In this insightful episode, Susan Angermann joins Kirsten Graham and Jeanne Willson to reveal the missing link to unlocking your full potential — understanding your natural abilities and how they influence your success, productivity, and relationships.

Discover how to optimize your mental energy, improve productivity with less stress, and identify your unique way of taking action so you can work smarter, not harder. Susan shares practical insights on communication styles in relationships, relationship effectiveness and communication, and how personal development and self-awareness can transform both your business and personal life.

You’ll also learn how recognizing your natural talents and productivity patterns helps you align with your strengths and manage your mindset and energy for lasting success.

Helpful Links:

Workstyle Consulting

Connect with Susan Angermann

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Welcome to the six Figure Business Mastery Podcast, where every week

Kirsten and Jeannie dive into the essential topics to fuel your business

growth, from copywriting to course creation mindset, to video marketing.

They've got you covered.

Tune in for expert guest interviews on all things marketing and

business, and learn how to work on your business, not just in it.

So get ready to unlock your business potential and take it to the next level.

Hello everyone, and welcome to today's episode.

If you are burned out, stuck, or struggling to communicate, your natural

way of working might be the missing link.

So I'm excited to introduce you to our guest today, Susan Angerman.

Her company is Workstyle Consulting, and we're gonna talk about your missing links.

Thanks for joining us today, Susan.

It's lovely to have you.

Thank you very much.

It's lovely to be here.

It's been planned for a while, and I'm excited that it's finally happening.

Sid, we met at a networking event.

I found out that one of the tools that you use to help people build their

businesses is Kolby Test, and Jeanie and I took that test about 15 or 16 years ago.

I think I took it a little, I think it was, or you did.

And Michelle and I took it.

Then Jeanie took it, but it was a real eyeopener.

So I was so excited to find out that's one of the tests that you work with

to help people understand their unique gifts and how to communicate better.

So we are really excited about today's conversation.

Good.

Thank you.

Me too.

And yes, I discovered this, oh gosh, it's been a good many years ago, I think

back in 2004, and I was introduced to it.

I took the Kolbe A assessment, and Kolbe is K-O-L-B-E.

That can be confusing to people, but it was so validating, and when I say

missing link, it really did show me.

Where I needed to be focusing my actions for me.

And you get personality tests that you learn about yourself and, and

that's necessary and good, but it's not always highly visible

and your day-to-day actions.

And then of course your skills, your experiences, your cognitive

skills, that's all there.

But again, it's not available in every action you take.

The thing about this that got me was how to put those two ends together.

And that's why I call it the missing link.

And it is it only to how people take action when they're

trying to accomplish tasks.

So that's the differentiator and the true value of it.

It's the only assessment out there that does that.

So.

Then I was like, yes, this is a wonderful thing.

Other people need to know about it.

What insight did you get about your personal kolby results

as far as how you take action?

Because when we're working in that space where we're taking action the

way we're meant to, we're in flow and things are easy, but if we don't know

that, we're often beating our heads against the wall of trying to take action

like someone else or do things the way other people do it when that's not our

ability or our strength, so to speak.

What did you find out about yourself?

That's, you're exactly right.

We do try to follow other people's way of doing things that we've been taught

that this is the right way or this is the best way, or here's how it works

in our world, all that sort of thing.

But for me, the best part was two things I got out of it.

One was.

Don't try to work on only one thing at a time.

You know that whole, I need to go in and spend the next four to six hours just

sitting down working on this project.

No.

And the other one was, don't try to finish everything you start so you can

jump around from one thing to the other.

And this was just like a weight off my shoulders.

'cause I had been battling how to.

Follow systems, how to just ask more questions, do more

research, and none of that is me.

So it was very freeing and that is the whole thing, the freedom to be yourself.

That's great, but it just goes against everything that you've heard.

Don't work on one thing at a time where they always say, get rid of

all distractions and just work on one thing and then don't finish it

from necessarily have to finish it.

From start to finish.

And that's usually what we're told.

So that's fascinating.

Yes, and it really works.

