Life with Kolbe

In this article, I hope to explain what the Kolbe Index is, how the Kolbe Index has become an integral part of our firm's operations, and true-to-life examples of how the Kolbe has helped to make us a better team. Lastly in the interest of full disclosure, I will also explain what the Kolbe Index cannot be expected to do for your team.

What is Kolbe?

The Kolbe Index was developed over thirty years ago by Kathy Kolbe. It is a unique measure of instinct. After taking a thirty minute on-line test, you are provided with a numerical index from 1 to 10 for each of four categories: Fact Finder, Follow Through, Quick Start, and Implementer. The higher the number, the more likely you are to instinctively strive to initiate in that category. While the meanings of the first three categories are self-evident, the fourth category does not mean how well you will implement a project. It is an indicator of how prone you are to use your manual skills in a project.

I'm a 3 4 7 5

My Kolbe Index, is 3 4 7 5. This index is described as an Innovator. According to Sandra and other certified Kolbe experts, that is not the expected index for a CPA. The more common index is 7644 or Strategic Planner. The description for my Kolbe Innovator says, "Your conative creative is intuitive, visionary, and highly original. You have a knack for finding alternatives and discovering unique ways to get things done." The description for a Kolbe Strategic Planner says, "You have a creativity in establishing priorities, for carrying out plans that are precise and efficient."

Why I am the way I am

Learning of my own natural way of approaching issues was actually quite a liberating experience for me. Knowing that we had others at our firm who possessed the more expected Kolbe Index for a CPA of a Strategic Planner was also reassuring to me as it has allowed me to have the freedom to acknowledge the fact that I have always been seeking new and different ways to approach how we do things at our firm. It told me why I have an almost instant desire to buy new software programs and even to plow ahead and install these programs myself, which has sometimes met with resistance from others who want to slow down and to know more specifics about the programs. It also told me why years ago, I had instinctively thought I could successfully apply to the IRS to change a unique cash basis taxpayer to the accrual basis of accounting. In retrospect, had I done more in-depth research on the matter, I would have saved both my client and myself a lot of excruciating agony with the IRS. I know now that I should seek out others who have a longer Fact Finder Index to conduct much more thorough tax research than I ever thought was necessary.

Know your team's strengths (and weaknesses)

Shortly after discovery of my own Kolbe Index, I joined the Boomer Technology Circles™ and was delighted to learn that Sandra was a certified Kolbe expert. With her encouragement, everyone at our firm went on-line to find their own Kolbe Index. These results were shared with Sandra, who provided us with an amazing experience. Without ever meeting our staff of twelve, Sandra conducted a conference call in which she introduced herself to each staff member over the phone and proceeded to tell the rest of us something about that person. While she was conducting her one-on-one descriptions, we were gasping at her words. It was as if an old friend was telling us what we already knew about that person.

To help us understand each other better, Sandra provided us with communication cards that had our own Kolbe Indices as well as suggested do's and don'ts for how we should communicate with one another. For instance, I, as an Innovator, am encouraged to brainstorm. For a Strategic Planner, we are to support their asking lots of questions so they get sufficient background information. The Kolbe system has a further mechanism to see how balanced your team is. Ideally you want a well rounded group of people with varying Kolbe Indices in order to complement each other's strengths and weaknesses. The Kolbe system can also help supervisors identify the appropriate Kolbe Index for a particular job position.

Complement one another!

The ability to complement each other is, to me, the heart of the Kolbe system. For example, it has helped our firm to seek out the right team members to champion our transition to a paperless office. As you will recall, I am the Innovator. While attending an AICPA Personal Financial Planning Conference I seized the moment and bought a document management program called e-File Cabinet from an exhibitor. I liked what I saw, and I liked the price. I knew that we had to go paperless, and this was going to be our document management system. Later that year, I attended a CCH ProFx conference where ProFX Engagement was demonstrated. Like Pavlov's dog, I committed to buy the software at the conference.

I can tell you that these programs languished for a while before we were able to put them to use on a daily basis. What our firm needed was someone besides myself to put the programs to use. Our tax manager, Cheryl, who is a Strategic Planner, attended a Gearing-Up Tax Conference where she learned from the instructor about the successful implementation techniques for e-File Cabinet. She was able to ask more questions about how to structure file organization with e-File Cabinet. She came back to the office confident that she knew how to set in motion the successful adoption of our paperless filing system.

The implementation of ProFX Engagement required a team of Rhonda, a Pioneer with an index of 3 3 7 7 and Susan, a Designer with an Index of 5 8 5 3. Rhonda was much more willing to plunge ahead with the use of ProFx Engagement (notice that Rhonda is a long 7 in QuickStart) while Susan was much more determined to design a system before using the program (notice that Susan is a Long 8 in Follow Through). At times the two of them butted heads on the implementation of Engagement such as during our Firm Summit, which Sandra conducted last year. Fortunately in the end, they each acknowledged the unique contribution that each other contributed to our implementation of ProFX Engagement. To this day, I still use Susan's well designed instructions on how to work with Engagement.

Character counts, too

While our Kolbe experience sounds almost too good to be true, I must warn you that I feel that Kolbe does very little to tell you about a person's character in the workplace. We have just gone through a painful separation of a staff member who had that perfect CPA Kolbe Index of a Strategic Planner. If I had done a thorough background check before hiring this person in 2002, I would have spared us much misery. The Kolbe fit, but the character and ethics did not.

Despite this caveat, one of the more satisfying by-products of introducing the Kolbe to our team was Susan's 2005 Strategic Growth Plan in which she wrote, "My biggest strength is designing systems, and I am glad that we have established that now (through Kolbe), because I know how much I enjoy and excel at this, and how formerly frustrating it is when we're following a bad system, or no system." When I recently re-read her growth plan, I was reminded how fortunate we were to have brought Kolbe home with us despite the fact that he does not play basketball for our firm.

About the author

Fred E. Winter, President, is a Certified Public Account, 1975, and Personal Financial Specialist, 1990, and has practiced as a CPA in Taos, New Mexico, since 1980. With a Masters in Business Administration (MBA 1973) from Columbia University in New York, and working first for the Federal Reserve Bank in Kansas City and then at the big-six accounting firm of Coopers & Lybrand, Mr. Winter has substantial experience in all levels of accounting and financial planning practice. Mr. Winter has deep ties to Taos and northern New Mexico. His wife, Marcia Brenner Winter, is the great granddaughter of Taos artist Oscar Berninghaus. They have made Taos their home since 1979.

Learn more

You learn more about Kolbe by visiting www.Kolbe.com.