Using Kolbe to Function Well as a Team with Jen Heins

//Kolbe Certified Consultant and Youth Specialist Jen Heins shares with us how understanding the specific ways we and those with whom we work take action when faced with a project can make us more successful at meeting our team goals. Whether it’s owning the best way for you to approach a problem or gaining a better understanding of why someone else needs to handle things differently, your team will have less friction when there’s an appreciation for, instead of a frustration with, diverse perspectives. 

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Transcript

Hey there!  It’s Andrea, and welcome to the Voice of Influence podcast.  Today, I have with me, a colleague, Jen Heins.

Andrea:  Jen, it is so good to have you here today on the show.

Jen:  Thank you.  I appreciate you having me.

Andrea:  I’m excited to talk about what we have to talk about today because “Happy New Year,” everyone!   Oh, my goodness, I have goosebumps, even though we are recording prior to the new year.  I am so excited about moving into 2021.  I know that there has never… at least in our lifetimes, I don’t think there’s ever been a year we’ve been more excited to get out of than 2020.

And one of the things that I’m excited about visiting with you about today is just having a fresh start and moving more towards who we are and bringing ourselves to the world.   So, Jen, would you share with us a little bit about what you do and why you do it?

Jen:   Okay.  My business is Heins Design, and I am a certified Kolbe consultant and youth specialists with Kolbe.  And my background actually started with art.  I did original artwork for many years, and then did picture framing and did that for twenty years.   I had my own gallery.  And then, it kind of morphed into something else after a period of time, and I started doing more digital artwork, more event planning, and more helping small businesses.

And in the course of all of that that I was doing, I had taken the Kolbe back in 2003, and loved it.  And it really kind of changed how I viewed myself in the world, and what I took on, and I appreciated my strengths so much more.  And then around 2016, it kind of came back around in my purview because I had originally just always used it to kind of keep me in my lane, so to speak, so I wouldn’t take on things I didn’t need to take on.  And then in 2016, it came back around and I thought, “You know, I really could use this to help my clients and help other people using this as a foundational tool.”

And so, I brought that back around.  And so, now I’ve been coaching individuals and teams on how to use their natural, instinctive strengths to understand their own creative process for their greatest success.

Andrea:  And I can say that Voice of Influence is connected to you.  We really appreciate being able to utilize you and your expertise and your services for Kolbe.  And even for our clients as well because we have used the Kolbe with executive coaching clients and sometimes with teams, and we can have Jen help us out with that.

So, Jen, tell us a little bit more about the Kolbe.  Like, why the Kolbe?  What makes it different than any other assessment?  I’m personally just an assessment sort of junkie, and I love them all.  But there’s a purpose behind each of them that they serve a different kind of a purpose.   So, what purpose would you say that the Kolbe serves?

Jen:  I see it as a foundational tool.  One thing, if you take any assessment and you’re surprised by the results, I would question the assessment.  You know, usually an assessment is an affirmation of what you already know about yourself for the most part when they’re personality tests.  And even Kolbe… you know, the best part of Kolbe is when you get the results it is, “You’re perfect the way you are.  You’re awesome, you know, and this is why.”  But Kolbe measures the doing.  It’s what you will and will not do.  It’s your instinctive problem-solving nature.

So, the difference is that the Kolbe theory is there’s three parts of the mind; the thinking, the feeling, and the doing.  Kolbe measures the doing.  Whereas, the thinking way, it’s your expertise, and your knowledge.  IQ tests, generally, would measure that.  Then you have the effective side – it’s what you want, your preferences, your drive, and your motivation.  You know, like StrengthsFinder is a great example of that one.  And then Kolbe measures what you will and will not do.   So, when you understand this, it’s so much easier to say no to the things that aren’t good for you or not take on the jobs that will cause you stress.

