Colorful Leadership

Harnessing the Power
of Human Ingenuity

Colorful Leadership
by Steve Wille, with Bill Kuhn and Larry Nelson

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.

It should be noted that this theory steps away from the popular concept of a hierarchy of needs where we satisfy needs one at a time and them move up to higher level needs.  Nelson's theory suggests that we all have all the needs all the them, but at certain times some needs become more visible.  Any individual person has a blending of needs, with some more intense than others.

People-Feelings Filter

The people filter expresses 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 the people filter.

Security-Quality 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 receives 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-Innovation 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.