Stephen Elkins-Jarrett - Across the Spectrum: What Color Are You?

Across the Spectrum

Across the Spectrum

What Color Are You?

Stephen Elkins-Jarrett

Across the Spectrum: What Color Are You?

Copyright Business Expert Press, LLC, 2017.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other except for brief quotations, not to exceed 400 words, without the prior permission of the publisher.

First published in 2017 by

Business Expert Press, LLC

222 East 46th Street, New York, NY 10017

www.businessexpertpress.com

ISBN-13: 978-1-63157-705-5 (paperback)

ISBN-13: 978-1-63157-706-2 (e-book)

Business Expert Press Human Resource Management and Organizational Behavior Collection

Collection ISSN: 1946-5637 (print)

Collection ISSN: 1946-5645 (electronic)

Cover and interior design by Exeter Premedia Services Private Ltd.,

Chennai, India

First edition: 2017

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Printed in the United States of America.

This book is dedicated to Mike Smith of Manskill Associates, who sadly died on June 28, 2009, and who taught me everything I know and set me on the right road, changing my career and lighting the touch paper on behavior by telling me:

Stephen, you can achieve anything you want! The only thing stopping you is your lack of imagination and will power.

This man was a genius, my Guru, my mentor, and my life coachI will never be able to repay him or thank him enough for a life-changing experience working with him! Thanks to Carly, Emily, and Williamthe loves of my life.

Thanks to Nick Skinner of Poppyfish People Development who helped me with all the graphics and his ability to use blue behaviors when I could not, and also thanks to Julie Sutton and Steve Berry for all their help and support in the past.

Abstract

Man has studied behavior for thousands of years: the ancient Greeks compared human behavior to earth, water, fire, and air; Freud, Jung, Fromm, Rodgers, and Pavlov have been fascinated by behavior. Psychologists have labeled behavioral types with words. Some of these models are lost to time like, Mars facial shapes or Pavlovs canine types. Others, as old as the 1930s (Eric Fromm on which this book is based) are still used today. Myers-Briggs MBTI, Disc, and LIFO are still very popular in the western world as management tools. The problem with many of these models is you need to be qualified to use them, which is costly to administer. SPECTRUM is based on colors not words and is cheaper, easier, and understandable by all staff at all levels from day one. You thought it was complicated and confusing, maybe needed a degree in psychology to understand it? What is different about Spectrum? Well it does not categorize you into introvert or extrovert but rather on a continuum or spectrum between the two extremes. It also blends four primary colors into 18 stylesno one else does this. Think of red, what does that color say to you? Understand yourself and then learn how to tune into others, and for the first time understand that:We are taught as children to treat others the way that we would like to be treated, this is wrong! We have to start treating others as THEY would like to be treated!

Keywords

behavior, body-language, change, facial expressions, leadership, management and culture, personality, profiling, psychology, psychometrics, self-help, style, voice

We are taught as children to treat others how WE want to be treated, but this is wrong! We must start treating others how THEY would like to be treated! But how can we do this if we are not them? Spectrum will quickly identify your preferred work style and another persons work style and then show you how to be more influential; keep control of situations and relationships; and be more powerful, persuasive, inspirational, and successful.

SPECIFIC

PERSONAL

EFFECTIVE

COMMUNICATION

THOROUGH

REALLY

UNDERSTANDING

MYSELF

By Stephen Elkins-Jarrett

I am the sole author of the dictionary that defines me!

Zadie Smith, author from the book NW

What is this book all about? It is quite simply a book about behavior and making behavior simple to understand and help you become more influential.

It is not a book about personality nor is it a scientific or medical book, and it is not really about psychology, but it is simply a book about understanding your style.

If you went on a holiday to a foreign country, I would like to think that you would try to speak to the locals in their language and not just slower and louder in your own tongue. So why do we try to communicate to others in our style, and not in theirs?

Derren Brown said in his recent show,

There are only two things you can totally control, your thoughts and your actions.

Miracles stage show London2015

So here is a way to totally control your behaviors (actions) and thoughts (feelings).

For all my early life, it frustrated me that I never understood behavior, as my parents used to say to me, Behave yourselfor else! but I never knew what this meant. I think my parents were saying, do as you are told or else! Dont embarrass me, dont be too loud or talkative, sit still and shut up, go to bed when we tell you, and so onit was all about controlling the childrennot teaching us or understanding what behavior is. The funny or ironic thing is that our parents were telling us off for behaving like them. I was copying them.

Personality is the deep you, hidden from others, but behavior is on the surface that we can hear and see, and so the next time you hear someone say it is a clash of personalities, tell them they are wrong. It is nearly always a clash of behaviors. For it to be a clash of personality you need to be them, or be their lifelong partner, sleep with them, and know their values and beliefs then you can have a clash of personality. A clash of behavior is what we get at work when we disagree or argue with another person when using an inappropriate style for the situation we are ina Hawaiian shirt to a funeral.

How did I get here? How come I claim to know so much about one of the great mysteries of the last 4,000 years?

I started my career as a chef, where bad behavior and angry-head chefs were commonplace, and being aggressive seemed to me to be the norm. Then I left that career and went into the construction industry, again being aggressive or angry was the norm. If you didnt do as you were told you got hit or at least shouted at. At the same time, I was heavily involved in amateur dramatics and after some years of performing, directing, working backstage, and putting on four productions a year, I found myself playing Willie Mossop in the play Hobsons Choice by Harold Brighouse, a story of a downtrodden cobbler and an aggressive shoe shop owner and how their roles switch and Mossop ends up having the power and Hobson shrinks awayand this play, I believe, is where the expression Hobsons Choice came from, leaving Hobson with only one choice to let Mossop marry his daughter and take over the shop. The director of this play was Mike (Michael) Smith and he got us to role-play the characters, in periods before the play starts and even after the play finishes, so we could begin to understand the characters and empathize. Not everyones cup of tea but I loved it and we got on well. When the show finished, he asked me what I did for a living and so I told him painting, decorating, and special effect paint finishing! He basically asked me, then and there, if I fancied being a management consultant. I had no idea what one was or what they did and even if I had the right qualifications, but I did it. Richard Branson said, If you ever get asked to do a job and think I am not sure if I can do that, do it and learn how to do it as you go. It is all I have ever done!