I know when I was doing costume shot management in the theater, I'm a

person who thrives on interruptions.

Some people don't.

But I always loved it and everybody came into the costume shop and talked to us,

and I always had chocolate for everyone.

That was my way of connecting and talking to people was my way of communicating.

Not in writing, not with charts and graphs, but talking and handling things.

It is funny because some people can't handle interruptions.

They need that focus, but again, it just goes to show how different we all are.

That's when I did the kolby and found out like I'm very high in quick start,

like I think I'm a nine in quick start and it just was so interesting because.

I need very little information.

I make decisions quickly, but it really helped me understand that most

people don't move that fast and that I need to slow down and really take

the time to explain things to people, or just realize that not everyone

moves at the speed of lightning.

And it's probably good because you need people who are gonna get more

information and follow through a little bit more than I do.

So it is fascinating when you understand that these strengths aren't, they're

not competitive with each other.

Like when we work together as teams in a business.

Having people with all the different strengths is really empowering.

And one of the things I found out early on was as soon as you understand this

and understand how you take action, you really begin to relate to other people

differently, quickly, because now you see that not everybody is like you

or like the plan, and that begins to.

The baby steps towards improving that communication

through using this assessment.

Tell us a little bit more about the test itself.

I know it comes out with numeric responses, but can

you read that a little bit?

If either one of you have your results handy that you can hold up, that's useful.

Thank you.

Great.

And you can see they're different.

This is the Kolby A assessment, which is the baseline, the

fundamental for all of the work.

Beyond that, any other supporting assessment and reports and

programs all through the system.

Everybody starts with the kolby A, and that evaluates you in four

different modes and helps you know.

In four different ways where you are on a continuum and there's

no better, there's no worse.

There's no right, no wrong.

It's how you take action when you're trying to accomplish

something that you care about.

And that could be at work, that could be at home, volunteer work, anything.

But it's broken down into four areas.

One is fact finder, which is how you gather.

Information and research.

The next is follow through, which is about timelines and

plans and organizing information.

So it deals with what happened before.

Where are we now?

Where do we wanna go?

Laying out plans in that way and organizing the quick start, which I am

like Kristen is about the risk taking.

Dealing with uncertainty, being available for planning, brainstorming,

any of that sort of thing, to give you the energy to move something forward.

And then the implementer.

The last one, which is more about hands-on, these are the people who

build things, who fix the equipment, the person you call to unstick the copier

at the office, that sort of thing.

There are four very distinct areas and it's where you land in each of

those four areas that brings the picture of you and how you take action.

And everywhere you are on that continuum is a strength.

If you are in the say, two or three on a quick start, that means you

stabilize and avoid a lot of risk that people like me might just.

Go jump off the cliff.

It's interesting because for example, on follow through, I'm a three and

Jeanie's a four, so we're both a little low in that area, so to speak,

but I think that's not, not low.

It's important to remember that.

That means, let's see, one to three would mean that you adapt to systems,

so there will be a system that you need to follow that you seek.

It doesn't quite work for you and you adapt to working with that.

Jeanie being one number for lack of a better way of

describing into the mid range.

The react range means that she maintains systems and can go either way.

She can adapt or she can develop a little bit, but basically she

maintains going systems and it's a fine division there and you can both work.

Both directions on that.

So there's not a big gap to that.

I think what we have found is we both love delegating, right?

So we're very good delegating.

I wanna get a project to about 60, maybe 80%, and then I wanna hand it off.

So I think that's where things that we definitely we're very good at

creating systems, ideally for our team to follow and for us to be able.

I love the saying you manage.

You lead people, you manage task, right?

So we're very good at creating systems to manage tasks that

our team is expected to do.

So between the two of us, we're pretty good at creating those systems.

And Jeanie's definitely the one who maintains them.

But yeah, I think it's just interesting in the areas where we're alike.

And then the areas where we're, and what you've tapped into there

is your energy, your middle energy is what you really want to manage.

A lot of people say, will this help me save time?

And I'm like.

No, we don't deal with time that much.

