YOU’RE NOT ONLY A BLUE, you also have strong secondary characteristics of the Red personality. And you have tested as a Color Q Introvert, which means you recharge your batteries by being alone, rather than being with others. Much, but not all, of this material will focus on human and emotional subjects, which your Color finds irritating. You will be more open to this if you are in the second half of your life, but will need it more if you are younger. But since you respond to new ideas, the aim will be to surprise you with our accuracy.
Did the paragraph above surprise you? Okay, let’s see what else we can say to rock your highly logical world. After all, you are open-minded. Mental stimulation is as necessary to you as breathing. Color Q is a new derivative of a decades-old, tried-and-true system of personality profiling. It goes back to concepts proposed by Carl Jung. There are a lot of perspectives in here for you to debate, so get a friend to read this chapter with you and go at it from all angles. You’re good at that.
Your group of friends is small, but intimate. Few see your real feelings. Emotional stuff is usually last on your list, but many of your friendships are formed over shared projects. Privacy is important, though, because when concentrating on something, you find interruptions irritating. So just view reading this as a new project on which you’ve decided to risk 20 minutes (or fewer; it’s likely you skim or read fast).
New projects draw you like a magnet, often propelling you to the cutting edge of your field. Independent, resourceful, and a skeptic at heart, you are unafraid to take controversial positions.
It’s necessary for you to have flexibility to critique, redesign, and improve—whether others understand or agree with your changes is irrelevant. You are confident of your ability to improvise your way through difficult problems that you doubt others even understand. Project follow-through, however, is of low interest.
Your unusual insights make you, at times, almost psychic about future trends, so people count on you for the most innovative systems and solutions. In your interest areas, you communicate with speed and enthusiasm; otherwise, you may not communicate at all.
People see you as clever, critical, challenging, and sometimes disorganized. You are most irritated by people who refuse to consider new ideas, who are overly emotional or who apply faulty logic.
case study one
Entrepreneur, Small Business Expert
Jack Rubinstein “views the world at 50,000 feet” and aspires to view it at 60,000. He is Chairman of the Board of credit card processing company Pipeline Data and General Partner of DICA Partners, an investment hedge fund. For fifteen years, he has been an advisor to small public entities through his company Capital Market Advisory Network. He employs his ability to see three years out to mold small firms into multibillion dollar entities.
“My function,” says Jack, “is to create alternate solutions for people who are too involved in the day-to-day nitty-gritty.”
Jack’s father owned a small business, and Jack remembers discussing the day’s problems with him at the dinner table when he was 8 years old. When Jack began his career, he trained as a research analyst. “It’s a curiosity, analyzing businesses of all sorts,” Jack says.
Jack helps business owners navigate the capital markets and finds innovative ways to help them expand. “I was an advisor to a $20 million company, showing them how to ‘creep the market’ making 37 different acquisitions over a 24-month period,” Jack recalls. “Then they were sold to GE Capital for over $1 billion.
“I was also an original backer of Sirius Satellite Radio when they had three employees, a driven entrepreneur, and virtually no money. I saw a combination of possibilities that allowed me to get the vision, whereas very few other people could. Now their market capitalization is $10 billion.”
Jack has the Blue/Red Introvert’s vision for small companies that can become large. He delegates all his detail work and recordkeeping to a Gold family member.
“High quality” is the cornerstone of your leadership. Whether it applies to the new ideas you propose, the people you hire to implement them, or the work standards you set, high quality is always the theme. To meet standards, you’ll even challenge conventional wisdom or push your people to develop themselves intellectually.
Flexible and quick to adapt to change, you will be the first both to see and solve problems. Understanding global issues is your real talent.
Figure 19–1 Natural Work-Related Strengths
Asking imaginative questions, generating many unique solutions, and accepting the good contributions of others are characteristics for which you are valued.
You may NOT be valued for pointing out every flaw or inconsistency or for indulging in overly intellectual or complicated descriptions.
Look at Figure 19–1 for a list of your natural work-related strengths.
Here are some Blue/Red Introverts in action in very different fields.
case study two
Medical Research Scientist and University Professor
Bruce I. Terman, Ph.D.’s resume is replete with long lists of medical research experience, grants awarded, and papers published. Behind the credentials is actually a likable guy (not unusual for those with a Red backup), who cares about doing the right thing.
