I recently had the opportunity to spend time with the answerQUEST team and was quite impressed with their organization.  answerQUEST is a successful executive search company that is “taking their own medicine” to improve productivity, enhance working relationships and leverage collaboration within their teams.

AQ offers their clients the opportunity to use the Kolbe assessment in their search assignments in a package called The Talent Solution.  You can read about the benefits of The Talent Solution at answerQUEST.

It is impressive to see how they are using the tools to support their staff to be their best.  Everyone in the firm knows their Kolbe score, as well as their teammates’ scores.  They meet with each other and talk about how their natural patterns influence how they work together.  Talks include how they can help each other and even where they annoy each other.  Some people have changed how often they meet and participate in meetings to ensure they have a good mixture of mental energy for better collaboration in the conversation; ensuring they don’t get stuck in the details, as one sub-team is inclined to do.

They use the Kolbe tool to hire their own talent, rearrange responsibilities and sub-teams based on their Kolbe scores, or their natural ways of working.   The results over the last eighteen months have been incredible.  The staff is more energized; they are exceeding projections and the team is having more fun working together.

As a Kolbe consultant and teacher for many years, it is really great to see an organization putting the Kolbe Concept to work for them, internally and externally.  They are drinking the Kool-Aid and it tastes great!