When we are not performing to the standards that we – or our bosses – expect, it’s easy to start thinking there is something wrong with us. We tend to assume we are not as capable as our colleagues who are reaching those goals.

This can severely mine our confidence.

Rarely do we stop and consider that maybe the process we are being asked to follow doesn’t fit our natural abilities. When we force ourselves to work against our innate strengths, our performance struggles and we don’t reach our full potential.

Watch the video or read on to learn how a Kolbe Assessment (scores below) helped David, a well-respected technical investigator and testifying electronics expert, come to this awareness and turn his sales results around.

FAILING TO HIT PERFORMANCE GOALS

David came to me for leadership coaching because he was falling short of his employer’s business development goals and couldn’t understand why.

There were specific business generation activities his supervisor expected him to do and he was struggling to get through them or doing them without having much success. It’s not difficult to imagine that he was taking the failure as a sign of personal shortcomings.

The first thing I did was having him and his boss take the Kolbe A™ Index, which showed us their natural way of approaching tasks and problems.

David was skeptical at first because in the past, he had taken other skills profiles that had failed to deliver an accurate representation of his thought processes and personality.

Once he got his Kolbe scores, however, he was impressed by how spot on they were.

More importantly, the scores made the real performance issue immediately evident.

      DAVID’S KOLBE A™ INDEX:                                  DAVID’S BOSS KOLBE A™ INDEX:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

KOLBE REVEALS THE SALES PERFORMANCE PROBLEM

David was following his boss’ process, which worked very well for her but not for him because their natural way of operating is different. The biggest discrepancy is in their Kolbe Follow-Thru and Quick Start scores.

They both are what Kolbe calls iniating fact finders: they need specifics and a strategy when starting new projects.  That is where their similarities ended. David is high in Follow-Thru, which means he is systematic and process-oriented. His boss is higher in Quick Start, which makes her much more of a risk-taker. She is instictively drawn to jump into action and improvise while David needs a well thought-out plan in order to perform well.

The assessment showed that there was nothing wrong with David, who is smart and a very competent professional. Neither approach is better than the other and both can deliver results as long as each person follows their unique approach.

David  needed to pursue business development working from his strengths. He let go of trying to replicate his boss’ process and began to leverage his innate talents and industry expertise by writing more and doing speaking engagements.

The turnaround was impressive: he started generating new business quickly and in a way that felt effortless and energizing for him. In fact, he got so much work that the leadership coaching focus had to shift to how to manage it all!

This was extremely validating for David and gave him renewed confidence in his abilities to meet and surpass his performance goals.

TAKEAWAYS

You need to be YOU. A Kolbe Assessment accompanied with coaching can help you figure out where you are working against yourself and how to bring more of your talent to your work.

Are you struggling to hit certain performance goals to the point that you are questioning your abilities?

Are there aspects of your work that deplete your energy and seem to take the wind off your sails?

Reach out to me to find out why!

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Kolbe A™ Index and Action Modes® are the trademarks of Kathy Kolbe and Kolbe Corp. All rights reserved. The description in this blog is my interpretation of the Kolbe System™. Here is an overview to gain an understanding of Kolbe’s approach and wisdom.