Ultimate marketer personality test | E108 with Michelle Hartley

Why do some marketing teams move fast and break things… while others want a spreadsheet, a process, and a risk assessment before lunch? 😅

In this episode, we’re joined by Michelle Hartley from People Sorted to unpack marketing personalities using the Insights Discovery framework (the one with the four colours). We’re talking team dynamics, communication, decision-making, and why “just be more collaborative” is not a strategy.

Plus: we do the personality reveal on Emma and Ruta (spoiler: it explains a lot).

We get into:
✅ What the four colour energies mean (red, yellow, green, blue)  
✅ Why some people want speed and others want certainty  
✅ How your “work self” vs “real self” shows up under pressure  
✅ Why sales and marketing can feel like different species  
✅ The hidden reason “nice culture” still ends in chaos  
✅ How to work better with people who are the opposite of you  
✅ What a “perfectionist profile” looks like in marketing (and why it’s a blessing + curse)

If you’ve ever thought “why is this person like this?” at work… this one’s for you.

#marketing #b2bmarketing #leadership #teamwork #careerdevelopment

We’re Ruta and Emma, the marketing consultants behind Blame it on Marketing. 

If you’re in B2B SaaS or professional services and looking to do marketing that actually drives revenue and profit, we’re here for it.

Visit blameitonmarketing.com and let’s get this show on the road.