So, I can use it in a framework for an individual and say, “Here, let’s find out how awesome you are and how you leveraged this in your problem-solving skills, and then you can see stress coming.  You can see problems coming because it’s like, ‘Oh, you know, this isn’t my area of expertise.’  And then you can go ahead and set yourself up with people who do have those strengths.”  It’s a great base tool, and when you know that part, then you add other discovery points to it.

Andrea:  It’s how you do things.

Jen:  Yeah.  It’s how you take action.

Andrea:  I think that one of the things that you were talking about was avoiding things that are in conflict with the natural way that you take action.  I know that you’ve helped people that we’ve worked with or even helped me to be able to see how to work with each other in the way that we take action.  So that even though I take action in this way and somebody else takes action another way, we need to be able to communicate.  We need to be able to work together and take action together to complete a project.   So, how do you help people to be able to understand how different people take action in different ways?

Jen:   One of the gifts that I’ve gotten from Kolbe in understanding my own and other people’s is I have a greater empathy for other people and how they work.   So, instead of just plowing through something, doing it my way, when I know I have a client that really needs more detailed information, I can slow down what I’m doing and make sure that I’ve gotten all the key points down to them and schedule more time for them to ask questions.  Because I know, like, a high initiating Fact Finder is going to want to know more than maybe I’m going to actually put forth.

So, I just set myself up and them up for greater success by giving them more time to get more information from me.  So, when you understand how somebody else works instead of being upset… it’s not that they’re doing something to make you mad or to, you know, get in your way or to slow you down.  Sometimes it’s just, “This is their innate way.”   So, if you understand how that is, you can plan how your interaction is going to go and so can they.

So, a great example is, I am a nine Quick Start.  Without having all the information right here for everybody to see… but there are four modes of operation.  There are four different categories, and then you are either an initiating, a reactive, or a counteractive within that mode.

So, for example, as a Fact Finder, you either would like a lot of specifics, which is the initiating Fact Finder.  You would explain information, which is the reaction – the center part of the mode – or you simplify information, which is the counteractive side.  I am a two in a Fact Finder, but as a Quick Start… Quick Start is how you deal with risk.   So, I am an innovator.  I try things.  I’m an initiating Quick Start.  I will come up with a lot of ideas, and I’ll test things out to see what will happen without having the expectation that it has to work.  It’s just a tendency, whereas somebody on the other end of the Quick Start spectrum, they’re looking to see how they can stabilize things – “How can I protect the things that should not be changed?”

As a Quick Start, I will have a tendency to throw out ideas and just brainstorm out loud, where if I do that with somebody that is an initiating Fact Finder and I’m throwing out ideas with not a lot of detail, I could create stress for them.   So, by knowing that in advance, I can understand that maybe that’s not the person that I brainstorm ideas out loud.  That’s the person I bring a couple of ideas that I would like more information to talk about details on, you know.   So, instead of bringing that person all the ideas, I bring them the ones I’ve narrowed down.

Andrea:  And I find that really interesting because one of the things that I’ve told my kids is that there’s no really one person who is going to fill all of your needs as a human being.  I mean, the same is true in a work environment.  There’s no one person that you can just totally be your complete and utter self with all the time.

I mean, when you care about somebody else, when you’re wanting to work together, you want to meet them where they are too.  You almost have to do the filtering kind of work that you’re talking about in order to be able to care for them as well.  Otherwise, it’s kind of all about me, and the way I want to interact in the world, and “Don’t make me be somebody I don’t want to be.”  But what you’re saying to me, it sounds like you’re saying, “But you can.  You can be yourself while meeting people where they are.”

Jen:  Right.  Exactly.  Yeah, and it creates a different connection and a different appreciation for things.  The other part is because I know my MO, I know where I am going to bring the most value with how I take action versus how I’m not.  And so, it makes it a lot easier for me to say, ‘’I really appreciate you wanting me to work on this, but I cannot work on it in that way and give you what you want because it will take me longer.  It’s not going to be as good, but this person over here is going to rock it.’’   So, you can hand things off.  It’s really kind of nice and freeing to be able to say no to things that aren’t going to be suitable for you and be able to say yes to the things that are.

