High performing practice teams – personality profiling
Every successful team needs strong leadership and good team players, but what type of leadership is needed and what characters are needed within the team? In an ideal world a new manager and team would be selected by personality profiling. There are several methods of personality profiling available such as the Hartman Value profiling and Colour Code personality science. Unfortunately, most of us don’t have the privilege of starting with a fresh team so we must make the most of what we have.
As a practice owner or manager it is important to understand your own personality. Why do somethings upset you and other things don’t? What is your innate driving core motive? Learn why others respond to you in the way they do. What is it that creates conflict in your business and personal relationships, and how can you change it?
For your team, discover how personality types interact with each other. Learn how each personality engages teams, business and life situations.
Colour coding
Using the colour code science there are four different personalities: gold, green, blue and orange. The four different colours represent characteristic categories. Everyone’s personality contains each colour, but one colour may be more dominate than any of the others in your personality.
Those with Orange colour personality strengths tend to be witty, spontaneous, generous, optimistic, eager and bold. They need fun, variety, stimulation and excitement. Freedom to act is also important to an Orange. Oranges have energy and like to bounce around to different projects or tasks. They also are good at overcoming barriers in their work and are out-of-box thinkers. Oranges need flexibility in choosing how tasks are completed. When working with Oranges, it is important to challenge their imagination and celebrate their successes, especially if taking risks is part of it. Give Oranges opportunities to express themselves, act quickly, use institution and take risks.
Golds can be good with money and like to have things balanced and on track. Golds are good organisers and have ideas on how things can be done in a certain way. Time is important to Golds, they don’t like to waste it and every minute is important. Golds can manage time well as well as prioritise and work efficiently. When working with Golds, it is important to give them opportunities to take and display responsibilities, be a service to others, demonstrate leadership and organise things or people.
Those with Green colour personality strengths tend to be perfectionistic, analytical, conceptual, cool, calm, inventive and logical. They seek knowledge and understanding as well as always looking for explanations and answers. Greens can be good researchers – looking for facts and asking lots of questions. Greens have a large vocabulary and can argue both sides of an issue. Often, Greens take the time to concentrate and give correct answers. Greens like mind games that challenge their thinking. When working with Greens, it is important to give feedback on the quality of their work and recognise their capabilities and ideas. Give them opportunities to learn and build competencies and logical process and let them explore options.
Those with Blue colour personality strengths tend to be enthusiastic, sympathetic, communicative, compassionate, idealistic, sincere and imaginative. They care and want to contribute to everything they are a part of. Relationships are important to blues. Blue personality temperaments can be good listeners, talk about the possibilities and like to do new things. Conflict or disharmony can upset a Blue. They show concern for feelings in others and have tactful ways of communicating. When working with Blues, it is important to reassure them of their self-worth and recognise their accomplishments. It is also important to be empathetic with them as well as believe and trust them. Give Blues opportunities to demonstrate creativity, work with and mentor others and communicate.
It is important to remember that people are not all one colour but have all four colours. Some people are more dominate in one. Learning to observe clues can be helpful when working with people, to figure out what colour they may be. Clues can come in what you hear and what you see.
Communicating with other people is sometimes the most frustrating part of our day. Misunderstandings can happen between people who are complete strangers and between individuals who know each other very well; all this boil down to a lack of communication and a lack of active listening.
Learning how to adapt, communicate and interact with others is something we work on our entire lives. When you begin to dive into understanding your personality type more, you’ll unconsciously begin to notice certain character traits in other people as well. Spotting these strong character traits can help you along the way to more effective communication and cooperation within the team of different personality.
When you are familiar with the four colour personalities system, you can begin to categorise the team into their specific personality type as well as yourself. Knowing what your personality type is gives you a baseline for understanding how you will interact and react with people who have a different or opposite personality type from you. You may even realise that interacting with someone of your same character type is the most frustrating situation. The flip side of positive interactions with other people is knowing what behaviours aren’t going to be good for either of you. Try to play to the strengths of the other person.
Find out more about personality profiles:
Tedx Talk by Scott Schwefel – Your personality and your brain
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=75&v=rPszqOmtV8g
For more on colour coding
https://www.insights.com/products/insights-discovery/