Our Head of Operations is incredibly disciplined and keeps our processes running, but her Kolbe A™ Index shows she is a high Quick Start with low Follow Thru. She is clearly burning out from forcing herself to build and maintain our standard operating procedures. How do we adjust her seat to match her conative strengths?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Your Head of Operations is struggling because she is working against her natural instincts. The Kolbe A™ Index measures conative strengths, which are your innate ways of taking action. A high Quick Start naturally thrives on experimentation, risk, and fast-paced change. Conversely, a low Follow Thru means she naturally resists designing and maintaining rigid systems.

Forcing a high Quick Start to spend their days documenting standard operating procedures (SOPs) is a direct path to severe burnout. She is expending a massive amount of mental energy to work against her natural M.O., which is unsustainable. You might see a similar conative stress in other roles, like a promoted employee burning out from new responsibilities, or even a leader resisting new technology [promoted employee burnout conative stress](/qa/promoted-employee-burnout-conative-stress) or [handling leadership resistance to AI automation](/qa/handling-leadership-resistance-to-ai-automation).

Adjusting the Seat to Maximize Strength

To address this issue, you must adjust the responsibilities within her seat on the Accountability Chart without losing her valuable leadership.

Here's how to realign her responsibilities:

• Keep her focused on leadership, driving the department forward.
• Leverage her Quick Start energy to solve big operational problems.
• Empower her to drive new initiatives, where her natural inclination for experimentation and rapid change can flourish.

Building a Complementary Team

The key to success here is to surround her with team members who have complementary strengths.

• Hire or transition an assistant or coordinator who is a high Follow Thru.
• This individual will be responsible for the heavy lifting of:
• Actually writing the SOPs.
• Documenting the systems.
• Organizing and maintaining the processes.

Your Head of Operations can dictate the vision and goals for the processes, while her high Follow Thru support staff does the detailed work of building and maintaining them. This allows her to lead from her conative strengths, eliminating the burnout while keeping your operations running smoothly. Understanding conative profiles can also help resolve other team conflicts, such as between sales and operations [Kolbe sales operations conflict handoffs](/qa/kolbe-sales-operations-conflict-handoffs) or even getting AI strategies on track [Kolbe profiles AI visionary integrator](/qa/kolbe-profiles-ai-visionary-integrator). This strategic realignment ensures everyone is in the right seat, doing what they do best.

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