Between the classes he teaches as Associate Professor of the Medicine/Cardiology Division and Associate Professor of Pathology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, New York, Dr. Terman strives to be a good citizen at his university. Along with his main work in research, “I try to serve on administrative committees and participate in teaching and research seminars,” he says.
As an Introvert, he especially enjoys the activities he performs on his own. Of his three top natural strengths, he does two of them alone. “I’m best at performing experiments and planning the scientific direction of the laboratory,” he says. His third strength is teaching. He is energized by successfully obtaining grants, getting his papers published, and having his laboratory experiments produce expected or interesting results.
Another aspect of his job that well suits his Introverted side is obtaining funding to support his research. He applies for numerous grants. He also must keep abreast of his field by constantly reading scientific literature and attending national meetings of his peers (the latter he says is one of his least interesting duties). In the laboratory, he supervises the research activities of five individuals (a task that includes training of students and mentoring of other scientists). Typical of a Blue who chooses a scientific career, he is persistent about achieving his goals.
Dr. Terman’s three biggest stressors are “supervising or interacting with noncooperative, nonproductive, or obnoxious individuals; waiting to hear about or having grants and manuscripts rejected; and getting poor experimental results.”
That doesn’t happen often. In 1994 he was named the Winner of the American Cyanamid Scientific Achievement Award. Dr. Terman is straightforward about his successes. “I am smart and honest,” he says, a very typical Blue/Red combination. Then it’s back into the lab to continue his life’s work.
case study three
Hedge Fund Manager, Investment Industry
At age 26, Ari Levy is well on his way to recognizing and developing his unique Blue/Red Introvert strengths. He is the founder, President, and Chief Investment Officer of Chicago-based Lakeview Investment Group. Additionally, he functions as Portfolio Manager of the firm’s limited partnership, Lakeview Fund, a long-short equity product focused on long-term investments in small and micro cap value securities.
True to his Blue/Red nature, he prefers the portfolio management and research functions over marketing and governmental compliance demands. “There is nothing more satisfying than doing thorough research on a stock and finding some inefficiency that makes it undervalued before Wall Street discovers it,” Ari says.
Ari finds marketing less interesting, especially when “I don’t find the person that I’m marketing to particularly interesting, or he or she doesn’t understand what we do,” he admits. This is typical of Blue/Red Introverts.
He prides himself on his understanding of financial risk and reward and his management skills. Blue/Red Introverts are deeply disciplined in their areas of interest. Ari is very disciplined in the portfolio management process, “although I am not as organized in certain areas of my personal life!”
Ari is a typical Blue/Red Introvert in other ways. He enjoys probability-based activities like gambling, investments, and card playing. His enjoyment of cutting edge activities is indulged every day at his hedge fund, forever trying to perfect investment models. Even at leisure, his interest lies in sports statistics.
Jack’s ability is to think innovatively about business is supported by a flexible environment. He also has the administrative support he needs to stay focused on what he does best. Ari, too, has created his own firm and sets his own agenda.
Figure 19–2 The Ideal Blue/Red Introvert Work Environment
When a job offer is made, leverage as much as you can from the list in Figure 19–2.
The WORST type of work culture for a Blue/Red Introvert is overly bureaucratic and controlled. Strict time management and required work area tidiness drive you to distraction. When co-workers are emotionally sensitive, or less competent than you, it stresses you to the limits of your patience.
When Blue/Reds Introverts work in nonideal corporate cultures, productivity is stunted and career achievements become an uphill climb.
Even a great job can be frustrating under the wrong boss; a mediocre job under a wonderful boss is pretty hard to leave. Blue/Reds get along especially well with other Blues. But bosses of other Color types who possess the characteristics in Figure 19–3 also can be good mentors.
You, like Bruce Terman, are most attracted to careers that require intellectual energy, original ideas, and achievement. You prefer involvement with theoretical problems and new technologies. Original projects are a must; routine and repeated tasks are sorely taxing.
Please note that not all the following careers will appeal to you, but recognize that each, in some way, draws on the strengths of your style and appeals to a significant number of your Color group. This is not a comprehensive list, but it will show underlying patterns of preference. If unlisted careers offer similar patterns, your chances of success increase. Copy in parentheses highlights the Color style characteristics that create success.
