Tip for a Blue to help with Reds.

I have a very Blue friend who wants to connect deeply with his associates. He strives to communicate honestly and thoughtfully, and usually it means he will take his time to be thorough in his approach.

One day he comes to me and laments, “I feel like my boss is always cutting me short. Every time I try to come to him with new ideas he listens for a bit and then walks away before I can even get to what I’m trying to say. I don’t know, I thought he cared about me and what I had to say.”

I immediately knew what the problem was, and (very excitedly) exclaimed, “No he does care about you! But your boss is a Red! That guy needs like 3 or 4 bullet points from you and then you gotta be the one to walk away.” My Blue friend goes, “But I don’t feel like he’s going to get the full idea!” “My dude, he’s a Red. He’s going to catch on to the vision just fine. Reds are quick like that.”

My Blue friend tried adopting this in his interactions with his boss, and realized how even though it isn’t the way he himself naturally communicates, treating his Red boss the way a Red wants to be treated was much more effective than drawing out every detail of the thought process like he wanted to. This developed a better connection between the two and my Blue friend has learned more about himself (that he can in fact portray his ideas in just a few sentences), and more about his boss.

Side note, I firmly believe a healthy Red and Blue duo can achieve literally anything they set their mind to. They could take over the entire world if they wanted to.