Colorful Personalities

The Orange Quiz

Careful – you should only read this if you have a sense of humor. Oh, never mind – it’s a great thing that all Oranges do, and certainly have a great gift of not taking themselves too seriously. See how many of these you agree with:

• Sometimes ‘I forgot’ is a safer answer than ‘it wasn’t important enough to remember from last week’
• You’ve never really lost at anything. There’s just been many times when you didn’t participate in the first place, and that doesn’t count as losing
• You can make up words, and as long as you use them more than five times, they DO become real words
• You probably would take a pay cut if you could start work at the crack of 10 AM
• You really can’t think of anything at work that should take longer than thirty minutes
• No matter how badly you’re behind in any game or contest, it’s best to double the bet since others will quickly crumble under the pressure
• You can’t decide what’s more important on this quiz: Speed or high score…what exactly will make you the winner?
• Performance reviews shouldn’t be longer than: You rock or you suck
• You may delegate or supervise, but should be the one to make the BIG announcement
• You hate leaving any cool event early because you may miss something fun or worth talking about tomorrow
• Counting to ten before replying is usually way too time consuming
• Sure, you were wrong once. But that was so long ago that the statue of limitations has long run out

How many statements do you agree with?

Score of 9-12: Congratulations, you’re a legit Orange. But right now you’re asking yourself why everybody wouldn’t score 12 here…
Score of 6-8: You’ve got potential. You may just be one or two drinks away from breaking out and having the ‘real’ Oranges let you join the cool people club…
Score of 5 or less: Hopefully you have a bunch of Orange buddies that will help you to get your score up, have more fun, and teach you to “Don’t worry – be happy”

I had a dream,
an idea to pitch.
My color is Orange,
perhaps this idea will make us all rich?

The design created,
my Gold friends cheered with delight.
We have completed the task,
brought forth your idea to light.

We hired a team of Blues,
to keep harmony and peace.
No matter your color,
all are welcome, we will keep the peace.

The vision put forward,
the design in place,
harmony created all over the space.
The idea was improved upon
by our friends called Green.
They were able to improve upon the machine.

All those of color benefited.
The ideas of Orange,
the Greens perfected.
The production of such things,
kept in place, by Gold implemented.
The harmony of teamwork the Blues affected.

What a beautiful canvas created.
If only the world knew how wonderful
life could be,
if people’s differences were respected
and not trampled on or misrepresented.

Bart Boehm (used with permission)

Everyone is familiar with the saying that actions speak louder than words. For Blues that is especially true since they live life through feelings and intuition. Sure, everyone loves a little thank you note or small gift. But words aren’t one-tenth as powerful as the feeling of being appreciated, cared about, included, appreciated, and so much more.

In relationships, you can never tell your Blue partner often enough that you love them or give them a hug. When should you tell your partner that you love them? Before someone else does! Many high Greens share that they’re just not made that way, and it’s just not something they do very frequently. The great news is that we can all grow and learn – quickly!

But whether it’s at work or at home, the feelings of being cared about and appreciated are much more important than the words. What makes it more powerful and meaningful for Blues is the soft touch on the shoulder, the hug, and the eye contact when someone talks to them. Feeling valued, appreciated, loved, or included are way more valuable, powerful, and believable than words alone.

Beyond that, whether it’s at work or at home, a recent study found that 75% of women and even 73% of men wish their partner would share more of their feelings. I would bet that applies at work the same way: Whether you’re a leader, or with others on your team, your relationships will grow significantly if you just let others see more of the ‘real’ you.

Recently a seminar attendee thought two of her team members must be Green because they frequently ask a lot of “why” questions. Well – it’s not that simple – and not always.

Greens ask… the why questions in order to learn, or to elicit information about the big picture first. They look for the reasoning behind any decision, or the logic behind the task. They aren’t interested in the easy answers, but the full and complete ones…from someone with the credibility to give them.

Blues ask…the why question in order to get to the people implications as the question behind the question as in: how will this affect my buddies? It can also be some indirect feedback to gently point out that this isn’t a good idea for customer service or morale, without directly making it sound like a criticism.

Oranges ask…the why question to get to the core of whether this needs to be done in the first place, or at all. It’s not a question of seeming to be lazy, but why do a bunch of work that doesn’t have a concrete purpose, or has extra and redundant steps where Oranges clearly know shortcuts to get ‘er done quicker.

Golds ask…the why question to often find the most efficient way to accomplish something. They are definitely not questioning authority, but simply want to know why it has to be done THAT way, instead of ‘their’ way or another (more efficient?) way.

