Personality, Colour Blocks, and Bacon Sarnies

This morning I realised I hadn’t written a blog about my exciting week last week.

I suppose I need to start on Sunday night (last week). I was packing clothes with a sense of excitement, and trepidation as I prepared for 4 days away with work. See I don’t normally get the chance to work away, in fact this is the first time I have worked away from Hull in over 20 years, and then it was an 7 week placement in Scunthorpe, so I’m not sure that counts.

This time I was being sent to Derby with a colleague to become an accredited practitioner of a personality preference evaluation tool.

It sounds very fancy and it is! To be honest I was quite sceptical even though I had, had my profile completed about 18 months ago. My problem was that personality preferences were categorised into colours with descriptions such a fiery red and cool blue, and then people would wear their colour personality as a badge of honour or use it to explain their poor behaviours. I am now however educated and enlightened. In fact I can see how powerful a tool this evaluator can be to help people achieve their goals both individually and collectively. What is needed though is enough people with enough understanding to challenge the stereotypes that can develop if the language of colours is used in isolation. I prefer to say that I prefer to be a supporting helper, but can be a reforming director if needed. If used properly this tool can stretch people’s capabilities.

I am so pleased I went on this 4 day course, it has energised my enthusiasm for coaching ( I didn’t think that was possible either).

It wasn’t just the content of the course that energised me. When you work in a hospital it is easy just to surround yourself with like minded people, generally people that work in public office (healthcare, social care, police, fire service and education). On this course public sector workers were in the minority and I was working alongside people from a wide variety of industries. You know what? They are just like me! We had a great time working with each other and learning so much.

The course was held in a swanky hotel on the outskirts of Derby. Being NHS employees we did not stretch the public purse, so we stayed down the road in Derby in a normal hotel. However lunch, coffee and snacks were part of the course, and oh boy they were lovely, the bacon sarnies were my personal favourite.

You may be wondering what the coloured blocks means in the title. Well when you have your profile done you get coloured blocks that you can put in you order of preference. From now on however I will be using my blocks to demonstrate that the colour code they produce is not fixed and you can and should use all of your personality to benefit yourself and your team.

I will gladly say those 4 days were 4 of the most inspiring and enlightening days I have experienced for a long time.