New Internet-based Tool Can Predict the Outcome of Organizational Change with as High as 85% Accuracy.

Kolbe Warewithal Online Change Management Tool Earns 1999

'Global Best Practice' Award from the Management Centre Europe

PHOENIX, May 11 /PRNewswire/ -- Change may be inevitable, but it need not be disruptive or risky thanks to a new Internet-based tool that can predict the success of proposed organizational changes with as high as 85% accuracy. By measuring and analyzing human "conation," also described as instinct, or the human inclination to naturally strive toward something, Kolbe Warewithal(R) Online gives managers a powerful new tool for important decisions about recruiting and selection, developing high performance teams, leadership development, career management and enabling innovation.

Kolbe Warewithal Online, which was recently awarded a 1999 "Best Practice" designation by the Management Centre Europe (MCE), is an Internet-only companion to Kolbe's time-tested conation measurement and team building tools. The product analyzes data from individuals' results on the Kolbe A(TM) Index and makes recommendations for hiring and assigning people according to their conative strengths. The Kolbe A Index is a 36-question, multiple-choice instrument that has been tested and proven accurate in more than 200,000 applications.

"Organizational change, whether from management decisions, mergers and acquisitions, the introduction of new technologies or even business success, can be very costly and disruptive to an organization," said Kathy Kolbe, founder and CEO of Kolbe Corporation. "Kolbe Warewithal Online takes the guesswork out of making tough management decisions about who to hire, who to put on what team, or how to make assignments, by accurately identifying ahead of time what a person will or will not do. The result is better decision making and savings of thousands, if not millions of dollars over the life of an organization."

A Proven Change Management Tool

Kolbe's conative measurement tools have been proven successful and accurate in some of the world's largest and most forward-thinking companies and organizations, including Hershey Foods, Alaska Airlines, Allied Signal, Xerox, US Army, Royal Bank of Canada and Arthur Andersen. Eastman Chemical Corp., one of the first companies to adopt the original version of Kolbe Warewithal, used the product to compare actual results of its company-wide implementation of SAP software with Warewithal forecasts. According to Robert Dorsey, Ph.D., leader of Eastman Chemical's SAP implementation project, the forecast was extremely accurate.

"We were surprised that the predictions were as close to what we had foreseen in real life as they were. We were assuming they would have a ballpark accuracy, but it was much closer than that. We would have been satisfied with ballpark," he said. Since that time, Dorsey says his department will not put a team to work until they first estimate their probability for success using Kolbe Warewithal.

Ryan L. Thomas, Ph.D., vice president for Student Services and Campus Computing at Utah Valley State College in Orem, Utah, has spent more than seven years testing the statistical validity of Kolbe's measurement tools and methodologies. "One of the most important strengths of the Kolbe method is that it gives a manager a way to perform 'What if' testing to see how change will likely impact their organization. This enhanced capacity to forecast behavior and behavioral outcomes adds a critical dimension to a manager's ability to structure effective and profitable teams," he said. "Making the Kolbe Warewithal tools available on the Internet not only extends the tools to almost every team manager, human resources director, and organizational coach, but it provides immediate feedback and analysis in today's time-sensitive environment."

In presenting the 1999 MCE Global Best Practice award for the product, Kim Lafferty, Global Practice Manager for MCE and AMA said, "Kolbe's system is a breakthrough in both content and technology. It reliably predicts performance using an easily accessible delivery method that managers can use worldwide over the Internet. No other human resource system has its level of sophistication and applicability."

Conative Measurement Methods Statistically Proven to be Effective

Human instincts have been known to exist for centuries, but their usefulness has been routinely dismissed because reliable methods for measuring and harnessing them have been missing. Kolbe's research and testing into human conative abilities has withstood years of statistical testing and thousands of applications in hundreds of corporations, institutions of higher learning, government agencies, and other large organizations.

"The ability of a test to predict job-related performance is the most significant criterion in employment testing," said Thomas. "The Kolbe A Index has been used in a wide range of employment contexts and has achieved correlations with job-specific performance as high as eighty-five percent."

"Two things put Kolbe's approach in a class of its own: its focus on the innate instinctive talents of individuals to solve management issues; and the fact that it is so thoroughly researched and quantifiable," said Andrew Pek, Associate Partner of Andersen Consulting.

Free Online Demo

A free demo of Kolbe Warewithal Online can be found at www.kolbe.com. More information on the product is available by calling (602) 840-9770.

About Kolbe Corporation

Kolbe Corp., founded in 1975 by innovative entrepreneur, theorist and best-selling author Kathy Kolbe, is the world's leading provider of highly accurate, statistically proven performance-forecasting products and services. Kolbe products capture and analyze data about individuals' unchanging conative strengths and convert it into strategic information that is useful for decision making at the individual, manager, department, company, and enterprise level. Kolbe Corp's innovative concepts have been highly acclaimed by the media, including The Wall Street Journal, ABC Nightly News, USA Today, and CNN.

Privately held Kolbe Corp. is headquartered in Phoenix, Ariz.

Kolbe and Kolbe Warewithal are trademarks or registered trademarks of Kolbe Corp. All other brand names mentioned are trademarks of their respective holders.