YOU’RE NOT ONLY A GREEN, you also have strong secondary characteristics of the Gold personality. And you have tested as a Color Q Introvert, which means you recharge your batteries by being alone, rather than being with people. Your Color group’s members are a curious combination of warmth and reserve. Sharing primarily with those closest to you, you don’t reveal much to others until trust is established. You have deep insights into people and enjoy helping them grow. Although an idealist, you also are good at organizing and following through on projects.
Intuition, foresight, and compassion drive Green/Gold Introverts, who excel at understanding and motivating others to achieve their greatest potential. You have a deep need for empathetic relationships, but your intimate group is small. Appearing cool and detached outwardly, you harbor strong feelings about your loved ones and your values. When those values are violated or those people threatened, you surprise people by shedding your easy-going nature and becoming tough, demanding, and aggressive.
Because you are a keen and penetrating observer, you know what motivates others. You have a good handle on the cosmic drama around you. Routine stifles you, but you take life as it comes and do what you must.
A harmonious environment, where your originality and interpersonal skills are used to organize and inspire, is a necessity. You enjoy exercising your considerable “emotional intelligence” in circumstances where it is appreciated. Very loyal to individuals, causes, and institutions you admire, you expect a high degree of loyalty and support in return.
Others see you as patient, creative, committed, stubborn, and somewhat enigmatic. In relationships, you are supportive and affirming, making people you care about feel valued and liked. Conflicts both at home and work are problematic and will be ignored as long as possible.
Green/Gold Introverts are tactful, complex, and articulate. Some of the words that describe your work ethic are conscientious, goal-oriented, orderly, serious, hardworking, and ambitious. You are decisive and often in a hurry, impatient with anyone who slows you down in achieving objectives. You can be so ambitious that you’ll actually do more than the task requires.
Creative and full of penetrating insights, you are gifted at predicting trends. This also allows you to solve problems in new ways.
As an Introvert, you get fatigued and cranky working in open office settings or when your privacy is not respected. Yet your interest in others is so strong that you run the risk of not giving yourself that all-important time alone to recharge.
The people who irritate you most are superficial, rude, or invade your privacy. When angered, you become both critical and confrontational. In the second half of your life you handle these folks better, using your superior verbal abilities to extricate yourself from the web of their agendas. You realize that you are not obligated to help everyone who needs it.
case study one
Senior Vice President, Public Relations, Health Care
Maggie Hoffman is a master in the management of perception. Her public relations savvy is brought into play every day at New York-based PR firm Porter Novelli, assessing and managing the opinions of important groups and individuals for her clients. Though her job is to make her clients look good, Maggie didn’t mention one of the measures of her own success—we had to hear it from her subordinates. They call themselves MITs—“Maggies In Training.”
In keeping with her Green/Gold personality, Maggie does three things very well. She discerns future trends and does quality research to back up her predictions. She is a superior communicator with both clients and staff. Finally, she stays focused on maximizing both billable hours and productivity while avoiding costly staff burnout.
“She is very structured both in how she produces work and how she thinks things through,” note those who work with her. These are the qualities of her Gold component. Of her Green side, Maggie says, “Most satisfying to me is knowing people on my teams are engaged, challenged, and happy.”
Her associates say Maggie is the go-to person on their team for clients seeking business advice and resources. This is unusual in the public relations industry and speaks to her professional credibility.
Maggie stresses out when involved in group activities that are not well-orchestrated. Cold calling and prospecting, functioning under huge time crunches and managing people during crisis phases are her least favorite work situations. But when she nails the right strategy for a particular client or brand, she feels deeply energized.
“Work hard to convert ideals into reality” is your mantra. You see an idealized vision of the future (usually farther out than most can envision) and strive to make it happen. Building consensus and cooperation through persuasion rather than control is the Green/Gold Introvert’s hallmark. You give all opinions an airing, bringing out people’s best through appreciation and support.
Naturally and almost fiercely committed to your work, you have integrity about what you do. You are an outstanding role model, inspiring others to great heights. But you don’t just sit in your office and dream; you get out there, putting real-world structures and organization into place to achieve your goals. Accepting setbacks as simply new challenges, you sometimes find startlingly new and better ways to meet goals. When staffers have professional or personal difficulties, you are there for them in appropriate ways.
Since your goal is harmony, you build bridges (often with humor) between conflicting factions. The focus is on results and providing the structure to achieve them. You brainstorm multiple ideas, get people laughing about the one that really will work, and inspire their best efforts before they finish chuckling.
Figure 7–1 Natural Work-Related Strengths
Although you navigate emotional territory well, you have your practical side. You meet deadlines and ensure that human and material resources are not wasted.
You may irritate teammates by sticking to ideas not shared by the rest of the team.
Look at Figure 7–1 for a list of your natural work-related strengths.
Now see how some Green/Gold Introverts use these strengths in very different fields.
case study two
Playwright and College Professor
Lonnie Carter has been a professional playwright since 1969 when he graduated from the Yale School of Drama in New Haven, Connecticut. He saw his first live play at age 19, a Tennessee Williams work that formed a lasting impression of the theater. “I liked what language did in plays,” he recalls. “I felt I could do something, if not similar, then complementary, with the use of language. It makes me feel good; I have fun doing it.”
