EP114: Thriving Through Change - How You Respond
YOU ARE UNIQUE!
What you bring to change is unique too!
Enjoy!
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(The notes below are only a brief bullet point summary of what is discussed in the podcast. Be sure to listen to get all of the goodness! If you would like a full transcription of the episode, please send an email request to: angie@angie-robinson.com. We’d be happy to provide that!)
Note: The content for this episode / post is based off of the Thriving Through Change workshop of Insights. I am accredited to facilitate this material - let’s talk about how I can bring it to your organization!
Responding to change is influenced by unique personalities, past experiences, and belief systems. There are a lot of contributing factors to how we approach and process change. In this post - the focus is on understanding personality styles and their impact on dealing with change.
I know that there are so many different tools available to describe personality styles and types. My tool of choice is Insights - so I will be describing four general styles with Insights in mind. However, these are fairly common - so should translate well with a lot of available tools.
Four General Personality Styles:
Included are the high-level “good day” and “bad day” characteristics.
🔵 1 / Cool Blue: cautious, precise, deliberate, questioning, formal / cold, stuffy, indecisive, suspicious, reserved
🔴 2 / Fiery Red: competitive, demanding, determined, strong-willed, purposeful / driving, aggressive, controlling, intolerant, overbearing
🟡 3 / Sunshine Yellow: sociable, dynamic, demonstrative, enthusiastic, persuasive / flamboyant, excitable, indiscreet, frantic, hasty
🟢 4 / Earth Green: caring, encouraging, sharing, patient, relaxed / stubborn, pldding, docile, bland, reliant
Strengths and Challenges of Each Personality Style:
Each personality style brings unique strengths and challenges to dealing with change.
Here are a few examples of strengths for each personality type:
🔵 1 / Cool Blue: manages the change process, focuses on both the how and the what, can understand some of the complications that are proposed with the change, and are good at creating methodologies for implementing change.
🔴 2 / Fiery Red: able to be decisive in determining direction for change, resolute in their commitment, engages in the challenge that change presents, and are often the catalyst for change.
🟡 3 / Sunshine Yellow: enjoys the stimulation that change can bring, likes to get creative input from others, encourages participation, is optimistic and positive.
🟢 4 / Earth Green: looks for consensus, looks for mutual benefit, considers the impact on others, encourages cooperation and collaboration, and thinks through the consequences and implications.
Here are a few examples of challenges for each personality type:
🔵 1 / Cool Blue: overly cautious, somewhat pessimistic, look at problems critically - not looking at solutions, may be resistant, and attached to tried and true approaches - unwilling to explore alternatives.
🔴 2 / Fiery Red: impatient - especially if they see clear answers that others don’t see, overly directive, may not consider other people’s feelings, and may have unrealistic expectations.
🟡 3 / Sunshine Yellow: may create more ideas than actually possible to consider, can create confusion with underdeveloped ideas, may be disorganized - leading to lack of follow through and completion, and can be overly optimistic.
🟢 4 / Earth Green: may prefer to keep things as they are, may be resistant - always looking for harmony, may slow things done, and be adverse to risk.
The point is to raise that self-awareness to see where some of the challenges might be getting in your way and how can you intentionally shift your approach to overcome those challenges.
Resilience and Adaptability:
Resilience and adaptability are identified as critical factors for successful change.
Stress can accompany change - so resilience is key. Resilience is defined as the ability to recover quickly from change-related stress. When it comes to stress it is helpful to understand what the triggers are to stress.
Resilience to stress requires you to be able to express your concerns, to check on your perceptions, acknowledge what you can and can not control, and let go of some expectations.
Looking at the personality types, here are some common things that might trigger stress:
🔵 1 / Cool Blue: Loss of competence (lack of information, understanding and structure)
🔴 2 / Fiery Red: Loss of control (lack of focus, lack of decisiveness and slow pace)
🟡 3 / Sunshine Yellow: Loss of choice (lack of involvement, too many restrictions)
🟢 4 / Earth Green: Loss of connection (lack of consideration, violation of values)
Learning how to be adaptable to change is the other factor that will lead to success and thriving through change. Adaptability is described as the mindset that allows individuals to respond effectively to change. Possibility thinking is contrasted with limitation thinking, emphasizing the importance of embracing new possibilities.
Be sure to listen to the episode to hear more detail, tips and tricks! Thriving through change will happen when you understand yourself. It requires shifting towards possibility thinking and being open to new perspectives.
What Do You Think?
Based on your personality type - how can you leverage your strengths and overcome your challanges??
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