There's ways that different modes react to time, but what you're really

managing is your mental energy.

I like, and the consulting part of what I do is the assessments and reports.

The coaching aspect of it is now working with people who are taking this

information and I want to help them implement it into their own situations.

Support them in this journey long term.

I don't want it to be an assessment that you take and put in the drawer

and never look at it again, because it's all action oriented right

from the first time you take it.

But your energy, you can replace, you can take breaks, you can refresh.

Energy will come back.

And when you're into delegating, that's the important thing because now

you're gonna delegate to particular.

People who have the way of taking action on that particular task or project.

So what I'm hearing from while reading articles about where teamwork is

this point in time in businesses, in their interested in teamwork,

productivity, it's less about hours on the job, but it's about effective

productivity and how to best use.

The talents and strengths of an individual to get things done without

making everybody crazy and burned out and overworked and unhappy and looking

for a new job and all that good stuff.

That's true when you get to stay in your lane of the things that

where you have your strengths, it definitely feels better though.

Like we said, you trying to work on one thing for four or five hours,

Susan would make you go crazy.

So being able to have collaboration among teams.

You're leveraging everyone's strengths, I think is so powerful.

Another part of it is understanding that the way you operate is a real need.

You need to do this.

You need to dig into the research.

If you are in the fact finder mode, you really need to do that.

Not everybody's gonna do that, and you don't wanna push that on them.

And also someone that has a lot of the follow through.

Planning, organizing structure needs that time and they need uninterrupted time.

So different people have different ways of addressing their needs

and communicating that to others.

And it's a good thing to do is to let others know you need to do it your

way, but then communicate it their way.

Ooh, I like that.

You just picked the one that we're probably, there's two categories

that were far off, like FactFinder, I'm a seven and Kirsten's a four.

Kristen as a four, in fact Finder would be wasting her time to try to dig into

all the details in depth instead of saying, Jeanie, this is your field.

This is your wheelhouse.

Can you do some research for me and get back to me with your kind of bottom

line results so I can help me move on?

So it's a balance between.

And the thing you don't wanna do is, this is how I do it,

this is how you should do it.

And Jeanie, I'll be interested to, to hear your thoughts on

it, because I do love going down rabbit holes and searching things.

So I definitely enjoy information.

I don't necessarily wanna follow through with what has to be done with it.

I could an hour searching and then I can do the clip notes of what I found.

Would you agree with that?

Like I, I definitely do put more fact finding than what will be indicated.

Yeah, no, I would definitely agree with that.

Yeah.

So I know we talked about quick start.

So Kirsten is a nine, which she thought earlier.

I'm a six.

So again, we're three off there.

So what would you say about that?

You are in that middle range that is a react mode.

So you can do some stabilizing when necessary and you can certainly.

Do some of the brainstorming coming up with ideas and relating and

understanding to that way of operating.

So you're not gonna just shut Kirsten down because of crazy

ideas or anything like that.

You can take him in, go, yeah, maybe, or hear, let's see what happened before

when we tried something like that.

Does that apply?

Now you can evaluate and test out.

Respond to ideas and the uncertainty in that way without being avoiding risk

or wanting to not change anything, but more in the flexibility range of that.

Yeah, because I think, Judy, you bring good ideas.

You definitely like to brainstorm and stuff as well.

Yeah, I like to learn like you do.

I'm definitely a fact finder, like you said, but yeah, I like to

bring thoughts or opinions or, and I'm the one who's gonna say what.

Think about that actually, Kristen says, let me think about that.

But I will say that depends.

Oh that I feel like that's definitely me.

Yes.

Now the report, you held up that with the two of you on the chart, I think

that's one of the best things about this.

'cause it takes two people compares their A index results and

highlights where they are different.

Where they work effectively together and where they're going to have some

conflict and it's got a lot of tips and action in it on how to deal with that.

And it's one of the best and most useful first steps after people take their

Colby a index, the foundational index.

We need to thank you 'cause you gave us an updated version, you took our

original results and I don't think we had this back in the beginning.

I think this comparison, what we had, so this has been really helpful.

