Kolbe A Index Strengths Mastery Advantage Review

This article reviews the Strengths Mastery Advantage, Rich Schefren's branded version of the Kolbe A Index for assessing your personal strengths.

Strengths Mastery Advantage

Why You Need The Strengths Mastery Advantage / Kolbe A Index

Have you noticed that you are good at some things but bad at others?

Have you seen that some activities come naturally and are so easy but other tasks are a constant struggle?

Have you ever wondered how these "doing or action" strengths impact on the way that you work and earn your living?

If so have you deliberately chosen to work with and emphasise your strengths rather than wasting time and effort trying to adapt to or improve your weaknesses?

Sorry.

That is a lot of questions to start with but I wanted to get you thinking about what you do, what you enjoy doing and you are good at and what you hate doing.

Assessing Your Thinking - Cognitive Assessments

You will be familiar with the ways to assess your ability to think clearly.

There are all the exams we do as we work towards our final qualifications. To some extent success depends on how hard we work at a subject, how much we like it and how well we are taught.

IQ tests were developed to test our ability with numbers, words and shapes so that intelligence could be assessed once a basic level of reading,writing and arithmetic skills had been learnt.

Assessing Your Feeling & Emotions - Affective Assessments

There are various personality tests and the Myers-Briggs test is probably the most famous.

This is based on Jung's psychological types that looks at your personality along four scales:

• Extrovert to Introvert
   
• Sensing to iNuition
   
• Thinking to Feeling
   
• Judging to Perceiving

Based on the test results, you may be classified as an ESTJ or an INFP or one of the other 14 combinations.

See Wikipedia for more details on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator.

Assessing Your Doing - The Way That You Work - Conative Assessments

This is a new one on me and I have been introduced to it by Rich Schefren who is a big believer in the assessing your working strengths and then designing your working life around your strengths.

I first became aware of it through the Business Growth System coaching but I ignored the opportunity to do the test.

I am sceptical about these things from my experience with the personality tests. I always think there is a danger that you answer based on who you want to be.

When I bought the Business Acceleration Program before Christmas I was given another opportunity to take the test and this time I did.

Before I say too much more, I should repeat that I was sceptical but I came out with a score of 8-4-5-2 and this is my overall result:

"Congratulations Paul,

Your Kolbe A Index result shows you are excellent at making comparisons, documenting information and defining priorities. You can be counted on to research historical details and become an expert in areas of special interest."

Now I think that's pretty accurate and I suspect that it may be the conclusion you have reached if you are a regular reader of my blog.

Discover Your Working Strengths

The Kolbe A Index looks at how you act along four different scales:

• Fact Finder - how you gather and share information.
   
• Follow Through - the way you deal with, organise and sort information.
   
• Quick Start - your approach to risk and uncertainty - and whether you stay with what works or experiment to see what happens.
   
• Implementor - the way we handle things literally from imaging results and thinking conceptually at one extreme to having to touch things to believe it.

Now my 8-4-5-2 score is hopefully starting to make sense.

The 8 on gathering and sharing information shows that I have a particular strength in acquiring, analysing, reviewing and sharing information. While I have written before about my desire to see the big picture before I dive into the detail, I love learning the detail and building up my knowledge.

The next two scores were in the middle, so I'm pretty balanced there.

Finally the last score - bad name as it doesn't really relate to implementing - shows that I am no good at mechanical problems and repairs. I can see things conceptually, imagine what can happen and get help.

Interestingly, there are no bad scores. Everything is a strength in particular situations and I certainly felt good about myself when I finished the assessment and read through the results.

How Does This Affect You?

If you have innate working preferences, styles and strengths then you are better off playing the business game according to the rules where you can win.

In another article I talked about the different physical attributes for different types of athletes, a sprinter, a high jumper, a long distance runner and a shot putter.

If you are naturally a shot putter, you are big and heavy but very strong, then that is what you should do. Try any of the other events and you will struggle.

For employer / employee relationships this means that there has to be a link between the demands of the job and the working strengths of the candidates. Success is likely to come from finding the best fit.