Lonnie also teaches acting and playwriting at New York University, where he is energized by his contact with the students (unlike some colleagues who find this draining). “Students will suck you dry,” Lonnie admits. “But I like my students; some I like enormously. I love hearing from a student five years down the road saying, ‘I’m in a play in San Diego that’s a great success; thank you.’ That’s thrilling.”
Although he never experienced overnight success as a playwright, he recently won a Village Voice OBIE Award (off-Broadway theater’s highest honor) for his work “The Romance of Magno Rubio.” He attributes his success to persistence. “Each year was just another step in the process,” Lonnie says. “Then it was thirty years of steps.” Now he is so busy going from one production to another that “I seem to write in moving vehicles more than anything else!”
Lonnie does not like the air travel that cuts into his creative time or the bureaucracy of working within a large university structure. “Luckily, I don’t have to do many meetings at the university any more,” he says.
case study three
Self-Employed, Private Practice
Michele Frank is a New York City-based licensed clinical social worker in private practice. For eleven years she has been focusing on helping couples and individuals deal with anxiety, depression, and relationship issues.
Michele particularly likes listening to clients and feeling connected with them—a core Green/Gold value. She finds it meaningful to help others solve their problems using her well-developed intuition. “It’s very gratifying,” she says, “when they relate that they feel extremely understood and safe in the therapy process with me. I feel affirmed that my intuition has so much value.” Using her empathetic skills to help clients see new solutions to problems is intrinsically very satisfying for her; Green/Golds by nature gravitate toward anything that helps others reach their fullest potential.
Typical of her Color, Michele dislikes administrative work. Being a managed care provider, she finds the detailed, fact-focused, and repetitive nature of the paperwork stressful but has used her Gold strengths to organize and focus.
Your ideal work environment allows you to contribute in some way to the well-being of society, like Michele Frank. Other than that, you’re flexible!
When a job offer is made, leverage as much as you can from the list in Figure 7–2.
The WORST type of work culture for a Green/Gold Introvert is tense, overly competitive, and highly political. Here the creative drive is crushed, and Green/Gold Introverts become critical and defensive. Any work culture where products or services exploit both staff efforts and customer vulnerabilities is intolerable to the Green/Gold Introvert. You desire deeply to contribute positively to the world. Requiring focus on too many details or being too hierarchical and status-conscious also are work cultures that destroy your creativity and productivity.
When Green/Gold Introverts work in such nonideal corporate cultures, productivity is stunted and career achievements become an uphill climb.
Figure 7–2 The Ideal Green/Gold Introvert Work Environment
Figure 7–3 The Green/Gold Introvert’s Ideal Boss
Even a great job can be frustrating under the wrong boss; a mediocre job under a wonderful boss is pretty hard to leave. Green/Golds get along especially well with other Greens. But bosses of other Color types who possess the characteristics in Figure 7–3 also can be good mentors.
Like Lonnie and Michele, you are most attracted to careers that provide recognition for your creativity or that help others grow and develop. Green/Gold Introverts need to work with people who can be trusted. Working alone or in small groups is best, ideally allowing for private space and quiet time.
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.
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.
advertising and promotions manager ♦ art director ♦ artist ♦ book publishing professional ♦ desktop publisher ♦ exhibit designer ♦ film editor ♦ graphic artist/designer ♦ interior decorator ♦ Internet marketing manager/customer relations ♦ literary agent ♦ media planner ♦ merchandise displayer ♦ multimedia specialist ♦ museum director ♦ music composer/director ♦ novelist ♦ public relations director/specialist ♦ set/costume designer ♦ translator ♦ TV producer ♦ website editor/art director ♦ writer/playwright/journalist (involvement with media, often work alone, creativity rewarded, superior language skills needed).
communications director ♦ consultative salesperson (ideas more than tangible products) ♦ diversity manager ♦ employment interviewer ♦ human resources manager ♦ industrial psychologist ♦ job analyst ♦ marketer (ideas/services) ♦ organizational development consultant ♦ training and development specialist (help others achieve their potential, need for tact).
educational administrator ♦ instructional coordinator ♦ librarian ♦ teacher [all levels—art, drama, English, humanities, languages, social studies, special education] ♦ university professor (helping others reach their potential, patient one-on-one influencing).
alternative healthcare practitioner ♦ clinical psychologist/psychiatrist ♦ general practitioner ♦ optometrist ♦ pediatrician ♦ physician assistant ♦ speech pathologist ♦ therapist [marriage, occupational, substance, abuse] (environment congruent with values, insights into others, see new ways to solve problems, patient one-on-one influencing).
lawyer [children, estate, communication and media, environmental, intellectual property, poverty law] ♦ mediator (organizational abilities, helping others, making the world a better place).
coach [business, life] ♦ counselor [career, child welfare, outplacement, pastoral, substance abuse] ♦ fundraiser/institutional solicitor ♦ philanthropic consultant/director ♦ religious leader/educator ♦ senior day care director ♦ social scientist ♦ social worker/community services manager (need for good organizational skills, goal setting, and using all resources, helping people who need it, work congruent with your values, improving the world).
