Introduction to Real Colors and RDA Use Case
Selecting a Communication Tool for RDA
Real Colors was first introduced to our CEO, Matt Forsyth, when he was with a previous company 15+ years ago. When searching for a tool to enhance our teamwork and communication skills, Matt suggested Real Colors. Real Colors stood out as a fit for RDA because of its simple yet thorough practical approach. The Real Colors program is easy to remember, making it effortless to apply for daily use.
Many other popular personality tools are hard to keep up with due to their complex results, and difficult to recognize when applying to real life scenarios. Aside from being a simple program to grasp, Real Colors focuses primarily on improving communication and collaboration styles, which aligns perfectly with RDA’s goals, making it the ideal choice.
Organizing a Company-Wide Implementation
First and foremost, we had to secure buy in from our senior leadership team. In November of 2023, we conducted an in-person Real Colors Introductory/Leadership Combo Workshop. The session brought first-hand experience and awareness of the benefits the program provides, giving us confirmation of the true value Real Colors could bring to our organization.
Kelly Sharkey, RDA’s HR Manager, then signed up for the Real Colors Facilitator Certification Training. This was an interactive week-long training course, conducted virtually, where she worked with the same team for five days to become a Real Colors Certified Facilitator.
Throughout the training, she was able to learn the ins and outs of how to apply the tool to large teams and organizations, enabling us with an internal leader for program planning. From there, we created a communication plan to ensure every employee fully understood our initiatives for the program and why it was important to RDA.
We then partnered with the same outside consultant that originally introduced Matt Forsyth, RDA President & CEO, to the program. Robyn Cooper has been a Real Colors Facilitator for well over 15 years and continues to introduce it to her new teams everywhere she goes. She ran our initial Real Colors introductory assessment with the leadership team and helped us conduct the virtual workshops with the entire employee base as we rolled out the program. Finally, we devised a plan to ensure that we could keep Real Colors alive and thriving within the organization to fully embed it into our culture.
The Great Scheduling Challenge of Stakeholders in the 2020’s
The biggest challenge we ran into in this process was the coordination of schedules, which we knew from the start was going to be difficult. Since the majority of our team consists of client facing roles, spread across 40+ projects, trying to gather groups for 3-hour long workshops without disrupting client meetings or project schedules was nearly impossible.
We divided employees into three separate sessions and sent invitations accordingly. From there, we had to coordinate people in and out of groups until we were sure they were all accounted for and that they had all taken their assessments prior to their scheduled workshops.
Advice for Organizations Looking to Implement a Communication Tool in the Workplace
Kelly has two major pieces of advice for any organizations looking to implement a communication tool in their workplace:
Secure Buy-in from Leadership
We cannot stress enough the importance of having leadership buy-in on EVERY implementation or integration project a company considers! Having your senior leadership and/or HR team test out the Real Colors workshop for themselves is an excellent way to ensure the decision makers fully understand what they are signing up for.
Kelly personally went into the introduction session skeptical, thinking “This is just another personality test. I don't think it's going to bring much value, be effective, or be something that we want to spread throughout our organization.” But, once she sat in on that workshop, she really understood the true impact it could have.
If you don't have that buy in or full support from your senior leadership and HR team, it's not going to be successful. As a consulting company at heart, we have seen countless project failures due to a lack of leadership support. So, having a roadmap to work off of is the easiest way to put your best foot forward.
Build a Support Plan for Post-Implementation
On the back end, really ensure that that there will be ongoing support and reinforcement dedicated to the Real Colors concepts. Someone should be accountable for the continuation of training, learning, and promoting content so that everyone continues to utilize it. This is not just a one and done situation, but rather a learning device that can and should be referenced in day-to-day operations moving forward.
Positive Feedback from the RDA
“As a digital consultancy, our people are our product. They enable us to power the possible and create value for our clients. To receive such positive responses from our team members helps validate the type of culture and environment we are striving to not just maintain, but to be the best for our people. " said RDA President & CEO, Matt Forsyth.
Real Colors was received very positively by all employees at RDA. Our teams found the sessions insightful, engaging, and, often, almost shocking for how relatable and accurate they were. They felt like it was both an entertaining team building experience and a good tool to adopt into their professional tool belt.