But for an entrepreneur and business owner, it is a bit different.

You are responsible for everything that happens in your business, but you don't have to do everything.

How much more effective would you be if you delegated/outsourced work that didn't fit your natural pattern of strengths?

How much more effective would you be if you concentrated on taking more advantage of your strengths?

Rich Schefren, Strategic Profits & Strengths Mastery Advantage

By working in partnership with Kolbe Corp, Rich Schefren has put together the Strengths Mastery Advantage.

He is very proud of this service and backs it up with an excellent guarantee.

In his blog when he was looking back over 2007, a remarkable year for Rich Schefren and his company Strategic Profits, he rated the development of the Strengths Mastery Program as one of his three biggest achievements.

Tips For Taking the Kolbe A Index

If you decide to take the Strengths Mastery Advantage you will find that you are asked to choose best and worst options out of four statements.

Go with your instinct.

The questions ask you to choose between strengths so you look at them and think "I want to do that, and that, and that..."

So don't try to over-analyse and there are some hard choices. I found it particularly difficult selecting the least likely in some cases.

When you get to the end you will be presented with the report which you can print but not save. You are given the option to email it to other people so I just emailed it to myself so that I have a copy I can go back to.

I recommend that you take the assessment. It will help make it clear in your mind what you should delegate.

I know I feel guilty about passing over some things that I am not very good at but the Strengths Mastery Advantage assessment will take away any guilty feelings.

Your task is to bring together the skills and abilities needed to make your business work efficiently and effectively. By concentrating on your strengths and delegating the rest you will improve both.

Just remember:

In business you don't get an A for effort. You get paid for the results that you achieve and those results depend on your strengths.

That's why it is so important to know what your strengths are and to plan your working life around building on your strengths and not around trying to compensate for weaknesses.

As Kathy Kolbe said "My definition of success is the freedom to be yourself."

Comments

[Josh Patrick]

The Kolbe suite of instruments are very powerful tools. It's important to remember that Kolbe is measuring energy units, not whether you are going to be any good at a particular activity. The theory is that if you have lots of energy for a particular type of task, you will be better at than those who aren't. In my experience this is true.

We like to use the Kolbe in consort with another instrument. Some like the Predictive Index, others DISC. We like to use Right Path along with Kolbe. We find the combination of the two help us and our Clients understand what directions might be the most positive for them.

These tools also allow us to help our Clients concentrate on their strengths and learn to manage their weaknesses. We believe this is the true use of these tools.

[Paul Simister]

Josh

Thanks for a great post and the insights.

This is not my area of expertise and I accept that I have a lot to learn.

I wanted to report what I was getting out of the experience of taking the Strengths Mastery Advantage that rich Schefren provided..

[Jerry Sakala]

The kolbe Assessment tool is simply an indispensable tool for any entrepreneur.

I have particularly recommended it for people who are getting on the web by creating and launching their own sonopia (own branded mobile virtual network operation) with the free web and wap site platform provided by sonopia corporation.

I have considered all the struggles that most business owners undergo and imagined how they apply to sonopia leaders (people owning a sonopia are called this).

It has so much inspired me I launched a sonopia for delivering and sharing conative ability profiles direct on your mobile phone (www.sonopia.com/conativesociety)

Bottom line...without Kolbe assessment you may never reach your full potential in Business!

[Jack]

Hi

The Kolbe company seems to be well established and highly professional however the Strengths Mastery Advantage company give the visual impression of being purely full of HYPE and high power sales pitch.

Their Phone number and address is nearly impossible to find on their web site, which helps convince me that their are after your wallet rather than a legit company like the real Kolbe company.

Further more, what make it look even more deceitful is that the Strengths Mastery Advantage company makes no mention at all that in truth it is based on the KOLBE system.

This leaves me with a very skeptical opinion of how ethical the Strengths Mastery Advantage really is.

