In short, there are three parts to the mind: Cognitive = thinking; Affective = feeling and Conative = doing.
Why is this important?
It's the key to happiness. We are designed to want to achieve, solve problems and to evolve.
We have all heard quotes like "It's the journey and not the destination." To better describe this sentiment, I would say, "It's having good problems to solve, problems that we can solve creatively and successfully, leading to outcomes that create a better experience of living, using something unique that we can contribute to the process."
To understand what Conative means and how it impacts our experience of working and living, we need to understand the three parts of the mind.
“Of course, emotions cause the desire to communicate while thoughts provide the content. However, it’s your conative instincts that drive how it plays out.”
Kathy Kolbe on Creative Problem Solving
THREE PARTS OF THE MIND
In the 4th century, experts in the field of psychology, Plato, Aristotle and Socrates identified the mind had three distinctive parts: conative, affective, and cognitive. These three parts make up our whole person. They represent how we feel, do, and think during our individual creative processes.
THE USE OF ASSESSMENT TOOLS
The three parts of the mind in the creative process combine and are unique from person to person, especially when you add their experiences into the mix. Because this knowledge of someone is hard to detect in a short window of time, one course of action is to use the help of reliable assessment tools to accelerate the learning.
The first modern intelligence test in IQ history was developed in 1904, by Alfred Binet and Theodore Simon, measuring the cognitive part of the mind. Quickly after, in 1917, objective personality testing began with Woodworth's Personal Data Sheet.
However, finding a way to measure the conative part of the mind proved more difficult, as this part of the mind encompasses the instinctive actions that are driven by our subconscious. You can not consciously assess the subconscious.
In 1987, Kathy Kolbe created the Kolbe Index to measure our actions. When under stress, the way we act is innate and we can observe instinctive patterns of behaviour that come from the subconscious.
“INSTINCTS ON THEIR OWN ARE A SUBCONSCIOUS FORCE AND CANNOT BE MEASURED, BUT WE CAN MEASURE THE ACTIONS WE SEE, OBSERVE AND REPORT.”
Kathy Kolbe
Organisations know they need to understand the skill and experience of their most important resource, their people. That's where Cognitive assessments come into play.
Then they go about trying to decide which Affective profiling tool to use. The Affective part of the mind influenced heavily the perception a person has, as researched paper Emotion and Perception: The Role of Affective Information by Jonathan R. Zadra and Gerald L. Clore presents.
Perception is changeable in an instant! Perception is not truth, nor is it logical or predictable.
Affective assessments are a valuable snapshot, should be done regularly (because the results they produce are ever changing) and require the foundation of the Conative resources of the organisation to achieve maximum potency.
Some examples of affective assessments are:
DiSC
ProfileXT (Behavioral Traits)
Myers-Briggs
Profiles Performance Indicator
Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Style
StrengthsFinder or
LSI
Unfortunately, organisations miss the Conative part of the mind entirely.
Conative talents are strengths. They are also things you cannot change, so learn about them, how they interact with communication and with others in your team. Lean into their predictability to create a culture of trust with yourself, your team and within your organisation, knowing how you will take action and how others will act around you when achieving a common goal.
Understanding your Conative strengths and those of others solves a large variety of biases in the workplace, fosters respect and supercharges collaboration.
The only validated Conative assessment tools are the Kolbe Indexes created by Kathy Kolbe and Kolbe Corp.
It is not a choice between which part of the mind do I measure? To successfully advance in this rapidly changing world, we must understand each individuals unique creative problem solving process, have real diversity to create synergistic teams. It's a choice as to what order you do them in.
At Trillium Consulting, we start with the Conative part of the mind, as it is the foundation to outstanding outcomes. It is unchanging, it is innate, it is predictable. Then we measure the affective.
Speak to us about understanding the Conative part of your mind.
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