And it's funny because I think because we've had this information for a long time

and we understood it, 15, 16, I dunno, 20 years ago, how long it's been now.

But it is interesting 'cause Jeanie and I have been business partners

for a long time, which is never easy.

Right.

We joke, we get along tremendously well unless we have

to write saal copy together.

And then we joke that we bick, we bicker like 6-year-old.

And that's just different communication styles.

And it's because neither of us are great at copywriting and

neither of us really wanna do it.

So it's really fascinating to figure out how to, you know, how we have been

able to use this information over the years to not have a lot of conflict.

Yes.

And I think too, each mode has a different way of communicating fact finder.

Is about written information.

Fact finders will write research, read long emails, typing.

I can tell when I'm reading a fact finder's email.

It goes on forever.

Now.

Come on now, it goes on forever in a very detail.

Yes, it is.

What I'll get to the bottom of the email and discover

those details, but not always.

So that's why your best shot as a fact finder working with someone who is

not, is to put all that information there, but start out with the bullet

points of the results of your research.

So I, as a quick start, can go, boom.

Yep, I agree with that.

If I need more information, I know where to get it.

Follow through is about planning.

They'll look at what happened before, where are we now,

and where do we need to go?

So that's where you can lay out calendars, graphs, schedules, plans, long term,

short term, all of that planning.

And then that's also the person who needs some quiet time to do

all of that thinking through.

A whole range of time.

The quick start, our way of communicating is through talking.

I don't know who it was, whether it was Kathy Colby who first mentioned it, and I

agree with it, is I don't really know what I'm thinking until it's out of my mouth.

It's just, it's verbal.

It's, that's how.

I need bottom line stuff to quickly move forward, and then I'll go

back and get more information.

Yeah, that and then the implementer, it's all hands on.

It's people who are either visualize a result, but don't handle it.

Build it, build wonderful, detailed, beautiful things, or restore,

repair, fix things and keep the ball rolling with tangibles.

A good place to delegate.

Let's talk about this.

Let's plan the time to talk about this so we could fuck it out.

And when she says it out loud, like you, I think it, it either solidifies

it or it, it can change a little bit.

Yeah.

Or falling in line.

Falling in line with yourselves.

That's the important thing.

And one of the reasons I tapped into this so quickly and realized the

value is it's all about taking action.

So it hap it's, once you know this information, you intuitively start

putting it into action immediately.

'cause you can't help it.

You just learn and understand more about yourself.

Then my, my fun thing is now working with a team, working with more people

and seeing all the different energies that come through the team, and

then how to help them understand.

How to engage that energy from everybody to keep them in their work, to keep

them happy, to keep them doing.

I love that.

It's interesting that you keep bringing up energy.

And yesterday I tried something new.

I had eight appointments, so I had a really busy back to back kind of day.

So sometimes if I, in the past if had 15 to 20 minutes, I would try to go into

emails or I would try to do things, but the problem was I think I was shifting,

like my mind was just too busy all day.

So yesterday I tried something new when I had extra time, I did

manual chores, I did laundry.

I put sheets back on the bed.

So I felt like that was helpful because I felt like I was more focused

on those meetings I was in, and I wasn't pulled in so many directions.

And so I'm starting to really understand how we can balance our energy.

And then when I finished the calls yesterday, I did have some energy and

space to go and do what I needed to do, which was mostly just plan what I was

gonna do this morning to get caught up.

So when you're talking to people just about their energy as a whole,

are there other things that they can do once they have this information?

Can help them optimize, for lack of a better word, because

we all need to be productive.

We all, it seems like technology was supposed to make our lives is

easier, but for busier than ever.

I think once someone has this result, keeping it in front of them, I give

everybody a little print out of the bar in a little stand that they can put on

their desk to keep it in front of them.

Because when you first hear about it, yeah, you relate

to it, but you don't always.

How to incorporate it immediately into your day-to-day practices.

Keeping that in front of you, keeping that visual in front of you

and remembering that, yes, there is this thing going on that can help

me, I think is like a first step.