Figure 19–3 The Blue/Red Introvert’s Ideal Boss
In addition, two codes indicate those jobs that are currently predicted to have an above-average salary and growth potential. This information is based on the continuously revised data provided by the U.S. Department of Labor and Bureau of Labor Statistics available on the O*NET website, http://online.onetcenter.org/.
Bold indicates that the career is considered to be among the top 100 best-paying jobs based on the average or median salary paid to individuals with five years of experience. Excluded are jobs where salary statistics are not available, such as “business owner,” or not indicative such as “actor.”
Italics identifies the jobs that are predicted to benefit from an above-average growth rate over the next several years.
Bold and italics indicates jobs that will benefit from both higher pay and high growth potential.
Note there are successful people of all Color styles in all occupations. In nonideal jobs you can still shine by creating your own niche.
architect ♦ artist ♦ creative writer ♦ critic ♦ editor ♦ graphic designer ♦ journalist ♦ musician ♦ news analyst ♦ photographer ♦ film/stage/motion picture producer ♦ web developer/designer (enjoy play and surprises, intense focus on everything around you).
business analyst ♦ change management consultant ♦ economist ♦ financial planner ♦ financial analyst ♦ hedge fund manager ♦ investment banker ♦ investment broker ♦ management consultant ♦ new market/product designer ♦ market research/development specialist ♦ security analyst ♦ small business owner ♦ strategic planner ♦ statistician ♦ venture capitalist (intellectual and insightful about future trends).
database administrator ♦ hardware/software engineer ♦ information systems manager ♦ network systems administrator ♦ network integration specialist ♦ programmer ♦ software designer ♦ security specialist ♦ systems analyst ♦ web developer/webmaster (flexible environments where you can create, critique, redesign, and improve).
researcher ♦ university professor (intellectual stimulation, colleagues who enjoy debate).
medical scientist/researcher ♦ medical faculty ♦ neurologist ♦ pharmacist ♦ pharmaceutical researcher ♦ plastic surgeon ♦ psychologist/psychiatrist (independence and intellectual stimulation, plus need for your ability to concentrate for long periods of time).
lawyer [especially banking, corporate finance, energy, product liability, intellectual property] (enjoy difficult problems, intellectual stimulation, love of debate).
aerospace/aeronautical/aircraft engineer ♦ astronomer ♦ biomedical engineer ♦ chemist ♦ biochemist ♦ biologist ♦ biophysicist ♦ chemical/civil engineer ♦ environmental scientist ♦ geneticist ♦ geologist ♦ inventor ♦ mathematician ♦ microbiologist ♦ natural science manager ♦ physicist ♦ space scientist (opportunities to apply your love of solving difficult problems, be on cutting edge).
case study four
When a Career Isn’t Working
Gretchen Kinderhook’s father was a property manager for a large Midwestern office building. As a teenager, Gretchen used to join her dad after school to help out. She became fascinated anticipating the problems of the tenants and being ready to solve them as they arose. She also enjoyed the charged atmosphere when a tenant crisis arose. She thought her dad had the best job in the world.
When Gretchen was in her junior year at college studying business, her father died unexpectedly. With little life insurance in place, the family’s security was threatened. Using all her Red crisis management skill, Gretchen dropped out and took over his job.
It was just as she had remembered it, and most of the tenants knew her by her first name. What Gretchen had not anticipated were the tasks her father had performed. They were so structured and stifling! Her Blue/Red Introvert’s ability to see far in the future and strategize got little use as she dealt with getting the trash out, the leases renewed, the vendors contracted, the security staff hired, and the cleaning crew to show up.
Gretchen felt trapped by her obligation to help support her family. Dutifully, she went around to the tenants to renew leases. On the 18th floor was a small think tank with fifteen employees whose job it was to predict market trends for their blue chip clients. Gretchen lingered here, throwing out so many free ideas that the company president joked he would start paying her as well as the rent. Gretchen’s heart leapt at the idea, surprising her. But she didn’t think he was serious and did not feel she could let her family down.
Two years of valuable free ideas later, Gretchen actually accepted a genuine job offer from the think tank. The salary was substantially higher than what she made managing the property and would allow her to help her family even more. The choice was a no-brainer, and today the new property manager frequently comes up to the 18th floor to take Gretchen to lunch when he has a problem. Her job at the think tank puts her right in her strategic-thinking element, and she has completed her degree online.