Case study four
When a Career Isn’t Working
Mikao (a fictional composite of the author’s clients) grew up in a family that did daily yoga and hiked on weekends. From an early age, she enjoyed outdoor activities and decided to become a fitness instructor after graduating high school. As a Green/Gold, she was enthused by the opportunity to help others reach their fullest potentials.
Mikao enrolled in fitness certification classes at her local community college. Green/Gold Introverts tend to enjoy school, though her abstract thinker’s mind wandered as they discussed the concrete details of anatomy. Still, she attained certification and got a job quickly.
After a year of full-time fitness instruction, Mikao was burned out. The exercises had become irritatingly repetitive—anathema to creative Green/Golds. As she led her classes, she dreamed of futures she had abandoned and now longed to reclaim. Green/Golds are futuristic, big-picture thinkers; Mikao felt trapped in the here-and-now.
One of Mikao’s students was a social worker who spoke passionately about his job. Mikao became inspired to get a social work degree. Five years later, she is far more energized at the end of a day handling her family crisis job than she ever was as a fitness instructor.
Green/Gold Introverts have a unique set of potential work-related blind spots. Some below you have, others you don’t. 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 idealistic and ignore bottom line consequences. (There is a practical side to making an ideal real. The benefits you envision may be prohibitively expensive. Consult Golds and Blues about processes and costs.)
♦ Don’t have a talent for politics. (Find a boss or other superior who can shield you from such things. If you become embroiled, just refuse to play—walk away. Strangely, that works most of the time.)
♦ Avoid conflicts, confrontations, and underlying problems. (These bring up strong emotions that you would rather not reveal. Don’t wait until things boil over; it’s easier—and quicker—to address these problems when everyone is calm.)
♦ Overpersonalize criticism. (You see criticism as a seismic rift in a relationship. Next time a friend criticizes you, ask if he or she still likes you. Will you be surprised if they say, “Of course!”? Much criticism is well-meaning. Getting a thicker skin makes your day easier!)
♦ Go off on unrealistic tangents. (What’s possible in five years excites you. But it won’t tell a Red what to do today, a Gold how to administer today, or a Blue how to strategize the way there. Ask them, “What should I do now to achieve this later?” You’ll get a lot more buy-in for your five-year plans.)
Green/Gold Introverts need to be recognized for their unique creative ideas, even during their job search. You find fun ways to rise to the top of the resume pile. With some interviewers, particularly Greens and Golds, you will feel a comfortable rapport. But for other Colors, you need to prepare responses.
Your natural strengths easily allow you to:
♦ Cull leads from a small but trusted network of friends and former associates.
♦ Create a master plan using both facts and intuition.
♦ Open yourself to new fields and unusual opportunities.
♦ Brainstorm trends and creative solutions, which can lead to new positions created for you.
♦ Follow through on calls and leads.
♦ Create cover letters, resumes, and thank-you notes with superior writing skills.
♦ Keep paperwork organized.
♦ Present yourself as committed and competent.
♦ Read the interviewer well.
In order to tone down your blind spots, you need to:
♦ Network with friends first; work up to contacting people you don’t know.
♦ Do deeper research on prospective companies.
♦ Research and understand a job’s compensation range (find a willing Gold to help).
♦ Talk more; sell your accomplishments.
♦ Stay practical about costs and the bottom line.
♦ De-emphasize the needs of others; prioritize your own.
♦ Practice your salary negotiation with a willing Red.
♦ Take rejection less personally (find another Green for encouragement).
If your interviewer seems to have a significantly different personality style, use the suggestions in parentheses. Mercilessly exploit these natural abilities of yours and get more job offers!
In following your natural style, you:
♦ See the big picture and typically present that first. (Great if you’re interviewing for a senior level position, irritating if for a junior slot. No boss wants a subordinate who sees more on the horizon than he or she does. Share only if asked, do not volunteer.)
♦ Listen well with an unusual capacity to understand the viewpoints of others. (This impresses many interviewers. Some, though, want to see the tough professional. Focus on your viability for the job.)
♦ Present in an orderly way. (Be prepared to show the pros and cons of your background and goals. Use practical language; downplay metaphors or abstractions with interviewers who speak concretely.)
♦ Use personal experiences to make your points. (If your interviewer seems uncomfortable or breaks eye contact, cut it short.)
Okay, go do something cultural now. Later, check out Chapter 20, Golds Overall, first, then carefully read Chapter 4, A Tour of the Prism Company, to learn about the strengths of other Colors. Like all Colors, your blind spots can be complemented by the strengths of others if you know where to look and how to ask. Invest time learning how to recognize the Colors who can best assist you; it honestly will make your life a whole lot easier. If you are actively engaging in a job search, jot notes in the Roadmap in Chapter 28. Recording your strengths and strategies will keep you organized and on-track, and provide a creative springboard for your networking.