It was all in preparation for an exercise we were doing at a
Company of Women dinner. Now interactive
sessions are always a bit of a gamble, especially if the people there really
don’t want to play. Fortunately, the
women were more than ready to tap into their creativity and go with the flow.
Divided into groups by industry, the task was for the
different teams to brainstorm ways that they could work together and upon
reaching consensus, build a Lego structure that would best illustrate their
proposed project.
It was actually quite fascinating and served to remind me of
how when we chose a career we naturally gravitate towards work that suits our
personality style. I am actually a trained True Colours/Personality Dimensions
Trainer but it’s not something I have done in some time, yet that’s really what
we did on Tuesday night.
We had three groups – Business to Business (B2B), Health and
Beauty and Home/Finances and each model revealed the underpinnings of the
participants’ personality style.
True to form, the folks who made up the B2B group, developed
a business toolbox, through which small business owners could remove the chaos
in their lives. This group represented virtual assistants, bookkeepers, graphic
designers and HR specialists, all of whom are organized, and detailed oriented.
They’d thought through their business plan and done the math.
At the other end of
the spectrum, the Health and Beauty group which was made up of spa owners, life
coaches and health service providers were more interested in reaching out and
helping other women feel better about themselves. They wanted to reduce the
sense of isolation for women going through
cancer, divorce, abuse, etc…
Money never even came up in the discussion.
Five minutes prior to the end of the exercise, the
group, mainly made up of financial
professionals, had no sculpture on the board. Nothing. But one of the team quickly erected a
creative model that represented their project.
This group wanted to develop a website that would provide
people with vital information which would assist them in connecting to
professionals in the instance of a difficult life situation such as cancer
diagnosis or an accident. They’d worked on revenue streams to make the project
financially viable and where they differed from the Health and Beauty Team was
that their project focused on providing education and information, whereas the
other group wanted the women to feel better through the services provided.
Despite their tardy
start, the financial planners won.
This exercise truly reminded me of the validity of
personality type programs as each group was consistent to their colour
type. The B2B group were gold –
organized, structured and wanting to help, while the Health and Beauty team
were blue, the colour most interested in supporting people and for whom, money
is a necessary evil. This group finds it
hard to invoice or chase up payments.
And as for the financial planners, they were green – life
long learners who take a logical approach, spending more time on planning so
that when they deliver, every detail has been thought through.
Now we did have one
colour missing– oranges – they would be your event planners, actors, performers
or recreation specialists.
Years ago I did a similar exercise with a group of seniors,
assigning them with the task of designing the perfect centre for seniors. It was equally fascinating to see how people
of all ages and backgrounds, still came forward with suggestions that were so
true to their personality styles.
What did they come up with?
The oranges wanted a multi-rail system that would take them to the
different recreational activities offered throughout the facility. The blues – the romantics, wanted a dating
service. The golds wanted storage space and the greens, well they were still
thinking about it.
All of which goes to show that when we choose the right
career for ourselves, we are being true to our personality style.
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