Some people were born to ask questions.
And that can be a double-edged sword.
Sometimes it makes others feel like they’re being challenged too much.
But that’s generally not what’s actually happening.
Because when you instinctively need to find facts, questions are a natural gift that keeps on giving.
Does this apply to you? Or are you someone who gets straight to the point? Take the Kolbe A™ Index and discover how you naturally operate.
The first thing you should know is that there are three parts of the mind, and you’re often only considering two of them. The three parts of the mind are cognitive (thinking), affective (feeling), and conative (doing). The conative part of the mind focused on natural, instinctive ways of taking action and creative problem-solving.
The Kolbe A measures your conative strengths across 4 Action Modes®:
That first Mode, Fact Finder, dictates how you gather and share information when free to be yourself, and some people start the problem-solving process by researching and asking questions so they can have all the facts before they go forward.
Katie has a 7-6-5-3 Kolbe A Index result, which she learned about more in-depth from David Kolbe on the Powered by Instinct: Private Sessions podcast.
On the podcast, David explained how her 7 in Fact Finder manifests.
“You’re what we would call an Answer Authority,” he told her. “You are somebody who needs to be able to ask questions, to be able to get to the bottom of things, do research, become an expert. Does that sound like you to you?”
“Yes, that does sound like me,” she answered. “It’s so interesting to me how you just met me and you already are saying things that are so true.”
“It’s saying that you start the problem-solving process by getting information, and gathering and sharing information. So when somebody asks you a question, and you already know the answer, fine, you’ll just give them the answer. But if you don’t know the answer, it would be very natural for you to say, ‘You know what? Let me look into that and I’ll get back to you.’ What would put you under some stress is if they ask you a question and you don’t know the answer yet, and you say, ‘Oh, well, let me look at it and get back to you’ and they say, ‘No. No, no, no. You need to tell me right now.’ That’s stressful for you because you need to know the answer; you don’t just guess.”
In addition to her strength in Fact Finder, Katie is a 6 in Follow Thru and a 5 in Quick Start, which means she accommodates in both Modes.
“With your Follow Thru,” he offered, “you don’t push and create chaos typically. You more control it. You are toward the end of the spectrum that creates systems and structure rather than just kind of free-forming everything. So I think that helps you accommodate some of the unstructured times that can happen in a newsroom. Then let’s also talk about this Quick Start part of you. So, Quick Start is how we deal with risk, unknowns, experimentation, and you’re a five, which is right in the middle. You accommodate both extremes. Would you say you work in a chaotic environment?”
“Breaking news, weather, you name it,” she laughed. “Chaos happens all the time.”
“You’re not creating that chaos, but you do naturally accommodate that. So I would think you would be a helpful presence for other people in the office because they sense that, hey, Katie’s not the one who’s creating this stressful, chaotic situation. She’s dealing with it, though, pretty naturally.”
