When order meets chaos

I get lots of emails from all over the world. Some of them are just pure magic.

One reader asked me:

“My manager has great energy, is fun to be around. Everybody loves her. Inspirational, motivational, a visionary thinker. Serious energy.

But there is this tiny little problem: she never finishes a sentence; she constantly changes plans and forgets half of what she promises.

She is not mean or evil. But she is too spontaneous. And I’m an engineer. I’m losing my mind. Help?”

Ah. The classic yellow/blue clash.

Yellows love spontaneity. They love ideas, big pictures, and rapid enthusiasm. Structure? Not so much. Details? Wot? Someone else will handle those (they hope). Deadlines? Indeed a bendable concept.

Blues, on the other hand, like order. Logic. Reliability. Clear expectations. Unclear and foggy communication = internal panic.

Put the two together and you have:

• A manager who thinks “week 45” is a solid deadline
• An employee who gets anxious as “week 45” actually contains at least 168 very different deadlines.

They’re both doing their best. But they process the world on completely different wavelengths.

A guy I know fairly well told me his yellow wife once texted him:

“Let’s go to Paris! Tomorrow! Pack snacks!”
He replied: “Can we finish paying off the fridge first?”
She didn’t talk to him for three days.
Very yellow.
Very blue.
Very much no Paris for him.

See you next Wednesday.
//Thomas