By: Taylor McPherson, Director of Communication and Community Engagement
The old saying goes “Rome wasn’t built in a day” and that same adage applies for the roads we pave and aggregates we mine. It takes many hardhat-covered minds to create greatness for the communities we serve. Given the amount of hands-on teamwork we must complete in any given day, we place high priority on the company culture we are creating.
One tool that we utilize is Insights Discovery to map out the communication styles and preferences of our team. Broken down into four colors energies that signify personality traits, each one brings their own set of unique strengths to any organization. Red signifying determined and purposeful, blue representing deliberate and analytical, green signaling encouraging and sharing, yellow symbolizing sociable and enthusiastic – we all possess some level of each color energy. For most who undergo the analysis, certain color energies are more dominant than others.
To aid the working style and flow of our team, our company headquarters has each individual’s color personality represented on their name plate at each desk. A number of our field members also utilize this tool. Colors sitting above the benchmark line depict a stronger presence of those personality traits. Colors that rest below the line signify that those traits are more reserved.
Overall, this helps us to be better co-workers as we realize the way we communicate with one another has great impact on our end goals. The idea is that we can get our message or function across strongest when we are delivering it in a way that is most optimal to the recipient.
As a demonstration of how each personality type brings forth distinctive strengths and communication styles, we asked four teammates who are dominant in each color to share their perspective:
How would you describe your communication style?
- RED, Dennis Harrod – “Direct. To me, that’s the best way to be and to get your point across.”
- YELLOW, Kathy Richardson – “I like conversation, definitely. I want that back and forth dialogue and that color around the communication.”
- GREEN, Maria Bennett – Often being described as one of the most supportive teammates in the office, Maria remarked, “I prefer email, but I like direct. Don’t beat around the bush, get to it. I would like to think that I’m direct with people.”
- BLUE, Dave Leverett – “I ask a lot of questions since I’m detail-oriented, but I’m a good listener. I tend to be very abrupt or direct, you might say. It doesn’t bother me when someone asks a direct question, so I usually do the same with others.”
What is your favorite thing about working here?
- RED, Dennis Harrod – “The challenges.”
- YELLOW, Kathy Richardson – “The people. In 42 years of working full-time, this is my favorite place and favorite people. It’s like a family – everybody really cares about each other.”
- GREEN, Maria Bennett – “The trust I’ve built with my team has allowed me the freedom and pace to work in a way that I feel my position should run. There’s no micro-managing.”
- BLUE, Dave Leverett – “The geology is something I’ve enjoyed doing. The rocks and minerals are [interesting to me]. I remember when I was an undergraduate in college saying, ‘gee, one day we might get paid to walk around and look at rocks.’”
Describe your work style.
- RED, Dennis Harrod – “I like for the tasks to get done, but I’m not a micromanager.”
- YELLOW, Kathy Richardson – “I’m somebody who likes to be very organized. These are skills I learned over the years. I like to take care of business and check off all the boxes [on my list]. However, I very much enjoy the social aspect of working in the office.”
- GREEN, Maria Bennett – “My work style would be [highly organized]. There is so much paperwork involved, and it comes in waves. Some days it’s steady and some it’s [busy]. You have to be organized.”
- BLUE, Dave Leverett – “I think for various reasons, I do a lot of my work by myself… that includes drone work, etc. Since I’m analytical, I tend to look at things over and over again. I like big projects with a lot of details to them.”
What word would people close to you use to describe you?
- RED, Dennis Harrod – “Stoic.”
- YELLOW, Kathy Richardson – “Joy. I always say that I choose joy over everything. This life is too short to not choose joy and spread it. That’s what we’re here for.” Kathy closed her remarks by holding up a coaster that sits on her desks and reads “choose joy.”
- GREEN, Maria Bennett – “I’ve always been the goofy one… Goofy, yet solid.”
- BLUE, Dave Leverett – “Opinionated. If someone asks me something, I don’t mind telling them what I think and can get long-winded in that.”
*SOURCE: https://www.insights.com/us/