There are a lot of tips and information in the results in the

different re reports that have suggestions of how you can begin to.

Identify and implement this kind of energy in your day to day.

And there's also, if you notice on the bottom of the bar chart,

there is a printout of an arrow and it has the four colors.

But seeing that tells you where you're going to spend

most of your energy initially.

And then where you're going to go next energy wise and on down the line and where

you're going to spend the least energy on a project based on how you take action.

And I thought that was a very powerful addition visually to get in touch with.

My energy is here and that's just what I gotta do.

But then the right time will come.

And I know, I don't know Jeannie if this happens to you, but a lot of fact

finding can get into analysis paralysis.

Absolutely.

Before you just ly you feel like you don't ever have enough information, you

have to set yourself deadlines, you know when to move on, that sort of thing.

And it also helps to have a business partner because I was going in circles

and circles when I was working on my own.

And then when.

I met Kirsten and she was mentoring me.

It was, it was amazing just to have someone there who could say, who

was a quick start, who could say, yep, that's the right direction,

or Did you think about this?

Because yeah, the analysis for all is a real thing.

Yeah, it is a real thing.

And yeah, and it can slow you down needlessly, and yet it's important to be

aware of that, but also to understand that you do have a real need to do research.

So.

If you're working in a team, you are working with others, you

give them the research, you set that up, they're ready to go.

Then you can go back and do some more research on your own.

Just for fun.

Now I know what you're with your days.

I'm joking.

Oh my gosh.

That's so funny though.

It's awesome when you have somebody who is different than you because

you can lean on their strengths.

Right?

And I think that's very powerful and I can see how, especially working with bigger

companies that have really large teams, how that can have such a huge impact.

I do have a question though, because we've only done the Kby A. Can you

tell us a little bit the Kby B, is that the next test in the series?

Yes, it is.

The Kby B is your way of looking at how you see your job needing to be done at

this point, and comparing the B to the A tells you where your natural energy is,

where you function in each of the modes.

As opposed to what you think you're supposed to be doing and

when there's differences there.

That's a great starting point for helping people understand where to

make some shifts, to get their work, their day, their time, aligned with

what they contribute best, and then how to work with the other parts.

It may just mean trading tasks with somebody else.

It may mean getting help in, but in a specific area, but that taps into the

energy 'cause if you find that you're very low energy on things and you're

struggling to get something done, that's a good sign that you really need to see.

Is that in my strength?

Is that something that I'm struggling with and can I get help with

that so that I can really thrive in what I have best to offer?

But B is like the great next step for anybody.

Oh, I was just, just maybe think about when, when I was working with Kirsten

and I didn't wanna do bookkeeping, I knew it wasn't something crazy.

It's not brain surgery, it's numbers and putting 'em in the right place.

But I would come into my office and I would have a pile of receipts

and I, every time I looked at it, I had guilt and shame and, but I

still couldn't get myself to do it.

So was when I outsourced it that I went.

Well, I feel so much better.

Like that responsibility was gone and I could be more creative and I could dig

into the fact finding that I wanted to do.

That's right.

You got it.

That's a perfect example and you can feel that difference.

You can feel it big time right away.

Yep.

Without a doubt.

Yeah, that was great.

We get to help people delegate things that are not their unique abilities,

that are not their strengths, and to have that to be empowered.

So like with bookkeeping, you don't have to do your own books, but it does

make sense for you to meet with your bookkeeper every month and really go

through your numbers and your profit and loss that start to put that hat of CFO on.

So that you can build a bigger business or a more stable business, but knowing

you don't have to do everything yourself and that you really shouldn't,

if it just sucks your energy drive, it's not like your space of strength.

Give it to someone who loves bookkeeping.

There are people out there who love that stuff crazy to us when and R and Creed.

Yeah.

And thank goodness for them because they do a lot better job than I do.

Susan outta curiosity, is there tests beyond the B, or

is it just the A and the B?

Now, the next that you get into really is for teams, managers, supervisors

especially, and that's the Colby C, and that is an assessment on how that person

then manager, supervisor, owner, whatever, sees a particular job needing to be done.

