Every year, organizations invest time and money to hire, train, and integrate new employees.
And yet, despite all these efforts, about 30% of hires fail within the first 18 months, and half of employees leave within two years when they don’t feel they fit.
Most of the time, this isn’t about skills or motivation.
It’s a matter of misalignment — the person, the role, and the structure simply don’t move in the same direction.
And alignment actually starts before hiring.
Even before day one, everything depends on the meeting of the three parts of the mind:
- What we feel and value (the heart, the affective part),
- What we know and understand (the head, the cognitive part),
- And how we naturally take action (the instinct to act, the conative part of the mind, called conation).
That last part — conation — often makes the difference between a smooth integration and a difficult start.
Why So Many Onboardings Fail Before They Even Begin
Managers often say:
“He’s not doing the work the way I expected.”
“She understands, but she’s too slow.”
“He lacks initiative.”
And yet, these people were hired for their skills and attitude.
So why does it happen?
Because we often forget to look at how a person naturally takes action.
That’s what we call the instinct to act — or conation: the natural way someone takes action, makes decisions, and solves problems.
Research by Kathy Kolbe shows that employees whose instinct to act is aligned with their role achieve substantially higher performance.
It also indicates that working against one’s instinct to act leads to:
- Increased stress,
- Slower integration,
- and a significantly higher level of mental fatigue.
Conation: The Inner Engine That Drives Action
Conation (the instinct to act) is the natural way each of us moves into action.
It’s what we do instinctively when we’re free to act in our own way.
- Some people jump in and learn by doing.
- Others prefer to observe before acting.
- Some need structure and clear steps.
- Others thrive on new ideas and flexibility.
These differences are not weaknesses.
They are the key to lasting performance, when we respect them.
When hiring takes conation into account, we’re no longer just looking for skills.
We’re looking for a natural fit with the team and the culture.
And that’s when everything becomes easier: less friction, more flow.
Hiring Without Alignment Disrupts the Whole Team
A misaligned hire is like a puzzle piece that doesn’t fit.
Even when competent, the person creates a natural imbalance:
- Decisions slow down,
- Processes fall apart,
- Emotional strain increases,
- Productivity drops.
And that individual misalignment quickly spreads through the team.
On the other hand, when you hire someone aligned with the three parts of the mind:
- The head understands,
- The heart engages,
- The instinct acts naturally.
- Turnover rates were more than twice as high for employees whose conative profiles did not match their roles.
- People who work outside their natural talents experience a great deal of stress. On the other hand, those who work in harmony with their natural instincts use their energy wiselyand maximize their performance.
Conation Makes Learning Easier
Bringing someone on board isn’t just about explaining a job.
It’s about creating mutual learning between the person and the environment.
When we respect each person’s natural way of acting:
- Training feels more intuitive,
- Mentoring flows more easily,
- Adaptation happens faster.
Here are four ways people learn, based on their instinct to act:
- Research and analyze.
- Try and experiment right away.
- Look for clear steps and structure.
- Learn by touching, building, or visualizing.
When we respect these natural styles, we prevent mental fatigue and help people build confidence faster.
Learning becomes smooth, lasting, and far more enjoyable.
Case Study: When Conation Reduced Turnover
A small accounting firm was struggling to keep employees in its tax-preparation department.
Turnover was high, training never stopped, and morale was low.
An analysis of the instinct to act required for the job revealed the kind of profile that naturally succeeds in this role.
By adjusting the hiring process to target those natural strengths, everything changed:
- Employees stayed longer,
- They adapted more quickly,
- And the team doubled its productivity.
Lesson learned: When you understand conation, you improve both people’s well-being and organizational performance.
How to Integrate Conation Into Hiring
High-performing organizations don’t hire just to fill a role.
They hire to create alignment.
Here’s what they do:
Define how the job needs to be done.
Some roles require structure, others creativity or speed.
Matching expectations with the right instinct to act avoids hiring errors.
Evaluate all three parts of the mind.
Look at what a person knows, feels, and does naturally.
Train managers.
Understanding the three parts of the mind helps them delegate, motivate, and support their teams better.
Pair the right mentors.
Combine complementary instincts: a structured thinker with a creative one, an experimenter with a planner.
Value diversity in action.
Don’t look for clones.
The variety of instincts is what builds real cohesion.
Hiring Differently Means Leading Differently
Alignment doesn’t start after hiring.
It begins during selection.
That’s where science meets humanity:
- The head understands,
- The heart engages,
- The instinct acts naturally.
When these three dimensions work together, work stops feeling like a struggle.
Energy flows, learning becomes natural, and performance follows.
What If Your Next Hire Became an Alignment Experience?
SPCTE supports leaders and teams at every step:
- Understand the three parts of the mind and their impact;
- Discover conative profiles to better recognize each person’s natural strengths;
- adjust roles and structures for smoother collaboration;
- train and coach managers to build truly aligned teams.
When people align, everything becomes possible.
Work flows again, and learning finds its natural place — movement instead of resistance.