Andrea:  And to advocate for yourself, it sounds like, and not just yourself but the work that you’re doing.

Jen:  Yeah.  For the work.  How it’s going to get done.  How you’re going to move down the path.   How to be strategic and creative at the same time.   So part, I mean, part of the creative process, the first thing is you have to be motivated.  If you don’t have the motivation, you know, it’s harder to get things going.  But I’ve also found motivation isn’t always a super positive, celebration kind of thing.

Andrea:  Mm, that’s true.  We can be motivated by fear.  We can be motivated by being annoyed with something, an irritation.

Jen:  Right.   So, one, you have to understand your motivation.  Is your motivation coming from a good place or not?   So, fix that first.  Understand your motivation.  Then once you’re motivated, that’s when your Kolbe kind of kicks in, and you start, like, what you will and will not do.

So, for me, and I know you – because you’re also a higher Quick Start – the first thing we do once we’re most motivated, we have a million ideas.  And they just start pouring out, “We can do this, and we can do this,” and it’s fantastic.  And then from that, we go to our cognitive – what is our skillset, our knowledge base?  How is that going to move us forward to our goal?  And then the end of that is the results.  So, you have your motivation, your action, your knowledge, your results.  That is the process.

But then when you have, like, a whole team of people…  Like, say we had a team, and we were all Quick Starts.  We would have ideas all day, every day, but we may not have the information to back up what we need.  If they’re all Quick Starts, we may not have something that’s stable.  It may be like recreating the wheel all the time.

That’s why when you have a team, if you have a diverse group understanding what the goal is and then understanding who you have at the table to get you down the field, so to speak, then you know…like, if you have a project.   So, you had the ideas first, and then where does it need to go after the ideas?  Do you have somebody on your team that’s a Fact Finder that can do the research and get all the background information?  Would you have a Follow Thru person that can put together the plan and create the process for you?  And do you have an Implementer on your team that understands all the tangibles and can demonstrate and showcase the product that you’re creating?  And then when you have all of it, that’s your well-rounded experience for working together.

Andrea:   So, when somebody is trying to figure out, you know, kind of how to get out the gate with a project like this then – and you just kind of laid forth a little framework – how do they actually implement this framework that you were talking about?  What does that look like to find that motivation at the beginning?

Jen:  Well, for me, I like to start at the end.

Andrea:  Okay.

Jen:  This is my two Fact Finder.  I want to know what’s the result I want to have happen, and then I work backwards.

Andrea:  Sure.  Like, reverse engineer the outcome.

Jen:  Yeah.  That’s my process, though, but that’s how my MO is built.  But that’s how I coach people.  When I know their MO, then I can help them identify which way they need to come from.  Because for me, I am a bottom line, “Where do I want to go, and then I can get there?” because there’s no one plan.  There’s no right answer.  I mean, I think that’s the best thing is your motivation today might not be your motivation in two months.

So, your motivation can change, your goal can stay the same.  So, I think it’s more important to get clear on your goal first and then understand your motivation.  Your motivation might be, “How do I get through the next or for the first quarter of this year until, like, everybody can have a vaccine,” or whatever the circumstance may be.  “How do I leverage the first part of this year so that I don’t have to work so hard on the second quarter or third quarter?”

Andrea:  Yeah, I can see what you’re saying because there’s an opportunity right now that the opportunity will shift, the opportunity will change, or the circumstances will change.   So, what is the opportunity in the circumstances that we have right now?

Jen:  I have a little bit – and you know this – but I have had a little bit different experience from 2020 because my 2019 was hard.

