What's Your Dominant Operating Style?

It’s most productive to do things we do well and like to do. Thus, productivity in your workplace can improve when you make an effort to determine your employee’s innate dominant operating style, called conant behavior. Then, you are able to assign them to those types of tasks where they will thrive.

Systems are not the enemy of creativity. Author and consultant Kathy Kolbe developed a test that can help place people in the right roles, doing what they love to do and can do best. The Kolbe Index ranks users on 4 personality attributes that describe how they operate effectively.

Fact Finder describes the extent to which someone likes gathering data before making decisions.

Follow Through measures how much someone likes systems, structure and routine.

Quick Start quantifies ones inclination to start things.

Implementer measures one’s knack for building stuff.

Kolbe’s test shows that we all have a little bit of each attribute, yet we also have a dominant operating style. Most entrepreneurs score high on the “quick start” and low on “follow through”. It’s a classic combination. Most of us love starting things, but quickly tire of the details.

Most of your employees will score higher than you on follow-through, which means they need more structure to thrive. They may also score higher than you on fact finder, suggesting they need more data than you would before making a decision.

Selecting the right people for the right tasks and giving your team standard operating procedures gives your employees the mental breathing room to be creative and the structure they need to thrive.