Insight Into Different Personality Types
Understanding the different personality types of people will give you an inside advantage with your everyday business and personal relations, people skills, and dramatically improve your communication skills and persuasion techniques.
Most people have heard of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator or MBTI that has been used for decades to classify and explain different personality types. It’s great, but who has time to study 16 different personality types with detailed descriptions? What you really need is something that boils it down into something simpler. Let me introduce to the PACE Palette. Released in 1991 by the PACE organization, it offers an amazing level of insight through four different personality types identified by the colors red, yellow, blue and green. It is very accurate and extremely interesting, and I think you will be able to distinguish the different personality types in your family and social circle. Here are the essential details:
4 Different Personality Types: Red, Yellow, Blue and Green
RED: People of this type are adventurous. They like to do things their way and if that means breaking the rules along the way, so be it. They love pushing the limits, experiencing change and being excited. They always have lots of energy and are usually the life of the party. They’re very spontaneous and are more likely to act first and consider the consequences later if at all. In business they want to get straight to the bottom line. Their word is adventure.
YELLOW: People who are yellow like to have a plan and are highly organized. They love to-do lists and checking off the items they’ve completed. They’re natural leaders who enjoy investing in their community. Yellows tend to be reliable, determined, ambitious and very timely. They’re a little more towards the “control freak” end of the spectrum. Their word is responsibility.
BLUE: People of the blue persuasion are more emotional, romantic and quite sensitive – traits often seen as soft or somewhat effeminate. They value friendships, family ties and emotional connections with them. They are often very creative and like working towards peace in the world as well as their own lives. Their word is harmony.
GREEN: These are the straight-talking analytical thinkers who love solving problems. They tend to be very intelligent but still work hard and don’t hold back. They want to be successful and be recognized for it as well. Nonconforming and independent, they prefer to work alone rather than in groups. They’re especially good at coming up with ingenious ways to do things more efficiently. Their word is curiosity.
What Color Are You? Communicating Across Different Personality Types
Once you understand the different color types you start recognizing other people’s predominant color pretty quickly, even though everyone has a secondary color as well as shades of the others. You can see the joys, values and strengths of each of the different personalities as they are described above. But, in order to be able to communicate effectively with people of different personality types, you also need to understand their stressors, irritators and aggravators. Here they are for each color:
RED: The reds are going to dislike rules, and possibly both the people who make them, enforce them or follow them. Lists are out. Orderliness is out. They despise monotony and get distracted easily. If you want to communicate with a red, get to the point quickly and focus on immediate outcomes and the bottom line.
YELLOW: They really don’t like to leave work undone. They are annoyed by chaos in general as well as immature, unorganized people. If you want to communicate successfully with a yellow, be precise and organized, timely and realistic, but still values-driven.
BLUE: If you want to drive a blue crazy, start excluding people. Blues dislike mean people as well as people who can’t handle being emotional. To appeal to a blue when communicating, you need to focus on values as well as be inclusive, seek harmony and consider how things impact others.
GREEN: The greens have no patience for dimwitted people or those who get too emotional. They also dislike jumping around from task to task. The green’s nightmare is appearing to be stupid. To get a green excited about something, make it about advancing knowledge, focusing on data, evidence and solutions in a logical way but with creativity and a bigger vision.
I don’t know about you, but I certainly recognize the different personality types in these color categories and I have to say they are very accurate. How about you, can you differentiate the different traits among your family, colleagues and friends? What is your personality type? You can check it out here. Your personality type.
That is your crash course in understanding other people and how to communicate with them more effectively. You can apply this in both your personal and professional lives. Give it a try and see the difference it can make, when you know how to handle your interactions with people of different personality types!
© 2012, Linda. All rights reserved.
Wow. Going down the list reminds me the characters of all my friends and it really ascertains my perspectives of them. As for myself, I’m totally a green personality. I’m quite curious about solving problems, always prefered to work alone. I tend not to be bothered with some of my friends who often get emotional, because I think that doesn’t get anything solved, but I still value our friendship.
Though it’s kind of funny that I see them in terms of color, I think this somehow helps me understand their perspectives and manner of working. The descriptions are quite accurate indeed.
This is very interesting. I have to say I think certain aspects of myself have a little bit of each color. So I am multi-colored
But it depends on the area of life. In some aspects I despise rules and want to do my own thing, and do not get overly emotional about certain things. So I am red in many ways. However, when it comes to anything that is important to me whether it is my own work or my friends, I am a mix of yellow, green and blue. I will take that test and find out what it really says 
Hi Marsha, it’s interesting to see what your personality is, in terms of other’s optinions and of course through tests. I believe we are fall into a mix of colors, but our core personality usually falls into one category. We all like to learn about ourselves. Some pretty interesting things usually pop out. Take care and thanks.
Linda
This is truly fascinating. I actually just took the test and I am mostly blue (not a surprise to me) but I agree, there are some aspects of ourselves that are mixed but I am mostly blue.
I am horrible at reading people. Think I understand the color types, but i mean I am the worst at reading other peoplle. Its something I need to work on.