Hi George: If you remember, I’m a high Orange married to a first Color Green. Our six year old is Orange/Green and our baby, who is three, is definitely Gold! This has been pretty prominent for quite a while – it just took learning about Colors to figure it out. Every toy in his room has a place, he keeps a few toys on show (which don’t get touched until he changes them) and his desk is empty unless he’s using it.

The other day started out as any other. My son has a schedule for himself that doesn’t change unless I have something that I need to get done. The other day, I had my sister’s kids for the morning. So my son Liam and his cousin were playing in his room all morning – they usually play in his brothers room (it’s OK to mess up his room – we get to play AND my room stays neat)!

When it was time for his cousin to leave, we had some other stuff to get done so I didn’t even check to see if they needed to clean up. Usually they don’t make a big mess so I wasn’t worried. We got into the truck and my son started in on me that my truck was “filthy” (his word) because there was some road spray dried on it. So to make him happy, we went through the car wash. (As a result I forgot to do about half the things on my Orange sort-of to-do list).

That night, I walked into his room and it was as messy as his brothers! Every toy, book and crayon was on the floor. I told him his room was very messy and he’d have to clean it in the morning as I cleared a path to his bed (I probably shouldn’t have said it, I didn’t want him to feel bad about it – but it just came out).

About 20 minutes after putting him to bed – we heard what we thought was playing in his room – which isn’t like him to play after the lights go out. My husband put him back to bed, but this happened about three times before he actually went to sleep. The next morning when I went into his room, it was spotless. Everything was back in its place! A little while later my son came to me and told me that he was sorry he wasn’t sleeping last night, but it “bugged him” that his room was messy.

This happens at school also. The one activity for his playschool the other day was to cut out a paper star. Everyone in his class cut the paper into a million little pieces and went on to something else. Liam’s actually looked like a star – but he was still upset that he went off the lines. When he colors, it’s the same thing!

Of course, we don’t mess with his schedule too much, if we can avoid it. Before the last school break my husband was already on vacation and he volunteered to take the boys to school. Well I guess Daddy didn’t do things “right” because his whole day was a little off, and after that he was still quite agitated when I picked him up.

His teacher, and other people that know him, tell me he’s quite advanced for his age. He’s got a fantastic vocabulary, he watches his big brother when he’s doing his kindergarten homework and like a sponge he’s picking it all up. In school he listens, behaves and participates in class. But I think it’s because he’s so Gold that he’s different from most the other kids his age.

Since taking the Colors course, we definitely parent differently. The kids have different punishments now, and the way we interact with them has grown a lot! M.W.

OK, you can only read this if you have a sense of humor! High Greens REALLY want you to know this! It’s important, so see how many of these you agree with:

• Your boss is a little scared of you.
• You don’t suffer fools at all – let alone gladly.
• You know the difference between “infer” and “imply,” “borrow” and “lend,” “median” and “meridian.”
• You chastise your co-workers when they say “how ironic” over something that isn’t truly ironic at all, and your head explodes when they use the word “irregardless.”
• You stand behind your partner while he/she’s typing a letter and correct his/her spelling, punctuation and spacing.
• Your boss submits proposals and reports to YOU before sending them out to potential customers or management.
• You know the proper contexts for there/their/they’re, hear/here, you’re/your, peace/piece, and other simple homophones (not homonyms, like drive and drive, or homographs, like bow and bow) like these.
• You know the difference between a homonym, homograph, and homophone.
• You know the difference between the British and American way of spelling various words, e.g. colour/color, cheque/check, and make sure you consistently use one set of rules, unlike most people who are clueless as to which is which.
• You know how to spell “faux pas” and use it correctly in a sentence.
• You know when to use “you and I” (“we”) and “you and me” (“us”), unlike the illiterates around you who believed the teacher that told them you must always use “you and I”.
• During most newscasts you catch at least two or three grammatical or sentence structure errors and fight the urge to send the broadcaster an e-mail and really blast them.

How many statements do you agree with?

Score of 9-12: Congratulations, you’re high Green – see item 1! But right now you’re asking yourself why everybody wouldn’t score 9-12 here…
Score of 6-8: High Greens would concede you’ve got potential. Maybe one or two more night classes…
Score of 5 or less: You might be a little “green deficient”. Or more than likely, you started skimming the list with your brain screaming “who cares”?

Help! Do you have some ideas of what would make a Blue list? If so, click the comment link and send it! Maybe we can build a Blue quiz….