The result? Friction, stagnation and as our friends at Strategic Coach would call it we hit a “Ceiling of Complexity.” Thank you Strategic Coach for introducing us to KOLBE.
The Shift: Designing for Balance
Once we understood this, we became intentional. We didn’t just hire for experience or cultural fit; we hired for conative diversity. We built an entire team that covered all four Action Modes and something remarkable happened. Decisions became clearer; ownership became more defined; execution became faster and tension turned into productive debate.
The last six years have been the most successful in our company’s 40+ year history: Not because we worked harder, because we worked more naturally.
A Real-World Example: When It Clicks
A few years ago, we had to rebuild our Training Department, quickly. There was no luxury of pausing operations, we had to “build the plane while flying it.” Brigitte was already a key part of the team; Dana joined this team as part of this transition. My role was to provide direction and accountability. At first, it was survival mode: Rapid onboarding, constant problem-solving, heavy workloads, but then faster than I could have imagined, something unexpected happened. Things simply flowed. Our team’s confidence grew daily. Projects moved at unprecedented speeds and this team had energy and fun. No burnout. How could this be? It is because of how we are wired.
The Kolbe Chemistry Behind the Results
Our Kolbe results tell the story (thank you Brigitte for discovering this):
Brigitte: 6-7-3-5 – a natural system builder who explains, organizes, and stabilizes
Dana: 7-3-8-2 – an innovator who generates ideas, adapts quickly, and thrives in uncertainty
Tamara: 3-5-8-4 – a visionary Quick Start who drives change and pushes forward momentum
Together, we covered 10 of the 12 possible Kolbe strengths. Not bad for a team of three. Also, it shows that you don’t need an army, successful teams can be small but mighty. The synergy and results weren’t accidental. What felt like a miracle to us was actually scientifically backed by Kathy Kolbe’s life work of over 50 years which was to more fully understand what drives human performance. Experiencing it firsthand for a second time in our organization was not only powerful, it has been lifechanging.
What that looked like in action:
- Tamara (Quick Start 8): Initiates ideas, creates urgency, pushes forward
- Dana (Quick Start 8 + Fact Finder 7): Expands possibilities, challenges assumptions, drives innovation
- Brigitte (Follow Thru 7): Builds systems, creates structure, ensures execution
Dana brings the ideas. I accelerate them. Brigitte makes them real and sustainable. No redundancy. No friction. No guessing. Just flow.
Why This Matters for Every Team
Most organizations struggle not because of a lack of talent, but because of a lack of balance in how work gets done. When teams are imbalanced, decisions stall or swing wildly, execution breaks down, accountability gets blurry and frustration rises. What a shame to see good talent and hard work go to waste. When teams are balanced, decisions improve, blind spots shrink, debate becomes healthy, ownership becomes clear, and most importantly… people are happy because they get to operate in their natural strengths. “Success is having the freedom to be yourself” Kathy Kolbe
Having a Team with a Natural Edge – The Key Takeaway
If your organization feels stuck, ask a different question: Not “Do we have the right people?” but “Do we have the right conative mix?” Because high-performing teams don’t just think differently, they take action differently… together and when all twelve strengths with in the four Kolbe Action Modes are present and respected… that’s when things finally start to click. That is what it means to have a Natural Edge Team.
Thank you to our friends at Strategic Coach for introducing us to KOLBE