Transcript

0:00

Hi everybody and welcome back to Blame It On Marketing with Emma and Ruta and today we're doing something a little bit different but we're very excited about it. but we are doing it with the hope of figuring out how best marketing teams and people in marketing can work together and work effectively with other people in their organization. That was a diplomatic way of saying not piss everyone off isn't it? So without further ado, our special guest, Michelle, please do, yeah, introduce yourself. Well, thank you for having me. I'm very excited to be here. I am Michelle Hartley. My business is called People Sorted. Mostly, I dick about on LinkedIn, and I pretend to call it a job. Outside of that, I train HR people to be HR people. So I transform HR teams from beige to brilliant. And then I occasionally work with very nice clients to do the stuff that we're going to talk about today. But yes, it's great to be here. I'm very excited. Yeah, not a usual guess, but we have had HR people on before because you know, we're also both underappreciated in some of the same ways, so we go through the same stuff. So why don't we go with a work confession? I don't know if you have a marketing confession, maybe because you're so good on LinkedIn, but have you prepared us a little confession for the podcast, Well, I've kind of got two actually. So I was thinking about like work related fuck ups and then like a Michelle related fuck up. The first one is, and I feel like you'll enjoy this because it's so me, but I was working my last corporate job. No, it's one corporate but one job. And we'd been on, I was on like a talent, an HR talent program that was all these global, awesome humans together doing HR stuff. And I was feeling myself. So I'd had this little like beautiful pink wrap dress on matching pink shoes. And we were in this fancy training center. And I was coming down this massive staircase, like a sweeping staircase. I was like, my God, this is made for me. I'm amazing. Walked past this guy and I was like, yeah, you can look at my ass as I walked past. Brilliant. I literally like feeling myself. And then wrong footed it mid point on the stairs, stacked it and landed on the bottom of the stairs, which was a marble floor. So this poor guy was like, are you okay? And I was like, I'm fine, I'm fine. I was not fine friends. Like, spoiler alert, I was most definitely not fine. And basically I had an extra knee on top of my knee that was about the size of my fist and had to be like wheel-chaired around for the rest of programme. is it always when you're feeling yourself and you're like i am fucking great that you fucking i did it to ruta what do you remember ruta we were at a we were a meeting and i was coming down the stairs to let you guys in the building and i managed to as i fell down the stairs because i was on my phone going down the stairs michelle on a marble staircase too managed to stack it and record myself falling and you could hear ruta and our colleagues reaction in the voice note god, god. That's bad, I feel you. this week have been So that was a Michelle fuck up? Yeah, okay. a workie related fuck up where basically I was putting in, and this is really important in HR world. So I was putting in everybody's pay rises for the year. And again, I was feeling myself cause I was like, I've done this before. I know what I'm doing. I'm fricking amazing. And I pressed the button to literally like make all of the pay rises go into the system. Obviously, why would I triple check myself? Why would I like make any efforts to like check anything when I can just press the button off of dopamine? So I press the damn button. put in everybody a 10 % pay rise up until 2150. So I had to then go in. the year, no, the year 2150. So basically I had 200 employee records that then had 200 years of pay rises gone in the system. And you may be asking friends like maybe you could just like undo it, like you can just back the system up and undo it. No, you can't. You have to go in manually. And so that was my life lesson at work about always triple checking anything to do with people's pay because I had to manually go in and remove 200 years of pay increases from every single entry in that system. Well, maybe your retention would have like shot through the roof. No one's leaving! No one's leaving. Oh my goodness. that, well, they were like the ones that I felt were like the most safe for work. Like there are lots of other, and honestly, this has been really hard because there are so many great HR confessions, but I cannot share them. We get it. These are the confessions that we talk about over a drink, not live on a podcast. Hell yes. So background for everyone, Michelle is going to be doing a personality situation with me and Emma. uh She has taken us personality situation, psychometric everyone, science words. She has taken us through the science of it and through like what things mean and how things like go together but she hasn't actually told us what our results are and we have both guessed what our own results are and what the other person's results are and sent that to Michelle. Michelle, why don't you tell us a tiny bit, give everyone a flavour of what insights is if they haven't done it before. So when we start talking about colours, they get it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So Insights Discovery is a psychometric profiling tool that you can use to understand like your position in the world and how you interact with other people. the reason I love Insights so much is because it is, as we've said, it's based literally on four colors. So it seems to really stick with people in terms of remembering how they behave, how others behave, how they can interact together. So for me, me as a pro, it's the only one I use in my business because it's the only one that seems to stick. So people can easily remember four colours, they get the behaviours that go alongside it and they really like it. what we've got essentially is like a wheel. So I'm doing like a little description for people that may not be watching and any listening, but we've got a wheel and it's split into four chunks and they are each different parts of your personality. So on the left hand side of the wheel, it's coloured in the bottom quarter is coloured in green and the top quarter above that is coloured in blue. is the introverted side of the wheel and when we talk about introversion we're not talking about shyness we're talking about where we get our energy from which means we get our energy from ourselves rather than the outside then the other half of the wheel that we've got has a yellow quadrant at the bottom and then a red quadrant at the top and that is the extroverted side when we talk about extroversion we're not talking about confidence we're talking about getting your energy from the outside and other people and then when we look at that wheel in the main we can then see whether you sit on one side or the other so where you get your energy from and then when we look at the top and the bottom of the wheel that then tells us how we make decisions. So the top half of the wheel which is blue and red means we make decisions using our head and insights call that thinking. And for the bottom of the wheel, we call that feeling and that's with the green and the yellow. So that's about how you make decisions. And there's some extra bits that we tested on the day, but we can talk about that as we go through. But that's the basic principle. So how the kind of descriptions work, I feel like we'll enjoy this and it probably will help when you get your reveal actually. So the descriptions, so the red one, for example, is competitive, demanding, determined, strong-willed and purposeful. Then we've got the yellow one which