I had my last day at work and it was odd. As I related my excitement of leaving a nice, safe job with benefits and retirement, several coworkers just stared at me and scoffed looking wildly uncomfortable, others secretly confessed their desire to go too, but needed to have a concrete plan to do so. Only one coworker said they truly appreciated my willingness to jump not knowing if the parachute would open (although she was 75 and worked part time in retirement). I felt deflated.
But then I remembered conative styles and I wondered if that had something to do with it.
My excitement about change and ambiguity was unsettling to them. This was not their instinct. It was mine. Why was I expecting them to react like I would? And why was I looking for validation from them? Especially in a setting which did not embrace ambiguity, innovation or spontaneity. I knew I had always been an odd fit in this culture and this last day showed just how different I was.
Whether you are 
Action derived from instinct; purposeful mode of striving volition. It’s a conscious effort to carry out self-determined acts. – Kolbe report
It is NOT personality, motivation, attitude, emotions, feelings or desires. It is not even you values (that’s AFFECTIVE STYLE – think Myers-Briggs, etc)
It is also NOT IQ, Skillset, Reason, Knowledge, Experience or Education – that’s COGNITIVE STYLE.
It cannot tell you if you are shy or a party animal, it cannot diagnose, it cannot tell you if you are a genius. It deals with a part of the brain that DRIVES ACTION.
It’s that wiring in us that when it comes time to action, produces a natural path of effort. So if we were given a task with no instruction, it would be our natural way which we would tackle a task. It is your ACTION MODE
Martha Beck uses a Ring of the Nibelungs analogy to describe it. Wikipedia describes it this way:
Conation (from the Latin conatus) is any natural tendency, impulse, striving, or directed effort.[1] The conative is one of three parts of the mind, along with the affective and cognitive.[2] In short, the cognitive part of the brain has to do with intelligence, the affective deals with emotions and the conative drives how one acts on those thoughts and feelings.
The term conation is no longer widely known—it is in “The 1,000 Most Obscure Words in the English Language”, defined as “the area of one’s active mentality that has to do with desire, volition and striving”,[3] but there are several references to conation as the third faculty of the mind.
Conation is defined by Funk & Wagnalls Standard Comprehensive International Dictionary (1977) as “the aspect of mental process directed by change and including impulse, desire, volition and striving”, and by the Living Webster Encyclopedia Dictionary of the English Language (1980) as “one of the three modes, together with cognition and affection, of mental function; a conscious effort to carry out seemingly volitional acts”. The Encyclopedia of Psychology “Motivation: Philosophical Theories” says, “Some mental states seem capable of triggering action, while others—such as cognitive states—apparently have a more subordinate role [in terms of motivation] … some behavior qualifies as motivated action, but some does not”.[4]
The Kolbe A Index seems to be the one assessment out there that is measuring the Conative Style. http://www.kolbe.com/why-kolbe/kolbe-wisdom/
The Kolbe A Index rates the strength of your preference on a scale of 1-10 (10 is high) for each of four Action Modes.
- Fact Finder: Their instinct is to gather and share information. The are precise, judicious, thorough, and appropriate. Loves detail and complexity and facts.
- Follow Thru: Their instinct is to arrange and design. They are methodical, systematic. Focused, structured, ordered, and efficient. Planning, programming, design, predictability. Arranges
- Quick Start: Their instinct is to deal with risk and uncertainty. They are spontaneous, intuitive, flexible, and fluent with ideas. Need challenge and change and can be impatient (ummm – YEP!!).
- Implementer: Their instinct is to handle space and tangibles. They are hands-on and craft-oriented. Like to deal with the concrete.
Another way of looking at this would be if you wanted to learn how to ski (Martha Beck uses a similar analogy with crocheting) :
• Quick Start: If you’re a Quick Start who wants to ski, you’ll probably decide to go skiing, get a few quick tips from a friend who is an experienced skier – maybe take a short lesson, and jump right into trial and error knowing you will figure it out on your own.
• Fact Finder: You’ll spend hours researching about skiing – asking friends who ski, watching how to videos and surfing the web to find additional information before you actually go skiing.
• Implementor: You pay less attention to words than to concrete objects, so you might start a list of items that you need, even purchasing a pair of skis or skiing accoutrement – trying them all on in the living room to “get a feel” of them.
• Follow Thru: You’ll likely schedule several lessons with the best instructor you can find, and tackle the hills and slopes in the order of difficulty – putting to use the new information in a systematic way.
None of these approaches is right or wrong. In fact, the results of the Kolbe A report start with: Congratulations, you got a Perfect Score on the Kolbe A Index!
When I reflected on my last day and how it went, I could clearly see how my Conative Style came in to play. As a Quick Start, I just took a chance that it would all work out – not having something to go to may be downright terrifying for a Fact Finder, for example. They just couldn’t go there with me.
This gave me a great deal of insight in to why I WAS NOT happy there. Why I was always trying to explain my “crazy” ideas or have to slow down while others chewed over minute details. At long last, I had some clarity. I have some confidence moving forward as a Quick Start that my instinct to just jump in and try it ok – it is me. I will figure this Midlife thing out as I go. And all will be ok.