| Greetings! |
| As 2009 comes to an end we want to say thank you to all of our friends and supporters for another good year. As we look forward to continued growth in 2010 we also look forward to continuing to help you and your organization along your journey as well.
We hope all of you have a wonderful holiday season and enjoy your time with family and friends.
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| Intuit Holds Colors Video Conference With India Office |
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Thanks to Intuit's high tech HD suites, PII Partner Rachel Bitte recently facilitated a colors session with an Intuit team in Bangalore, India from her Mountain View location. There were some challenges with conducting this kind of session via teleconference but with patient planning and coordination the event was a success. The first obstacle was timing; in order to reach India at a decent hour Rachel had to be at the Mountain View, CA campus from 7:00 to midnight. Next, she had to prepare for the obvious elements lost when conducting a session remotely. Of course it helped having someone on the other side to assist with the facilitation. Nita Sharma, Group Development Manager, Employee Management Solutions in Bangalore, has been through several colors sessions and was able to provide the "hands on" aspects of facilitation. Concerning her part, Nita shared, "My role was to make the remote session feel more face-to face by being a proxy facilitator. I think it went very well and the team felt very comfortable."
 Intuit's HD Suites were designed to provide video conferencing to connect small teams of six to twelve people at thirteen different Intuit locations. Thanks to each studio's HD quality audio and video it is the next best thing to being in person. Each suite has two plasma screens that allow people to intereact and share documents at the same time. The suites are a great option to traveling while still allowing Intuit teams to collaborate from different locations. |
| Meet Frog Design PII Partner, Dr. Eric Hummel |
Vice President of HR for Frog Design and PII Partner, Dr. Eric Hummel, introduced colors to Frog this year. We asked him to share some of his experiences with us.
InColor: What is Frog Design?
Eric Hummel: Frog design is a global innovation firm that does amazing work converging visual and product design, strategy, technology, and behavioral research to collaborate with companies in designing their future products, customer experiences, and services. Oh, and we create some of our own smart phone applications as well. We have studios in San Francisco, Seattle, Austin, New York, Shanghai, Munich, Milan, and Amsterdam.
IC: Why did you choose to introduce PII to Frog and how did you roll it out?
EH: Frog has some amazingly talented creative, "blue" people who love to collaborate. But, we do not have a language for people with different styles (frogs or clients). I introduced PII in a very low key manner. I started with the HR team to give us an understanding of our team approach and dynamics. Then I added a section on "Colors" to our internal leader workshops focusing coaching and feedback. Wow. The creatives became instant promoters. First, because the PII accurately described who they are, their desires, and how to work with them. And it gave us a common language to understand and communicate about the value of varying preferences in approach we could leverage on our project teams.
IC: What kind of impact have you seen?
EH: Resourcing for projects has added an awareness of "colors" deferential as a positive. We have the beginnings of a language to talk about differences in a non threatening or non value laden way. And the rest of the organization wants to have their "colors done." Also, it was a big hit in Europe as well.
IC: What's been your biggest challenge?
EH: I am new to my role at frog design so it took a leap of faith to come out with PII in a company full of young, highly creative, and skeptical of having stuff "done to them" workforce. It was important for PII to not be the "center" of the learning action but to allow people to see how it supports the ability to access innovation and also our thinking about team dynamics.
IC: This is something I ask everyone: what's the toughest (or funniest) colors question you've ever been asked?
EH: A project Manager who had very little "green" said, "I don't think this is right." And the rest of the frogs in the workshop lovingly said, "...ahh, your 'colors' are so you." It was a humorous and great learning moment for everyone.
IC: Do you have any training tips or best practices for our other PII Partners out there?
EH: Linda and David are great at this so it is in my DNA...introduce and facilitate the PII/OPII as a guide and as additional information for people to have in their arsenal of knowledge. Its value is best appreciated when it is "discovered" versus "sold." | |
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InColor Insight Teams With Profiles International |
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Profiles International is the world leader in selecting and developing high-performance workforces. They have helped companies all over the globe gain a competitive advantage by selecting the right people the first time and managing them to their full potential. Their comprehensive employment assessments measure multiple performance indicators and critical behaviors and can be used for selection and hiring, promotion fit, succession planning, increasing productivity, analyzing training needs and more. With these assessments companies have been able to:
- Match employees to "best fit" job positions
- Make new employees more productive - faster
- Reduce attrition of top performers
- Identify and nurture rising stars in the organization
- Manage organizational change and foster employee engagement
InColor Insight now offers these assessments to help take the guesswork out of hiring and managing your workforce. Each assessment measures different performance indicators, behavioral traits, attitudes and/or proficiencies and has had multiple validation studies. Contact us to discuss using Profiles International in your organization. |
| You Can Stay True to Yourself - But You Need to do More Than "Just Say No" |
| Long time friend and InColor Insight collaborator, Elizabeth Doty, has just released her eagerly anticipated book The Compromise Trap - How to Thrive at Work Without Selling Your Soul.
The compromise trap is defined as the gradual erosion of vitality, passion and confidence that occurs when you deal with unhealthy pressure by playing along with the game and compromising in unhealthy ways.
Many of us have been or are there and in this book Elizabeth offers the antidote: redefining the game. She shares more than fifty firsthand accounts of compromise and courage and details a strategy that enables you to remain a positive force no matter how difficult the circumstances.
Elizabeth says the book is "aims to help professionals sort out healthy from unhealthy compromise and activate the courage they need to stay true to their values, principles, and other commitments."
The Compromise Trap was featured in Toronto's Globe and Mail on December 4 by columnist Wallace Inman and was the "top read" of the day.
"To say yes to our integrity, we need to say no to what is wrong. But how? In this insightful and practical book, Elizabeth Doty shows us how to engage constructively in shaping our work environment to create value for ourselves, our organizations, and the larger world. I recommend this book highly."
-William Ury, coauthor of Getting to Yes and author of The Power of a Positive No
This book would be a great gift for a co-worker or friend who needs some inspiration and encouragement.
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| Quick Links |
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Visit our web-site:
Visit Elizabeth Doty and Worklore
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