Colorful Leadership

Achieve Your Goals, Avoid Off-Color Situations,
and Have a Lot of Fun Doing It

Do we really need another book on leadership?

• Not if it is the same old stuff with a new cover.

• Yes, if it is a new perspective on the management and leadership disciplines.

Are you looking at the world through rose colored glasses? Some people are looking at it through blue colored glasses and others through green. One set of facts is seen differently by multiple people. Colorful leaders spin the filters to get a clear, rich, natural color image.

A must read book for managers, entrepreneurs and leaders of all types. 

• Learn how to see things as they really are and then act strategically.

• Survive and thrive in your corporate culture, even if you don’t fit in.

• Use conflict constructively; something good might come out of it.

This book makes an excellent discussion topic for your book club, business, or non-profit organization.  If you order 100 copies or more we will send you a free discussion work book in .pdf form, and a leaders guide in PowerPoint format on a CD.  This is a $100 value.  Click on Order for details.

Colorful People

We lead people, manage processes, and pursue goals. These are three fundamentally different skills that come together in what we call leadership, management, and entrepreneurship. This book focuses on the center spot in our picture where the three disciplines converge. Notice on the cover that the only area with natural color is in the center. Everything else is a bit off-color.

2 Choices

We constantly make choices, often from a universe of two. Is it yes or no? Is it better or is it worse? Are you my friend or are you my enemy? Digital computers do everything with a series of yes/no decisions based on two numbers, 1 and 0. Fuzzy logic fills the space between the zeros and ones. We can say, “It is sort of this way.”  To be more effective, leaders need to see past 2 choices and see the infinite possibilities.

3 Filters

This book is built around Larry Nelson's 3-Filters theory, a model of human needs.  Like the red, green, and blue lights in a television coming together to build a high definition image rich in color, these three basic needs come together to build a complex picture, rich in possibilities. 

Where red, blue, and green come together in the illustration on the left, you see white light.  This is known as the additive color process.  A colorful leader uses the additive process, thinking and acting in three dimensions

I was once told by the company president, "Steve, you do the right things the wrong way."  He recognized that I delivered pronominal results, but he was uncomfortable with how I approached projects.  I was quick and task oriented.  He wanted his company to be more methodical, and he cared how people in the organization felt about how I did things.  He wanted to fix me.  I found a new job where I could apply my skills.  Effective leaders look past work styles and see the results.  We each approach work in a unique way and we need multiple types of people on the team.

If you have studied management science, you know about Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs.  As a lower level need is satisfied a higher level need becomes a behavior motivator.  Maybe that is true, but there is another way of looking at human needs.  Consider the possibility that all of our needs are there all the time, but depending on the situation, different needs pop in and out of focus.  This takes us back to Nelson's 3-Filter theory as a more powerful model of human needs.  We are motivated by the need that is important at the current time, and things can change rapidly.  Effective leaders learn to spin the filters and address all the needs all the time, not knowing where individual people are at the time.

People Filter

The people filter includes our many relationship and emotional needs. It defines what it means to be human. When we speak from the heart, we are expressing our people filters. To be successful at sales, politics, corporate leadership, and any other activity involving people, you need to know how to see through your people filter.

Security Filter

Survival of the organization is dependent on quality products and services.  Quality is driven by processes and procedures that ensure consistency in every product.  The goal is predictability and control, so every product meets specifications and every customer gets the required level of service.

An effective manager strives for an organization that functions like a well oiled machine, regardless of the people operating it.

Future Filter

This dimension focuses on another vast category of human needs that are essential for survival. It is our ability to adapt to unstable situations. It is our ability to invent and build on what others have already done.

To adapt to a changing world you need flexibility and an eye for what is over the horizon.  The economy is constantly changing, laws change, and technology change is accelerating.  The goal is to adapt and thrive as things change.

Color Balance

Back in the 1900s when we used film, we had put the right kind of film in the camera. If you used indoor film outside the picture would be too blue because indoor film is balanced for tungsten light which is much more yellow than daylight. People have a color balance, too. We call it a 3-Filters Bias. We have a preference for our own filters, and we look a little off color to others who have their own preferences. The solution is to spin the filters to see what others see, and then use that information to make the best decisions.

If you look at the world through a green filter, white looks green while red and blue become mysterious dark shadows indistinguishable from each other. If you spin the filters, which is what happens inside a DLP projection television, you can build the entire image. Colorful leaders look at the world through multiple filters and build the composite image, viewing the complete image as seen by others from multiple perspectives. This creates options when it comes time to make decisions.

If you play cards you know that high cards beat low cards, unless there is a trump suit, then a low card in trump beats a high card not in trump. Corporate culture is like trump. I can have a high card in the people filter suit but it can be trumped by a low card in the security filter suit. If my 3-Filters preference is out of trump, I have to play my cards strategically.

Based on the Life Styles Inventory and LSI Conflict profiles. Copyright (c) 1987-2008 by Human Synergistics International. Adapted by permission.

You might not always resolve conflict, but you can keep it constructive The key is your self-talk. Here are the constructive approaches to conflict:

• Pragmatic - Let's look at the facts and figure this thing out.
• Self-Empowered -Here is what I am doing about it.
• Relationship Builder - First, let's get to know each other.
• Conciliator - I know we can work this out.

It is important to see the value in all three conflict approaches (constructive, defensive/aggressive, and defensive/passive).  Sometimes you need to be defensive because others really are out to get you.  Conflict is part of life and you must address it strategically, looking at all the options.