With greater self-insight, Kellpla is even better equipped to face the competition

Serious fun

On a Friday, director-owner Kim Frencken-Kelleners wants to increase self-insight throughout the organisation together with her fifty employees and with the help of MyDrives. The accompanying questions are: what different types of employee does Kellpla have in-house? What are their strengths and pitfalls? And how can this help them work together even better? Those are serious questions. But it is an anniversary weekend, so there is plenty of relaxed fun to be had on this serious-fun day as well.

A bespoke approach up front

Beforehand, MyDrives developed a bespoke approach with the aim of helping the entire Kellpla organisation take the desired step forward. The MyDrives drives analysis and its accompanying seven-colour theory form the foundation. Together, they first of all ensure that the Kellpla employees get to know themselves and their teammates even better.

The day itself

At the Kapellerput hotel in Heeze, Marc Stijfs of MyDrives delivers the kick-off by explaining the MyDrives colour theory to the Kellpla employees. To do so, he runs through the iceberg model, the meaning of the colours and practical applications. The accompanying clips Marc shows create cheerful moments. The participants’ hands quickly shoot into the air during the ‘purple’ clip about Liverpool FC and the sound of its famous club anthem: You’ll never walk alone. Fun all round. This is followed by an interactive exercise using the so-called Mentimeter, to clarify not only the helpful behaviour but equally the obstructive behaviour of a drive.

Profile discussions

Once Marc is sure that the colour theory is clear to everyone, the participants are divided into groups. A certified MyDrives consultant explains their personal MyDrives profile to them. This is based on the MyDrives questionnaire the participants completed earlier. These profile discussions are highly interactive and the participants find their colour profile very recognisable. They also give several real-life examples of their own drives and those of others, along with the behaviour that goes with them.

Building towers

After lunch, the participants are divided into subgroups. They are set the challenge of building the tallest possible tower out of a ream of paper. The group with the tallest tower wins. What they do not know is that Kellpla employees with the same colour profile have been placed together. The aim of this is to make clear that, although types with the same colours understand and sense each other well, in a group setting they can also display rather one-sided behaviour. So the social green team does a lot of talking and laughing. The blue team is more serious by nature and works in a structured way. The red team gets going straight away with great drive, and the yellow team builds two towers after a thorough analysis to find out which construction style is most efficient. That turns out to be a smart choice, because the yellow team wins.

The group with the tallest tower wins, but what the teams do not know is that they have been put together by colour profile.

Coloured nunchucks

After evaluating the tower exercise, the participants each receive a coloured nunchuck from MyDrives consultant Roland Griek. A nunchuck is a Japanese martial arts weapon consisting of two sticks connected to each other by a short chain or a short cord. Roland knows all about it, because he is vice world champion in handling this weapon. After he has explained the basic principles of a nunchuck, he lets the participants experience for themselves what it is like to work with a different colour type. For example: someone with a red nunchuck seeks out a partner with a green nunchuck. In this way they discover what behaviour the other person displays in practice and learn to understand each other better with a view to working together more effectively. Non-verbal communication, focus and respect are some of the points of attention that come up here.

Which role suits you?

Marc and Roland close the day using the thinking-feeling-doing triangle. This shows which role best suits a particular colour type. And which other colour type you can learn the most from. The yellow colour type, for instance, often finds the blue colour type too rigid in its behaviour and too fussy when it comes to executing details. Conversely, the blue colour type can be irritated by what it perceives as the chaotic nature of the yellow colour type, which regularly leads to chaos. By getting to know each other better, here too the path is open to better collaboration.