communication skills

communication, bridges to all minds

This week, we had one full day of communication training at work.

The course first helps us to identify and understand ourselves better and then, identify the behaviours of people around us be it families, friends, or colleagues. By knowing the behaviours of others, we could then communicate using a better approach.

I find this course well-needed as we are all new to the company where no one has worked with anyone in the office for longer than 6 months. Hence, no one can really tell the true behaviour of another person yet. It comes to a point where we start to get frustrated at times with particular people in the office.

For example:
- The admin and her fussy house-keeping rules
- People not replying emails
- People not aware of meeting agendas

The course identifies 4 types of people - the purple, yellow, red, and blue.
The trainer plays a set of slides with over 50 characteristics for each of these colours. Each time a characteristic for a certain colour describes you, give yourself one point for that colour. The colour with the highest points is your main 'dot', second highest is your second 'dot', and so on.

Below are what I can recall from the course:

Purple
Free and easy
Relaxed
Think into the future
Optimistic about the future
Always need to see the bigger picture of things
Don't like to be asked about details
Not reliable
Exaggerating
Short attention span
Unable to focus on 'now'
Were school trouble-makers
Start strong, finish poor

Yellow
Attention to details
Needs to have ALL details of things
Puts importance on time, quality, making things look very nice
Completes tasks in a timely manner
Organised
Punctual
Inflexible
Have their own idea to do things
Lone worker
Not a good team player
Not approachable
Critical
Aggressive
React without fully-listening

Red
Attention to details
Loves themselves
Lack of emotions
Reluctant to change
Clarity
Direct, straight to the point
Hates people beating round the bush
Gives short and precise replies, holds back on details
Types email in bullet points
Solve problems
Delivery focus
Dominant
Reliable
Loyal
Patient
Forgive but not forget
Always perceived as introverted
Never complains until close to explosion
Win-win or lose-lose, win-lose doesn't exist

Blue
Never shows their guts
Cooperative
Sincere, no hidden agenda
Good at giving 'kind' feedback
Not sociable
Procrastinates
Kind
Caring
Approachable
Takes a long time to make decisions or make up their mind
Over-sensitive
Takes things personally
Emotional
Hates to be called stupid
Avoids confrontation

Purple and blue are people who work with 'feeling'.
Red and yellow are people who work with 'thinking'.

It turns out that out of 21, we have 14 reds, 1 yellow, 3 blues, and 3 purples.

It explains why most of the emails circulating in the office are in bullet points and very lack of emotion, why most of us love giving short replies and never automatically elaborate ourselves. I have to admit, it makes the office atmosphere very robotic and task-oriented. The 'reds' also think that we are fine being called stupid - lack of the 'blue' elements in us.

The ones who organise social stuff, give out chocolates, and bake cakes turn out to be blue dot people.

The ones who love to talk, relaxed, ignore deadlines, never finish the things they start, are miraculously the purple dots.

The lonely yellow dot, turns out to be our dear Miss Admin. LOL!!!

Now that we know each other's colours, it allows us to accept each other's way of doing things - why some people are slack off, why some people are inflexible, and why some are emotionless. Haha.

People's dots can be identified through their environment, appearance, and the way they speak.

Purple
Has messy desk
Dirty desk
Whatever
Not able to locate where things are on their desk
Talkative
Easily strike a conversation

Yellow
Tidy desk
Cleans desk at the end of each day
Nicely dressed
Goes for premium brands
Takes pride in their appearance

Red
Papers in stacks
Able to locate things within the stacks
Hates it when stuff are thrown out without their permission
Short, bullet point replies
Practically dressed
Uses worn out clothing

Blue
Personalised desk with photos, quotes, plant, etc
Prefers to work closely with others
Quiet
Courteous
Comfortably dressed

How do we show appreciation to the different colours?

Purple
Thrive for applause
Praise them daily
Never criticise them
Appreciates words more than gift

Yellow
Gives them positive attention
Organise small things for them

Red
Respect them
Give them honest appreciation
Give them 'practical' gifts
Hates surprises
Don't over praise them, else they feel awkward

Blue
Show that you care
Be sincere
Give them personal/thoughtful gift

I scored Red first and Purple second.
The bullet points, the emotionless emails, the one-word replies, the forgive but not forget, the messy stacked up desk, the inability to handle surprises, etc........all so very true.
As for the 'purple' side of me, it would be the 'whatever' attitude, the short attention span, need bigger picture, hate to be asked about details (in terms of work), was not very compliant with school rules....haha.

Coincidently, the top 3 directors in the office have red and purple as their first two dots.
Does it tell something? Hehehe.

The red majority in the office is because of the engineering nature of our job or we became engineer because we were naturally born as red dots?

In other words, the environment shapes us or we were born into it? Maybe a bit of both?

They say everyone's sequence of dots changes over time due to the people around them, the environment their in, their view on life, and so on. I hope I could drop off the red scale one day, takes things more easily, and be more of a 'blue' person with more emotions - except I hope I won't get affected by the word 'stupid'. Haha.

I did a quick check on my sisters, and they are also high on red. Geezz. Can't believe how long I've been in a robotic environment - being a robot, surrounded by robots for all my life. We should all start working on the 'blue' side of things.

In the end of the day, the course helps identify the 'style' of people around us, so that we can appreciate their good qualities, be more acceptable of their ridiculous behaviour, use a better approach in dealing with them, and use each other's strengths in bringing out the best of us.

I'm quite doubtful on the end product of having 15 red dots (and possibly more on the way) in a team - robots talking to each other with no feelings. Hahaha. I hope the minority purple, blue, and yellow won't feel suffocated by the reds. They should stop recruiting 'reds' for now.

All in all, it was a great experience which hopefully makes us all a better person in the society, at home, and at work.