A regional financial institution had their entire computer system crash on a busy Saturday afternoon. It was only a matter of fifteen minutes before IT had the system back up and running. But even in that limited time frame it instantly meant thousands of customers stopped having access to their bank accounts. That meant no cash withdraws and no ability to use their bank cards.
Every staff member, in every branch, instantly knew what Monday morning was going to be like. There were going to be customers in the branches and on the phone complaining about the system problems. Fair enough, but how to deal with it?
Golds values tradition and the stability of their company. They place great importance on its reputation and just dread coming to work Monday. They take any complaint to heart and almost as a personal attack against their employer. Plus, if they know it is coming, it is already putting a major dent into their weekend.
Blues have a primary concern for people. They can take negative feedback, raised voices, and unhappy customers quite personal. They will also feel very badly hearing stories of customers’ stress and problems as a result of the system crash. Confrontation and yelling are huge stresses— and they know what Monday will bring. Yes, they can be great listeners, but cannot turn back the clock. They will be extremely empathetic but stressed from the nasty calls that are sure to come in.
Greens are the Color that looks for improvements and answers. How long was the system down? Why did it happen? What will prevent this from happening again? With their calm and cool demeanor, Greens will often not sound or look empathetic to customers though. All in all, they would prefer to take these calls when they actually have some answers. There are few things worse that sounding stupid or uninformed. They may be great at pointing out their system reliability, the odds of it happening again, etc. Unfortunately, a customer calling to complain will not always do it in a calm, rational or logical manner. That can cause our Green friends to become a little frustrated or sarcastic. Do you not carry a credit card you could have used? Do you not realize a complex system like this can fail sometime? Could you not realize that it was only a matter of minutes before it was coming back on-line? True, but maybe not helpful.
Now to our Orange friends. Chances are, their first reaction will be along the lines of: ‘All right, this could be a fun day— there’s going to be some action today— let me in there— stand back and watch me work.’ Quite different than the other three Color groups aren’t they? After all, Oranges love a challenge, taking on the impossible and succeeding where others are having problems. But how many managers would know to take all their Orange staff and Monday morning put them on the phones and front-lines, no matter what their job description or title?
In this example, understanding the stresses that the situation causes for the other three Color groups also creates a great opportunity for a company to shine and utilize the great strengths of their Orange staff.