Blue/Red Introverts have a unique set of potential work-related blind spots. Some you have; others you don’t. No one has them all. Tone down a blind spot by focusing on it, then choose more productive actions and make them habits. (Suggestions for doing so are in parentheses below.) You:
♦ Can be too casual about deadlines and/or commitments when lost in intellectual projects. (Set aside time in the morning when you focus on such things; then you can concentrate on more important things.)
♦ May initiate too many projects that cannot be completed. (So much of interest, so little time. Give yourself permission to work on more than two major projects ONLY if you have adequate staff on projects three and up and your role is to oversee.)
♦ Intimidate those less quick-witted. (Admit it, you like the power your braininess gives you over your brawny and less-blessed colleagues. Just don’t make a habit of humiliating them—one of them could eventually become your boss.)
♦ Can be overly critical, complex, and competitive. (The competitive drive is necessary in your preferred fields, but know where to draw the line. Same goes for critical and opinionated behavior. PICK YOUR BATTLES.)
♦ Change plans and strategies too frequently. (Changing course with each new fact can be overwhelming for other Colors and subordinates. Admit that you’re not an expert implementer. Show respect for and cooperate with those who are.)
♦ When fatigued, you become bitingly sarcastic and have uncontrolled emotional outbursts. (Apologize and say, “I think it’s time for a break.” Don’t talk to anyone until you’re in a better frame of mind; you’ll save allies this way.)
Abundant creative ideas for pursuing your job search come easily to you. You think it unlikely we’ll have anything new or useful in such a “generalized” book. But aren’t job searches about improvising your way through a series of difficult problems? To improvise, you need background material and strategy. Thus …
Your natural strengths easily allow you to:
♦ See future trends and incorporate them into a career plan.
♦ Find unusual ways of getting interviews.
♦ Impress interviewers with your insights and competence.
♦ Logically evaluate the future of different job opportunities.
In order to tone down your blind spots, you need to:
♦ Pay attention to details.
♦ Express more enthusiasm during interviews instead of just trying to wow the interview intellectually (which may backfire).
♦ Create a job search plan and stay with it as much as possible.
♦ Reign in your tendency to act smug with an interviewer you judge less intellectually competent than you.
♦ Express appreciation to those who have helped you–thank you notes, follow-up calls.
With an interviewer whose Color is close to your own, you will feel immediate rapport. However, if your interviewer seems to have a significantly different style, use the suggestions in parentheses.
In following your natural style you:
♦ Summarize and identify root causes. (A job interview may be too early for critiquing how an organization works. Preface such remarks with the phrase, “As an outsider looking in …” That way, you are excused from knowing the political implications of your opinions.)
♦ Avoid personal chitchat. (While you downplay its importance, chitchat is meaningful to other Colors looking to see if you are compatible within the corporate culture. Yes, it’s hateful, but smile and do your best. Practice beforehand with a willing Green (to identify, read Chapter 4, A Tour of the Prism Company/Green Department, and Chapter 5, Greens Overall).
♦ Talk about insights and unusual approaches. (Your ideas flow like water, but beware the interview that has been scheduled only to pick your brain. This is especially likely if a competitor has “recruited” you out of the blue. He or she wants to know what you know, and there’s no job to be had at the end of it. Your ideas often are worth thousands of dollars; allude to them, but get a real paycheck before laying them out in detail.)
♦ Frequently debate the pros and cons of various options. (A job offer is on the table. Now’s the time to know the difference between debate and negotiation. Role-play negotiation techniques with a willing Red (to identify, read Chapter 4, A Tour of the Prism Company/Red Department, and Chapter 10, Reds Overall). You’ll see the difference and understand debating is impolitic.)
Use this book to learn how to leverage your own strengths with those of other Colors. First, learn more about your own strengths by reading the Chapter 10, Reds Overall. Then select a few colleagues of whose skills you’d like to make better use of. Read Chapter 4, A Tour of the Prism Company, and Chapter 25, Adjusting to the Styles of Other Colors, to recognize their Colors, or ask them to take the Self-Assessment. Study Figure 3 in each Overall Color chapter, and experiment with a few new approaches. Do it scientifically; see if they work.
If you are actively job-hunting, keep notes in the Roadmap in Chapter 28. It will keep your strengths in front of you for encouragement and help you cultivate that elusive rapport-building function.