Our leadership team has several high Fact Finder conative profiles on the Kolbe A Index, and we find that our weekly IDS® sessions get bogged down in endless requests for more data before we can make a decision. How do we keep our problem-solving moving forward without frustrating our analytical team members?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

High Fact Finder profiles approach problem-solving by gathering comprehensive information and establishing detailed context before they feel comfortable making a decision. While this conative drive is invaluable for risk mitigation and strategic planning, it can paralyze your weekly Level 10 Meeting™ if it is not managed correctly. You must learn to separate the need for data from the act of making a timely decision.

To balance this dynamic, establish a rule that you do not need perfect information to resolve an issue, only sufficient information to take the next step. If a high Fact Finder insists they need more data to analyze an issue, do not allow the entire meeting to stall. Instead, create a weekly To-Do for that individual to gather the specific, defined data points and report back before the next session. This satisfies their conative need for research while keeping the meeting moving.

During the Identify step of IDS®, clearly define the scope of the problem. Often, analytical profiles try to solve every related issue simultaneously. Your Integrator must keep the focus on the single, specific root cause. Once the issue is identified and discussed, push for a decision based on the eighty percent rule. In business operations, a good decision made today is almost always better than a perfect decision made next month. By framing decisions as iterative steps that can be adjusted based on weekly Scorecard trends, you reduce the perceived risk for your analytical team members and maintain your operational momentum.