If you go to the web site of the Kolbe company www.Kolbe.com there is no high powered sales pitch (the hype you see on the 3:00 am TV which appeals to the feeble minded who will purchase any get rich quick scam) and their address and phone number is easily available at the ABOUT link on every page of their web site.

Further more, the Strengths Mastery Advantage keeps on playing with the price, first they say it's $199 then they say they will give it to you for $100 then when you click on it it says $97 in 3 payments and then when you select that it doesn't allow 3 payments but in one lump some.

Doesn't look or feel professional and legit AT ALL.

While the www.Kolbe.com web site gives you the feel of a legit fortune 500 company.

[Paul Simister]

Hi Jack

Thanks for your comment.

Strengths Mastery Advantage is brought to you as a JV between Kolbe and Strategic Profits, one of the world's best Internet marketing advisory firms.

Companies have different views on how strong a sales letter should be and while Strategic Profits go further than I would do, I am held back by British reserve.

Yes the persuasion is turned up high but look at the Strengths Mastery Advantage guarantee and I quote:

" Order the system. Take the test and get your profile. Watch the online audio/visual tutorial that explains who you really are... what you will and what you won’t do... and... how you do what you will do. Then read my report: 11 Ways To Leverage Your Strengths And Manage Your Weaknesses. And finally, watch my video and/or read the transcript with Amy Bruske, Executive Vice-President of the company that developed this technology.

Then, after all that, if don’t feel like this system is going to revolutionize your business and personal life... contact us by phone (954-555-5555) or by e-mail (support@strategicprofits.com) within 90 days, and we’ll give you 100% of your money back.... without hassle or delay."

There is nothing mealy mouthed about a guarantee like this and no hiding behind difficult to find telephone numbers or email addresses. It is all there.

On the pricing side for Strengths Mastery Advantage, I agree.

Strategic Profits have blundered with the confusion and the promise of a three stage payment which doesn't exist. I have contacted them and pointed it out.

I would expect it to be fixed in days.

[Jack]

Paul

Thank you very much for your reply.

I hope you are right and I hope and wish that I am wrong.

You point out the Phone number:

954-555-5555

Why don't you try to actualy call that number and see for yourslef, if it's a real telephone number?

I tried and I don't think it's a real phone number.

In the USA, on TV shows, when they want to mention a Telephone number in a Movie and are afraid someone may actually try and call that number, they must use a fake non existent number. The STANDARD in the USA, to indicate a FAKE non-number, is to have it start with 555

The 555 prefix of a tel number is an indicate of a mythical Tel. number.

Go ahead and try dealing it.

There is more:

The "user agreement", when you click to order (which most people just "click" that they agree, without ever really reading it) states that the only way to cancel is to call and talk to a LIVE person (and it states that it specificaly excludes voice-mail).

Now, if the phone number doesn't work and no human being actually answers, (and voice mail doesn't count) then it's a catch 22 which means it's effectively impossible to cancel.

So the "Money Back Guarantee" can't work.

Again, I hope I am wrong and I would be very happy if you could verify this.

Thank you very much

[Paul Simister]

Hi Jack

You do seem concerned about Strategic Profits and Strengths Mastery Advantage.

I didn't know about telephone numbers in the US and must admit that it wouldn't have occurred to me.

What I can say is that my dealings with Strategic Profits have been very good.

Twice I have had refunds.

The first was over an administrative mix up but when I pointed it out, the money came back quickly.

The second was when I bought an offer and then a couple of days letter received a communication saying "if you have already bought ... then you will receive a x% discount."

I got on to them and said "Hey, you didn't tell me that when I ordered." Again I got the money back.

I believe the you can only judge as you find and I have found Rich Schefren and Strategic Profits a highly reputable business.

He is too high profile a figure to get away ripping customers off. The power of social media would be buzzing with it very quickly.

I have asked some one from Strategic Profits to comment on the telephone number. I don't know the facts.

[Paul Simister]

I did report the confusing payments to Strategic Profits and the problems relate back to an old test they were doing.

It will be fixed soon.

Unfortunately these things do happen from time to time.