Andrea:  Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Jen:  At the end of 2018, I was diagnosed with breast cancer and had to make a lot of hard choices and switch directions on a dime.  And I was in the middle of a, you know, getting all geared up for 2019 for my business to have to like put everything on hold, make hard decisions about what I was going to do, was getting genetic testing and making the decision of surgery or chemo and what my whole cancer treatment plan was.  And then basically 2019 was cancer treatment.

So, it was six months of chemo or like five months of chemo, and then surgery, and then a month of radiation, and then getting back on my feet.  And then the beginning of 2020, I was just kind of getting ready to start networking, and then COVID hit.  And I was like, “Oh, okay, can’t do that.” But I also used all the skills.  All my foundation skills from Kolbe came into play with how I dealt with cancer.

Andrea:  Interesting.

Jen:  I was open to ideas.  I was innovative.  I also learned that I didn’t need to do everything all the time and to rest, and rest is an action item now on my calendar.

Andrea:  Interesting.  I like that.  Rest is an action item.  Tell me more about that.

Jen:  Yeah.  I don’t have any genetic markers for breast cancer.   So, it was all environment and work and stress and running myself into the ground and, you know, trying to do all the things, which is what I think is part of it.  It was all, you know, the collective things of me not resting, not taking the time to take care of myself, always trying to plan and do things ahead and take care of everybody else.   So, in 2019, I had no choice but to rest and find joy in the things that were really important and make things priorities that, you know, should be priorities and take the things that weren’t priorities off the table, which was phenomenal.

But, also, my MO – and for people that know Kolbe, it’s a two, three, nine, six are my numbers – but I simplify information.  I adapt systems.  I innovate and can work from a place of risk, and I am in the high midsection of the Implementer.   So, I’m all about function.  Things have to work and make sense how they work.  If they don’t, I don’t want any part of it.   But I took from it and all the things that I learned in 2019, I carried over into 2020 with my MO.  It’s, you know, “What are the possibilities?   How do they function?  What’s the bottom line of what I need to do?”

But I used it like how I ask questions of my doctors.  My surgeon gave me a book.  I don’t know that I’ve ever opened that book.  I mean, I’ve flipped through it, but that was not the way to reach me. But instead of being able to say… you know, I’m not angry at the surgeon for giving me information that way, but understanding myself is I could go back to him and I can say, “All right, I need to know, “What’s the checklist?” instead of, you know, give me all the details about everything.  That’s not how I work.  So, just give me a checklist.  What’s the expectation?  What do I need to do?  When do I need to show up?”

And then, my biggest lesson in all of it was that rest was an action item, and you’ve got to take the time – which actually brings me back to Kolbe, because Kolbe is all about your mental energy, and you only have so much energy.  And so, if you deplete it, you can renew it, but you have to take the time to let it renew.

Cancer, actually, ended up being…  I’d like to think of it as a little bit of a gift to slow me down, and it prepared me for 2020 like you wouldn’t believe. I mean, there was so much stuff that we had done in 2019.  So then in 2020, I was like, “Okay, I already work on Zoom.  I’ve already been isolated because I couldn’t be exposed to other things because of the chemo, and my immune system was down.”   So, I was already doing all the things when the COVID came around.   So then what I found myself doing is helping other people through that moment – you know, through what does it mean having to change all things around so that you can meet the moment.

Andrea:  Yeah, yeah.  It’s amazing how the pain and the suffering and then how we meet that can end up becoming…  I guess you became a guide for others because you’d been there.  You’d walk that path.

Jen:  And people were very…  you know, it was very interesting to have people be like, “Oh, you’re so brave,” or “You’re so positive,” or “You have such a good attitude.”  And it’s like, “What is my choice?”  You know, I can either choose to be positive and find all the good things and take it as an opportunity to become better, or what?  I become angry and bitter and horrible, and then nobody wants to be around me at all?  I don’t want that.  But it clears things, which is also where I think 2020 and coming into 2021, we have that same kind of opportunity.  Are you clear with who you are?  Are you happy?  Are you where you want to be?