Several people have told Kelly that it's helped them be more self-aware and has helped them in understanding their coworkers better. Kelly said, “I've also had a lot of people reach out and ask if we could test their spouse or their children, to better understand how to communicate in their personal lives as well.”
The True Value of Real Colors in a Business Setting like RDA
In a business atmosphere, Real Colors provides immeasurable value by improving communication styles, handling team dynamics, and fostering a more inclusive culture and team environment. It teaches many employees to be more self-aware of their personal communication styles. This can be seen as the first step in effectively communicating with others because if you're aware of your own preferences and limitations, then you have a better understanding of why you may receive others a certain way.
It also helps employees understand the potential communication preferences of those around them, whether that is coworkers, clients, partners, or leadership teams. This ensures more effective interactions, and it reduces misunderstandings within teams, which is extremely important in a fast-paced workforce.
Consider if someone has a vastly different communication style than you do. You might misinterpret or misunderstand the way someone is saying something even if they have no negative intentions. That’s just the way that they are, and you may be the complete opposite.
Real Colors reduces those misunderstandings, helping in conflict resolution. Anytime there's a conflict, you must be aware of your personal communication styles and the styles of the parties that you're speaking with. It can enhance team building, leadership training, and development by providing practical tools and strategies that assist these teams in navigating various situations. Real Colors can help make meetings more efficient and lead to more effective task delegation and decision making, enabling a more productive use of everyone's time.
How Becoming a Trained Real Colors Facilitator Can Change the Way You Work
Speaking to Kelly’s experience, becoming a Real Colors facilitator has transformed the way that she works collaboratively within HR. It's given insight into different personality types and different communication styles.
This has helped her tailor her approach to meetings, emails, and really any kind of communication while working with the managers and members in her direct team, as well as those in other areas of the organization. It really makes you think twice before entering a meeting or a conversation. Real Colors not only brings professional relationships closer, but also ensures everyone is getting what they’re looking for out of a conversation.
This has been a major theme with the application of Real Colors in our HR and leadership departments since they’re all relatively close. RDA is a small company and even as we've had new members join or others move on, it feels like we continue to have a close-knit environment. However, it feels like we all have a deeper understanding of our team dynamics now. We know how to better leverage everyone's strengths to achieve our goals each quarter by utilizing the tools Real Colors has taught us.
Putting Real Colors to Work in Professional Relationships
Outside of who Kelly works with on a daily basis, she plans to and has already started using Real Colors concepts with her colleagues outside of her immediate role.
As an HR professional, Kelly often receives professional or confidential questions from colleagues. The Real Colors tool helps her to respond thoughtfully to emails, phone calls, and other inquiries, ensuring that everyone receives the attention and detail they need. This is particularly important in conflict resolution situations, where individuals may perceive things differently. The tools and concepts of Real Colors bring tangible, real-life value to various aspects of Kelly's role.
Additional Efforts to Weave Real Colors into RDA Culture
The Real Colors initiative has given Kelly a unique chance to collaborate with the IT department to install each individual RDAers’ primary and secondary Real Colors around their profile images within our Microsoft applications, including Teams, Outlook, and more. Doing this ensures all employees can easily see the colors of those they’re collaborating with before they go into a meeting. This change will allow RDAers to mindfully plan their communication approach or reactions in a way that is best understood and heard by those they’re speaking with.
Some future content initiatives that Kelly is developing and planning to host are informational company-wide calls and video clips explaining how to work with the different colors, specifically leadership, from the employee to the manager as opposed to the other way around. These additional concepts are planned to roll out via the RDA intranet quarterly moving forward to keep the learning fresh and applicable in our minds.
That's another key piece: keeping things consistent, making materials accessible, and encouraging management or leadership teams to utilize these concepts in their regular meeting cadences, such as L10s. Even brief callouts or mentions of Real Colors can help incorporate the concepts into each of their calls, making sure that everyone is keeping the language of Colors fresh in their mind and embracing it in the proper way as well.
We want to continually remind everyone that Real Colors in not meant to pigeonhole, label, or judge anyone based on their color profile. It’s about being aware of your differences, yourself, and how you can embrace your teams’ strengths. RDA utilizes the Real Colors Personality Tool to further development the amazing company culture that has earned us a Great Place to Work Certification for three years.