How Wright Service Corp. Uses a Color Language to Help Build Synergies and Success

True Colors is a “people technology,” utilizing the metaphor of color and a common vocabulary to understand basic, innate human diversity. The True Colors tool is a hands-on, interactive, experiential process that provides an educational, user-friendly format utilizing the metaphor of color to grasp some complex concepts about self and others. Intrinsic to human nature is the need for self-esteem and confidence, two characteristics widely recognized as the basis for successful and satisfying behavior. We naturally seek environments to enhance our self-esteem. Different means exist by which each of the colors esteem themselves. The True Colors mission is to foster healthy, productive relationships, and organizations, whose esteem and success flow from the natural gifts and talents contributed by each person.

True Colors is a “color language” that identifies different personality traits and value systems. It recognizes four innate systems which drive behaviors and through which each individual strives to experience positive self-esteem. The color becomes the message. The TrueColors model uses four colors (blue, gold, green and orange) to identify four distinct perspectives and personalities. Most of us have a dominant color and are influenced or shaded by the other three colors, thus creating our full True Colors spectrum. We come to understand that our core self and our core values are influenced by our developed self (our education and training) and our contextual self.

As Don Lowry, the creator of True Colors said, “Successful people know who they are and what their True Colors are …when you know what your core values and needs are and feel good about them, you can perform at your highest potential in every area of life. And when you share a working, mutual understanding of others’ core values and needs, you have the basis to communicate, motivate, and achieve common goals with utmost dignity, efficacy, and mutual respect.”

Participant benefits are many, including enhanced appreciation and understanding of self and others that, in turn, results in improved team relationships and productivity, thereby reducing the potential for conflicts. These benefits are the result of using a non-threatening common vocabulary known as True Colors, which is an invitation to use our full True Colors spectrum, not just our single bright color lens, as we seek to build positive relationships with others. True Colors is a simple, effective vocabulary to better understand the diversity of personality styles in the workplace and lays the groundwork for more meaningful and effective interactions with colleagues moving forward.

Whereas in real estate, it is “location, location, location,” with True Colors itis “application, application, application.”The more we apply and integrate the True Colors model into our daily personal and professional lives, the more value we will get from True Colors. Reminder, most of us spend the majority of our time in the brightest two colors of our spectrum.There are times, however, when we are challenged to “pump up” our palest color(lowest score) for a few minutes, an hour or even an entire day. In essence, we have to “walk a mile” in someone else’s shoe whose brightest color is your palest color. Elvis Presley said it best in one of his songs: “Walk a mile in my shoes before you criticize and abuse.” How are you doing in walking a mile in someone else’s shoes? If you do not share the same bright color with that other person, can you connect via your second brightest color in seeking common ground? Perhaps this is your challenge?

Let us strive to make it a True Colors world!

Louise Kutz serves as one of the original trainers in delivering the True Colors model. In addition to serving as a private, independent external consultant focusing on training and troubleshooting, Louise is a Master Trainer of the True Colors model and serves in a consulting capacity to the True Colors organization. She has delivered various training topics and presentations across the U.S., Canada, Puerto Rico, England, Spain, Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Okinawa, Thailand and the Netherlands. She recently co-chaired the national conference of the International True Colors Association.

The WSC family of companies has used the True Colors model throughout our organization to help build valuable relationships and understand themselves and one another. The Wright Perspective invited Louise Kutz to contribute to this issue to provide context around the True Colors model and why this is a vital piece of our company. This article was published in “An Outside Perspective,” a section of the Wright Service Corp. biannual newsletter, The Wright Perspective.