If you’re not then, you know, maybe take a look at that.  Get clear.  What is your motivation?  You know, where do you want to be at the end of 2021?  What are the things that if you were to dare to dream big, what would that be?  And then could you get there?  You know, would it take you five years?  Would it take you a year?  Would it take you six months if you planned it, if you got strategic? But this is a little bit about what I do when I’m working with people is helping them, “What do you want?”  “Where do you want to be?”

Andrea:  Yeah.  It seems to me like it’s almost this inclination, my inclination to do something and being okay with that and encouraging that and figuring out how to utilize that.

Jen:  And so, a little bit back to the beginning, my background was in art.  I understand how to create a piece of art.  I can frame anything, and now I do that with people and ideas.  Because I needed to move away from, like, the physical stuff, and because I didn’t feel like framing things for people was okay…  But it did not fill the need that I had to want to help people.  Twenty years ago, when I was doing art and picture framing, it’s not necessarily who I am today.   So, why would I want to stay stuck in that same place?  The one thing that didn’t change was how I worked and my MO.  That has not changed in twenty years.

So, you don’t have to be stuck, you know.  So, if you’ve ever wanted to make a move, if you’ve ever wanted to do something different, if you’ve ever been hit with a hardship or a bad medical diagnosis like I was, what would you do different and what does that mean?  The ability to change, and grow, and then move onto the next thing is more possible today than it’s ever been.  You’re not required to be the same person and do the same thing forever.

Andrea:  Hmm.  That’s exciting.  It’s exciting for us as we’re looking into the future, as we’re sort of taking a breath, kind of resetting, getting a chance to think about who we want to be, how we want to show up to the world when things are different again, when things are a little bit back to normal, if you will.

Jen:  Right.  Yeah.  Are you going to appreciate everything more?  Are you going to appreciate taking your time and having a meal at a restaurant?  Are you going to appreciate your waitstaff and tip them?  Are you going to appreciate, you know, going to a party? Are you going to appreciate the amount of detail your host puts into an event?  Are you going to appreciate that and be there with a joyful and positive attitude?  When we are all able to gather again, how are you going to come to the table?

Andrea:  Wouldn’t that be just amazing, that the world would come to life again with gratitude?  What a beautiful idea, right?  That would be wonderful.

Jen:   I have a client right now, and she misses her grandkids terribly.  And one of the things that we discussed was, “How are you going to plan for the joy?”  So, plan for it now.  Pick where you want to go.  You know, you could order little things from the place you want to take them as a hint, and send them the hint.  Maybe it’s, you know, getting on a Zoom call with your grandkids to have them help map it out, “We’re gonna have an adventure from June to August!  Let’s figure out what that’s gonna be.”  So, I’m a big proponent of, like, choose wisely.

I used to always love the “choose your own adventure” kind of stories, but you get to choose.  So, you can choose to be disappointed and unhappy, or you can choose to start, like, setting yourself up to have awesome experiences.  How are you preparing yourself for good times to come back?  You don’t have to learn a new skill, or you don’t have to, you know, whatever.  Sometimes I think it’s enough that you took time for yourself.  You know, the one thing during 2019, I learned, I appreciate naps more than ever.  Because during that year, if I got tired, I’d lay down, no matter what I was doing.  If I was working or if I had to cancel the appointment, I would do it because that was important to me.

Andrea:  And like you said before, if rest is an action item, I mean, you’re getting something done by resting in that situation.  Yeah, which is hard for a lot of us to accept, but it’s true.  Yeah.

Jen:  We choose how we show up.  We choose what we bring to the table.  One thing I did this year was I got certified as a youth specialist with Kolbe because part of what I saw happening was with kids staying home – and I even noticed this before –is that kids are given these expectations of how they need to be in the world without being able to discover who they are first.  Then they don’t thrive.

