What’s Your Natural Working Style?

Fact of life: people work differently.

Do you thrive when given a detailed list of instructions, or do you shudder and ignore it in favor of doing your own thing? Would you rather read books and articles, have someone explain it to you face-to-face, or get dirty with your hands?

No matter how we look at it, it’s obvious that people have preferred ways of working that come naturally to them–that’s probably how they’ve been ever since they were kids.

The Kolbe System

Kathy Kolbe proposes an intriguing system for distinguishing people’s working styles, and it’s already been used by several organizations to manage their teams better. Her system stems from the theory–proposed by ancient philosophers all the way to modern scientists–that the mind has three faculties: thinking, feeling, and acting.

Kolbe’s system focuses on how we act instinctively. Because it doesn’t consider thinking and feeling as much, it’s neither a personality nor an aptitude test.

According to Kolbe’s findings (from more than 500,000 case studies), we have four action modes: quick start, follow through, implementor, and fact finder. We exhibit all of these modes at various situations, although not equally.

By finding out which action mode you rely on the most, you can be more productive by adapting tasks to follow your natural style and choosing compatible projects–playing to your strengths, in other words.

The Four Action Modes

Quick Start

What you love: Coming up with new ideas, taking risks

General approach: Let’s wing this and figure it out along the way

You’re an experimenter by nature–you’re guilty of jumping into things without thinking and surprising people with sudden, unexpected decisions. The best environment for you would be creative and chaotic.

How you learn is through trial and error: you need to be able to pursue several projects at once, but also have the license to fail and move on quickly to the next. You’re likely to have an entrepreneurial streak, bringing a big vision and an unconventional approach to any venture.

Follow Through

What you love: Structure and organization

General approach: Let’s do this step by step

Your gift is formulating systems. If you get thrown into an environment where everyone is running around and papers are flying everywhere, you’ll definitely get stressed–but you’ll take action and set about bringing order, whether by straightening up the place, making a team checklist, or laying down the steps to your goal on the whiteboard.

Because of your need for closure, you prioritize finishing whatever you start, and you prefer working on one thing at a time.

Implementor

What you love: Hands-on activities

General approach: Instead of talking about it, why don’t we build it?

Implementors are probably the least understood out of the four. You’re likely to have found school stifling because of your strong preference for handling physical objects and engaging your senses rather than listening to lectures.

You need to move around and find it hard to stay in one place for too long. When explaining an idea, you’d rather build a three-dimensional model rather than draft a verbal report. You may also have a talent for fixing things and are driven towards craftsmanship.

Fact Finder

What you love: Information

General approach: Let’s learn as much as possible about this

Fact finders need details. They won’t start a task until they’ve thoroughly researched it and have extensive knowledge about what they’re supposed to do. They’re notoriously shrewd buyers who’re skeptical and hard to fool.

If they’re cooking something new, they’ll go over several recipes, watch videos, and have the procedure memorized even before the grocery-shopping! They’re excellent at gathering information from all angles, fact-checking, and investigating in depth.

Working together

You’ll notice that each action type has a blind spot. One way to succeed in a project is to pair with someone who has a different type from you o you can balance each other out.

Counterintuitive as it may be, imagine if you pair a quick start and a follow through–the follow through will ensure that the quick start commits to the project, while the quick start can push the team to take the necessary risks.

The official test is found here, but you can also read through these descriptions and discern for yourself what your preferred mode of action is.

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