And that leads into the hiring component.

That Kolby has, it's a program called fit.

It is legal for you to base hiring on because it is strictly task oriented.

So what happens is a boss needs help, needs to hire somebody, so

they take the kolby C. Based on that information, they can then have a

better, more thorough job description.

About not just the tasks of the job, but the kind of energy and way of operating

of someone to do that job successfully.

There's the CA candidate you bring in, you, you interview people, you find

2, 3, 4 people that you really like and think would be a good fit for the

company, but then you have them take the Colby A and compare the Colby a.

With the results of what the job really needs, and there's a report

that summarizes and actually gives a letter and grade to the candidates

to who's going to be the best match task-based for that position.

That's very powerful because what can happen is people are good at interviewing.

They'll tell you anything sometime to get the job, then they get in

and they're wonderful people and you really like them and all of that, but.

They're not really doing the tasks effectively of that specific position.

So you'd like to avoid that 'cause that avoids turnover.

And also it highlights what they're good at.

And if you've hired them and brought them in, then maybe there's another position

in the company where they would shine.

And that's all very valuable information.

So it's never to be used about to get rid of anyone.

But to find their strengths and to set them up for success, and that's

so important is expensive, right?

Having turnover is very expensive.

So for a business to hire the right person from the start, or if you've

hired someone without doing the research.

To be able to give them that test and then think, okay, how can I best utilize

their strengths in this company so that they'll be happier and more productive?

And obviously that's a win for both the person and the company.

So yeah, it's important.

It is important.

It really just makes a big impact.

And I know that in the past, a lot of emphasis and still is based on

the known quantity of personality assessments and the score, of

course, the skills and experience.

But that's not the whole story.

And the successful companies are finding out how bring this in to fill

in that action gap between the two.

I love that.

So Susan, if people would like to work with you, what's,

where can they reach you?

I think the easiest place is go might a website or style consulting.com.

I can certainly get more information there and there are

many ways there to contact me.

Let you know you wanna talk.

We can set up like a. Free 30 minutes.

Little chat about what are you looking to do, where are you in

this, what are you interested in?

What piqued your interest about this information, and then see

where they can go from there.

Email is Susan at workstyle one word consulting.com, and

I love to hear from people.

Yeah.

Can they take the KOLBY test from your website?

Is there a link there?

No, there is not.

They would need to contact me directly and then I can figure

out, first of all what they need, what they're trying to accomplish.

'cause that's important.

My whole goal is to build the relationships and discover where people

are and how I can best help them.

Then yes, I have, I license the software to distribute.

That to send someone a link to take the assessment.

Then I get it back and they get it so I can begin to really review

it and understand what they're working with, and then I want to

set up time with them to review it.

I'll begin to put it in place.

I have a follow up schedule plans, I can answer questions as they

really begin to dig into this.

And keep them on board.

The basic Kolbe system as it's set up right now is four parts.

One is identify your personal strengths, optimize those so that you're getting

yourself in a better position.

Then taking it into teens of any kind.

Could be work, could be a board.

You know that you're on.

Anything to align your strengths with other people's strengths.

Then into the hiring component that really begins to build teams and onboard people

effectively and all that good stuff.

This is fantastic, Susan.

Yeah, 'cause just taking the test there, there's only so

much information it gives you.

Even just talking to, to you today has been, uh, opening up

all kinds of great information and ways to interpret the numbers.

So that's so great that you offer that.

Yeah.

Good.

Yeah, you can always set up a chat with me and we'll talk more about it.

I love to talk about it.

I love that.

That's great.

Susan.

We are so grateful that you came on today, and I know that people are listening, are

excited and interested in learning more.

So we will put a link to your website and to book a chat with you in the show notes.

Thank you so much for joining us today.

Thank you.

This has been great fun.

Thanks.

Thanks for listening to the six Figure Business Mastery Podcast.

If you enjoyed listening to this episode and you are ready to leverage video

marketing on all online platforms, or maybe even start your own video

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