Over the past several months, I have been getting a growing number of questions from leaders about Conation and what the differentiator is…
These questions don’t typically come during formal presentations. They come in hallway conversations, networking events, executive roundtables, executive forums or quiet moments when a leader pulls me aside and says something like,
“We understand skills training and personality, but if something still isn’t clicking inside our team, what are we missing?”
That curiosity is what sparked this new video and article series. In each installment I’m responding to the questions leaders are asking me most often about conation and the operational impact it has inside organizations.
One of the questions I hear repeatedly is this:
We already use behavioral assessments. What exactly does Kolbe measure that those don’t?
In the video that accompanies this article, I walk through that distinction. But one moment in that conversation tends to stop leaders in their tracks.
It begins with a simple question.
What does Kolbe reveal that an organizational chart never will?
Because while organizational charts show authority and reporting lines, they do not explain how work actually moves through an organization.
That part is driven by something else entirely.
It is driven by how people instinctively take action.
That dimension of the mind is called conation.
And when leaders are unaware of it, the effects begin to show up inside daily operations.
Why Capable Leaders Still Experience Friction
Most executive development focuses on two dimensions of the mind.
Cognition, which relates to how we think, process information, and solve problems.
Affect, which relates to emotion, motivation, and interpersonal dynamics.
Organizations measure intelligence. They invest heavily in emotional intelligence training.
Both are important.
But execution breakdown rarely happens because someone lacks intelligence or emotional awareness.
More often, it happens because leaders instinctively approach their work in different ways.
One leader may prefer to gather extensive information before moving forward.
Another may prefer to act quickly and refine along the way.
One leader may naturally build structure and sequence.
Another may build momentum and adapt as conditions change.
Both approaches can produce strong results.
But when those instinctive differences are not understood, leaders often interpret them through the wrong lens.
Speed can be interpreted as carelessness.
Precision can be interpreted as resistance.
Flexibility can be interpreted as lack of discipline.
And suddenly what is actually an execution difference begins to feel like a performance problem.
Where This Shows Up Inside Organizations
The operational effects of misunderstood conation are rarely dramatic at first.
Instead, they appear in subtle patterns across the organization.
Decision cycles extend longer than expected because leaders instinctively approach problems through different methods.
Projects move forward and then require additional refinement because expectations about sequence were never aligned.
Leaders unintentionally coach their teams to operate exactly the way they themselves initiate action.
Even hiring challenges can emerge when someone appears highly capable but struggles once they begin executing the role.
This is why I often remind executives that performance and alignment are not the same thing.
You can have highly capable people who are simply wired to execute differently.
Without understanding those instincts, organizations often try to manage behavior rather than design roles and workflows around how people naturally operate.
And behavior management alone rarely holds under pressure.
What Leaders Begin to See Once Conation Becomes Visible
When leadership teams begin to understand conation, several things start to shift.
Conversations about performance become more precise.
Conflict that once felt personal becomes easier to interpret.
Leaders begin recognizing why certain decision bottlenecks form and how to design around them.
Most importantly, they stop assuming that everyone should approach problems the same way they do.
Instead, they begin designing roles and workflows that align with instinctive methods of execution.
That shift alone can remove a surprising amount of friction from the system.
Not because people changed.
But because the organization finally started working with how they are wired to operate instead of against it.
A Question Leaders Always Ask Next
Once leaders begin to understand conation, another question usually follows quickly.
What is the real impact of not understanding this inside an organization?
That is the conversation I will explore in the next video in this series.
Because when execution slows, decision cycles stretch, and friction becomes embedded in how work moves forward, there is often a measurable organizational cost attached to it.
For now, if you would like to hear the full explanation behind the question that sparked this article, I invite you to watch the video that accompanies it.
You can find it at:
audaciousconceptsinc.com
And in the next installment, we will look at what leaders are asking once they begin connecting conation to performance inside their teams.