Over the years I’ve met HR VPs of all four Colors in every imaginable industry. Recently, a 32 Blue friend took that position in the biotechnology field. On the surface, that seems like a total misfit – but it’s actually a perfect fit! A 32 Blue in an industry dominated by Greens? Yup.
My friend, let’s call her Sharon, has exactly zero knowledge in the field. But that’s not why she is there. Clearly, the Green owner wasn’t hiring someone to do lab work or research. Even without knowing anything about personality types, his company had hired more than 60 staff in the prior year, and he needed someone to “make all the pieces fit,” as he described it.
Where do you start almost setting up a proper HR department from scratch? With writing policy manuals, onboarding procedures, benefit plans, or any number of processes? Sure – those are all important. But you can bet that any Blue will always start on the people side of the company. One of the first things Sharon did was to put up a huge world map. Within a month (when I got the tour of the facility before the Colors seminar) she had met all 100+ staff. But she hadn’t just met them, she remembered their names AND had all of them in her office to show her where they were from. For any Blue, that probably always started a conversation…
Her map was filled with pins from over 40 countries! When she introduced me to some of the staff on our tour, she always has a short story: So and so immigrated here two years ago, his sister is actually…she’s the first person in the company to develop… That’s pretty impressive when getting a tour, but imagine how that makes a staff member feel!
Where do you start setting up an entire HR department? That depends on the person and their Colors. For Sharon, it was probably very little time in her office during the first 60-days. For Blues, people and relationships always come first. That’s just never up for discussion or debate. After all, teamwork makes the dream work.