PHOENIX

This .test helps you findthe freedom to be you

By Tom TraceySPECIAL FOR THE ABG

"Find the freedom to be yourself. If you areworking against your grain, you may feel fa-tigued, irritable, helpless, unsatisfied."

So says the test I am about to take online. It'scalled the Kolbe ATM(one of many index tests of-fered by Kolbe Corp), and it is said to measurehow I use my natural ~nstincts to approach andcarry out everyday problems.

The introduction claimed "The Kolbe A mea-sures your instinctive method of operationwhich allows you to be most productive and sat-isfied. You only take it once because it uncoverswho you are and always will be."

Like you, I have taken my share of tests before.I've taken employment exams and IQ tests mea-sure thinking. I've taken relationship quizzes,which measure feeling.

But this test is different.Kolbe Corp of phoenix specializes in measur-

ing the third part of the brain; the conative (do-ing) part. In other words, the unconscious tend-encies of how we act in ways we may not even beaware of,ways that make us such a joy (and frus-tration) to live and work with.

David Kolbe,Kolbe Corp

CEO

Problem-solving ways"Most people in phoenix know Kolbe Corp

for the time and temperature sign in front of ouroffices on 44th Street and Osborn. Yetfew knowthe full story behind our firm," said Jerry Cobb,Kolbe's vice president of marketing and commu-nications.

"The Kolbe Index is used by companies tomeasure the innate skills and talents of currentand prospective employees," Cobb said. "Com-panies like Xerox, Motorola, Eastman Chemical,Intel, Coca-Cola and Oracle use Kolbe to reduceturnover, boost output and build successful pro-ject teams."

According to Cobb, "IQ tests measure whatyou can do. Personality tests measure what youwant to do. By contrast, The Kolbe Index identi-fies what you actually will do, your M.o., or yournatural, instinctive 'way of solving problems."

The Kolbe Index measures a person's level offour natural tendencies: fact finder (how theperson gathers information), follow through(how he or she stores information), quick start(how a person takes on risks and unknowns) andimplementor (how a person handles tasks).

There is no right or wrong answer, but theremay be a right or wrong job for those tendencies.

Using Kolbe at workJohn Brown is senior property manager at Ar-

rowhead Towne Center, a Westcor shoppingcenter. Over the years, Brown has used theKolbe Index for pre-hire assessmerrt, post-hirejob placement and ongoing team building.

"If! find a candidate, I can better hire for theposition when I have the needed strengths,"Brown said. "For instance, I am a strategic plan-ner, high in Fact Finder. For fiveyears I was op-erations manager at Chandler Fashion Center,which was as natural to me as putting my shoeson. But the.best HVAC (heating, ventilation andair-conditioning) technicians are high in imple-mentor. They find the problem and then go fix it,as opposed to me as a strategic planner whowould organize things first. I have low imple-mentor, but there is still a place for me as man-ager.

"The more you work toward natural tend-encies, the better the team," Brown said."The ultimate goal is to collect a balancedgroup. The Kolbe test is one of the best Iever used to build a team."

John Largay is president of WespacConstruction. His company has doneprojects such as the city of the AdamsStreet garage in Phoenix, the Pinnacleat Kierland and the University ofphoenix facility Gilbert.

He has used Kolbe Corp for eightyears.-

"Everyone in the company takes the Kolbe In-dex. I think what it does so well is to help you

See TEST Page 32

Testhelpsyou find real youTEST

Continued from Page 6

identify what you're good at,what your talents are," Largaysaid.

Largay uses an employee'sKolbe Index to help guide hisor her placement into theright teams and projects fortheir particular instincts.

"You want to have the rightpeople on the bus. Once youget the right people on thebus, you want them to sit onthe right seat on the bus," Lar-gay said.

According to company tes-timonials, Kolbe Corp hashelped unearth and developthe hidden potential of suchaccomplished celebrities asformer Suns All-Star Dan Ma-jerle and entrepreneur andRich Dad, Poor Dad authorRobert Kiyosaki.

"It has put me back into anenvironment where I'm Mi-chael Jordan playing basket-ball instead of Michael Jor-dan playing baseball," saidPaul Kreider, organizationaldevelopment manager ofHershey Foods Corp.

Going globalTo appreciate Kolbe Corp,

you have to understand thelife of founder Kathy Kolbe.She was a bright child at atime when students with herkind oflearning style could belabeled learning disabled. Asan adult, she had to learn tospeak again after being in a se-rious traffic accident.

Battling back from adver-sity, she took her knowledgeof learning styles and pack-aged it for others' benefit.

Her son, David, is CEO ofthe company she founded. Heformerly was a legislative di-rector in Washington, D.C.,and an associate with the lawfirm of Gammage &Burnham.

It was David who codeve-loped the original algorithm

for computing.the Kolbe A In-dex

"I was studying calculus atthe time and understoodwhat my mother, Kathy, wastrying to do with the testingscores. I was able to do themath and turn the data intomeaningful results.

"I'm a big believer in find-ing strategic alliances, as op-posed to having to leatn howto do everything yourself, tofind out what works well forboth of us and then joining to-gether as a team," he said.

David said his company is

"The Kolbe Index isused by companies to

measure the innate skills

and talents of currentand prospective

employees.".Jerry Cobb

KolbeCorpvice president ofmarketingand communications

expanding worldwide.That global reach may ac-

count for Kolbe Corp havingbeen profiled in the WallStreet Journal and USA To-day and on ABC NightlyNews and CNN.

And the future?"A few years from now,

who knows? We have applica-'tions to }1elp personal rela-tionships. There might be op-portunities there that couldbe interesting," Kolbe said.

An article in the January2006 0, The Oprah Magazinegave the account of a motherwlth a ph.D. struggling withher bright but underachiev-ing teenage daughter. Theywere both worn out fromfights over homework assign-ments. After consulting withKathy Kolbe, the mother dis-covered that her natural in-stinct was to jump in and acton a project. By contrast, herdaughter's natural instinct

~as to analyze a project be-fore acting. Once both be-came aware of their contrast-ing ways, they realized thesame ends could be achievedusing different tendencies

The test

Meanwhile, back to mytest. Kolbe Corp graciouslyextended an opportunity forme to take the Kolbe A Indextest, which is available onlineat www.kolbe.com for $49.95.

About 20 minutes andquestions later, I had my re-sults. The results confirmedwhy I was so hard to corral inmy cubicle yet still managedto remain surprisingly procductive. It also listed occupa-\tions of others who had theidentical four-part score,none of whom, interestinglyenough, is a cubicle-dweller.

The Kolbe Corp Web sitefocuses on three areas mostaffected when people workfrom their natural instincts:"You, Business and Kids."Each has special self-tests de-signed to evaluate how yournatural tendencies may be af-fectingthese areas of your life.

For example, the Kolbe RIndex ($28) "measures yourexpectations of another per-son in a relationship." Or, to"find out what's RIGHTabout your child" and "dis-cover the underlying patternyou see. to a child's actions,"the Kolbe IF for Kids Index($24) is available.

So if your job is goingagainst your grain, the KolbeB Index may be in order. For$39.95, it "measures the de-mands of your current job" to"gain insights into how youcan leverage your talents."

Excuse me as I slip awayfrom my cubicle. I've got toget another cup of coffee.

Tom Tracey has written forUSA Today online and theKim Komando radio show.