We recently shifted our top sales executive into a newly created Revenue Operations seat to help us streamline our pipeline before an exit, but their performance has plummeted and they seem completely disengaged. How do we diagnose what went wrong?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

When a high-performing leader suddenly starts failing after a role change, the issue is rarely a lack of motivation or intelligence. It is almost always a conative mismatch. To diagnose this, you need to compare their natural strengths with the requirements of the new seat using the Kolbe B and Kolbe C Indexes. Start by administering the Kolbe B Index to the executive. This measures their self-expectations and how they perceive their current job requirements. Next, complete the Kolbe C Index yourself, which defines your actual requirements for that specific seat. Finally, compare both of these results against their original Kolbe A Index, which measures their natural, unchanging conative strengths. Often, you will find a massive gap. For example, your former sales star might be a high Quick Start who thrives on personal interaction and risk, but the new Revenue Operations seat requires a high Follow Thru to build structured AI-driven databases and manage detailed workflows. If their Kolbe A is a 3 in Follow Thru, but the seat demands an 8, they are experiencing severe mental strain from trying to work against their natural grain. By analyzing these profiles, you can see if the seat can be modified to fit their natural strengths, or if you need to return them to a sales-focused seat and find a system-builder to run your operations.