A great example would be, you know, my son who is… because I know his Kolbe, I’d be able to go to his defense with teachers, because they would expect him to give more detail or more information.  And they would, actually, say in conferences, “He just wants to give me the bottom line and not show his work.”  And I’m like, “Yes, I know.  I know.  I will try to help explain to him why he needs to show this to you in this case, but how he works is he is a, you know, a bottom-line person.”  He’s the kid that he would have a complex math problem, and he would say the answer.  And they’d be like, “Well, how did you get to that?”  And he says, “Well, that’s the answer,” because he could do the math in his head.

So, it’s interesting.  But what I think is if kids understand how they work and they have the freedom to be themselves, then they can be guided to finding the right path for them earlier and to pursue things that they really would love to do versus being stuck.

But also right now, with parents and kids, you know, having had to work from home and work together… and if they don’t have an understanding of how each other works, you know, is that creating stress for everybody in the house?   Or if you understood everybody’s Kolbe, could you help them be set up for success, such as… you know, well, just to say that schools are set up really for the Fact Finder, Follow Thrus.   So, it’s information and systems.

And so, the kids that are initiating Quick Starts and initiating Implementers tend to get in more trouble because they’re not, you know, the detailed, specific Follow Thru people, or information people.  They’re hands-on.  They need to move.  They want to tinker with things and test things out.  And a lot of times that is put in a box of. “They’re being disruptive.”

Andrea:  It’s frowned upon for sure.

Jen:   Yeah, and that’s not what the problem is at all.  So, that’s why I added it so I could offer that up for families, but I had to expand what I was doing.  And for not only the kids’ understanding but then you’ve got, you know, companies with people working at home, and they’re having stresses at home and then stresses in trying to do their work.  What if everybody was able to understand the foundation from where everybody was coming so we could eliminate the stresses and help everybody be set up for success?

Andrea:  Mm.  Yeah, that’s good.  I know that we actually had one of our kids to take the assessment – to take the Kolbe – and then, you know, visited with you, got your insights in it.  And it was really helpful to kind of understand how we could better help our child communicate, how we could help them work with their teachers, how we could help them focus on their grades when maybe their focus was elsewhere, or that sort of thing.  And I think… like you were talking about before the idea of maybe they’re not being disrespectful right now.  Maybe it’s just their body needs to move.  Maybe they’re not caring about learning, but because they’re being bombarded with so many details, it’s hard to take it all in.

And so that’s hard to learn when you’re being bombarded with things that you’re not used to or don’t just like sink in as easily as they might for somebody else.  But you might care.  You might care if it were, you know, like your little checklist that you were asking your doctor for.  It’s easier to care when you get it, when you understand what they’re trying to say.  And, so anyway, I appreciate the attention to the individual that you give and the insights that you have to offer people when it comes to interacting with others and making things work more successfully as a team and then also as an individual.

Jen, where can people find you or connect with you?

Jen:  They can find me at our website.  It’s heinsdesign.com, and on the homepage, I have a sign in for a communication list.  And if you go there and put in your information, then you’ll be added to our email list, and I can reach out to you that way with upcoming projects.  But Heins Designs is also on Facebook and Instagram and LinkedIn.

Andrea:  Okay.   So, you can find Jen there at those links that she mentioned, and we’ll put those in the show notes at voiceofinfluence.net/podcast.  And any offers that she has on her website, you can pay special attention to those.

Jen, what advice do you have for someone who wants to be a Voice of Influence?

Jen:  I think that I would go to Kathy Kolbe’s words that it’s about “the freedom to be yourself”.  If you are free to be yourself, it kind of will help everything line up.  It will be your freedom to work well.  It’s your freedom to love well.  It’s your freedom to be well when you can be yourself.  If you have to pretend to be something you’re not, then there’ll always be a little bit of an impediment to it being true.

Andrea:  Thank you so much for being here and for sharing with our listeners.  I appreciate it, Jen!

Jen:  Thank you!

 

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