Today, our district invited those of us, "in the middle" to work with Julie Goldsmith from TeamWorks International to learn about the Four Color View, adapted from work by Carol Ritberger, Ph.D. and her "Color Personality Indicator" (CPI). The overarching concept is that the "color" of our personality influences how we relate to one another, and the more we understand about ourselves and our colleagues, the better we will be able to interact and improve the culture of our organizations.TeamWorks believes that the Four Color View is a "lens for the different stages of Decision Making, Whole System View, and Guiding Change components of the Frameworks.
An overview of the day:
Self Awareness
- Authority and Power
- Operating in the Present
- Growth and Transition Framework
Group Awareness
- Leadership Choices Framework
- Decision Making Framework (group)
- Growth and Transition Framework
- Participation Framework
System Awareness
- Decision Making Framework
- Transition and Change Framework
We began by looking at Self-Awareness, to see what color is our personality.
These are the traits and characteristics. Traits are hard wired into us, characteristics are learned behaviors. Our personality is determined through our experiences, education, culture and family blended in our brain.
Based on the answers I gave, my score indicated:
Red: 3 Yellow: 12 Orange: 12 Green: 21
Characteristics of Greens are: Intuitive, Creative, like gathering information with Pictures and intuition, Use feelings and emotions to process information and make decisions, and primarily operate in the right brain. They like to look at the "big picture", and randomly explore data which I do! Greens can also be "chameleons", living in other colors for a time, but also cannot last in that color very long without feeling stress.
Reds like to "get er done!", gather information through the senses, use thinking and logic to process information and make decisions and operate primarily in the left brain.
Orange people wish folks could "just get along", gather information through the senses, use feelings and emotions to process information, and make decisions, cross from left to right brain for decision making.
Yellows gather information using both intuition and senses, primarily use logic to process information, will also use feelings, but not as much, and are hardwired in ALL four quadrants of the brain. Yellows might be thought of as the "devil's advocate." They sometimes are slower decision makers because of the way they process.
When working with people whose dominant color is different, knowing characteristics about their color can assist us in understanding differences and conflict, and how best to work and interact with one another.
We completed an interesting scenario, where we were given $30,000 for new technology in the district, and were asked to develop a description questions about first steps for our color to solve the problem, what aspects of the process would trouble us, what part of the process we would find rewarding, what good things others would say about us, and what complaints others have about us.
After a break, we looked at data from Ritberger and Teresa Heck from St. Cloud State University on "Other Awareness."
| General Population | Licensed Teaching Staff | |
| Red: 85% | Orange: 40-50% | |
| Orange: 7% | Green: 30-40% | |
| Green: 6% | Red 5-8% | |
| Yellow: 2% | Yellow:3-5% |
This data may explain the disconnect between parents and educators and how we perceive one another. It also gives good information to help frame problems/solutions with education reform.
Communication with both verbal and non-verbal cues can be impacted by our personality.
We then started looking at how communication works best with each of the colors. I questioned some of the date in regards to presentation and each color type. This got me thinking about Gar Reynold's and Presentation Zen, and some of the data presented regarding learners and images vs. text presented at ISTE by Ian Jukes. If the general population really is dominantly red, what does that say? Julie mentioned that the inventory is most effective with people over age 14-15, where parental and peer influence may be less of a factor.
If we are not heard, responded to and understood, we are end up responding according to our color lens on the world.
Next we looked at conflict, and how it can arise based on our personality color. One of my colleagues made a great point that where your positional authority is within the organization can influence your reaction to the conflict.
Partnership
Through active partnering, there is better balance, greater commitment to the outcome and more successful results.
Peer Coaching
How do we communicate, solve problems and lead other colors? Our activity involved beginning with a "storyteller" who shared a situation, 1 minute sharing of the situation with 9 minutes of peer coaching. We discussed situations where we in the middle have to be the "messenger" and have to present data to different color types. NCLB is such a "red" designed mandate, and we as teachers are much more "orange" and "green."
Knowledge of our own color personality and the color personality of those we work with in an organization can profoundly impact how we work together, and the process of how we work on different initiatives.
Ric Dressen our superintendent hopes that we can use this framework to guide us, understanding the importance of "what", "why" and "who" before we look at "how."
Some take-aways from our group:
- The context of relationships and how it can impact the work that we do
- Dealing with differing opinions in a non-threatening way
- Value of team perspectives
- We can be chameleons, but that we need to recognize the stress of working outside our color, and our need to recharge.
- Different definitions of process/trust.
- Language that is helpful to those we work with. This can help us recognize how to best help those whose colors are different from our own.
- "Re-Languaging"-reframe language when we default to our own.
- How do we build cultural capital and competency capital with people in differing groups.
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