is sociable, dynamic, enthusiastic, demonstrative. And then we've got the green one caring, encouraging, sharing, patient and relaxed. And then the blue one is cautious, precise, deliberate, questioning and formal. So you kind of get a rough, rough little idea of how those colors show up. And I feel like I've done a lot of talking though. When we talked about when you did it, we had what ones like resonated for you didn't we before we did the reveal, why haven't done the reveal, why haven't done the reveal. Yeah, I posted the picture of the ones that resonate with us on LinkedIn, including the penis scribble that was inevitably going to happen. So if you want to know who is who, I was the star stamps and Ruta was the little heart. So if you want to go and like spy on us, you can go onto LinkedIn, you can see what we thought resonated. Also, Emma and I have done insights before, but that was like six, seven years ago now, maybe a little bit more. So I wonder if our colours have changed since then and we remember what they are. So it'll be interesting to compare. Yeah, nice. There's lots of bits. If you ever get your original profiles, like the actual ones, there's bits we can compare to look at how hard you're working to maintain the different versions of yourself. So if you want to get really geeky, we could definitely do that separately to this, because it's interesting to see. Very good. I just remember I used to, like my red was already really bad and then it used to get worse on a bad day and I was like, there's no space for this to get worse, it's at 99 already. So we'll see. Yeah. Yeah. God. And the first thing we did, so we did try, so the reason, one of the reasons Ruta and I, I think it's fair to say we thought it was acceptable for us to try and guess each other's colours and our colours is because Ruta and I work together all the time. We are friends, obviously both inside and outside of work. And so it was a safe, it's a safe space to have this conversation before anybody's like, my God, you guys are not supposed to do this. It's fine. Michelle said it's fine. It's consensual. fine, yeah. uh we start off with what we guessed? I need to have a look at what I need to look back at my email. You've got it. Oh, she's prepared. She prepared and and there is no like I was gonna say there was no wrong answer There's definitely wrong answer and but there's no wrong colors. So whatever whatever it is. It's a good thing like they're good colors and Where where where should we go first? Shall I do Emma on Emma like Emma what you thought you were? Yeah, I got, yeah. with insights, we talk about the colours in a particular order. So what your highest one is versus your lowest, then the two in the middle. And you can have higher quantities of some more than others. So we will touch on that. Emma felt that she was red, blue, green and yellow. And I hate to tell you this, but you're wrong. You're wrong, Ruta on Ruta, so Ruta, you guessed yourself as red, blue, yellow and green. You were wrong, friend. interesting. although very I will say for both of you is quite close so you're not you're not like miles out but you're not quite right. um Emma on Ruta so Emma you thought that Ruta was going to be red yellow green and blue you're wrong. why did you put blue in the end? yeah but that's that's yellow that's nothing to do with blue I feel like sometimes if you're a bit hasty, you might be a little bit less bothered about detail. Maybe I'm hasty because I've got all the information in blue. decisions fast. Save space, friend, save space. So, Ruta then guessed Emma, and that is the only correct answer we've got in this entire concoction. I won the episode. We can be done now. Yep. So, Ruta, you guessed Emma as being blue, red, green and yellow and you were correct, my friend. So blue is your first colour, Emma. Red is your second colour. They are your two highest. So you've got two of those in easy reach. And then your final two colours are green and yellow, yellow being your lowest. mean you are super close Emma. Just yeah super close yeah always a toss up between that for me because I think I'm like you, Ruta which is like when the bad day's happening, the red definitely can, with certain people, can show itself in a... He's very angry. so Ruta, yours for the big reveal is red, blue, green and yellow. So you're actually both very similar. interesting. Okay. We need some nicer people around us. That's just what this is telling me. To help balance us out. no actually you're sorry sorry Ruta yours is hang on I'm getting this wrong. Emma Ruta so Ruta yours is red blue green yellow that is what I said I can't remember yeah red blue green and yellow so you are both exactly so you just swapped you just swapped your lead two and your and your green and yellows yeah yeah. Yeah. It makes a lot of sense. You're so similar, it's brilliant. And you've got the same two colors, like above the line in easy reach. So when I get your profiles, I do like a little pie chart of what colors you've got and how this team looks. Basically, it's a pie chart of 50 % blue and 50 % red. So it's like, it's not the ideal pie chart. So yeah, I think this probably leads us quite nicely onto the like, so when we're working together, what do we need to be conscientious of, Michelle? What I love though. Yes. Yes. we need to be? Because I think we're okay between the two of us, it's with other people. Yeah. Yeah, just so you know. Yeah. because you both lead with blue and red, which is thinking and extraversion. So red is the extraverted version of thinking, blue is the introversion version, my god, introversion version of thinking. So when you make decisions, you both make them using head. So where you've got a gap in your team is you might not think about like people, relationships, harmony, caring, collaborating. never happened before. make quick decisions using head. So that's good, right? You make quick decisions in a very logical kind of fashion. So that's a positive side of things. Because you both swap your blue and reds around in terms of your lead colors, you do have a balance of introversion and extroversion. So that's cool. So you can do both. But yes, there's a lot of feelings missing in this team, which is weird because having met you both, I would not have said that. Like, I feel like you're both good feeling humans. yeah, you know what it is though, and I freely admit this, that the people that I already... this is where I am... this is the autism thing a little bit. It's like, I really care about the people that I know and I care about, and I really don't care about anybody else. same friend. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think also like when you do insights, is in the frame of work. So for work, I prioritize making the right decisions, making fast decisions where they need to be made, being logical, and I don't prioritize the other stuff. Yeah, and that's a really good point to add in actually, Ruta, is when you do your insight stuff, it's very much all about you, who you are at work. So yes, I completely agree. Interesting point for Ruta is you, my friend, are an ambivert, which means you can do introversion and extroversion together. So you can get your energy from other people. That's when you're at work and thinking about it. As you get your energy from other people, you're in this extroverted space. When you're not thinking about it, you get your energy from yourself and you can be more introverted. So on your little wheel that we've got you've got a stamp on both sides of the introversion-extroversion line. So fun fact there, fun fact for you. Yeah. like, you like to go to meetings with people in real life and stuff. I don't. do, I do. It's not universal though, like I don't like doing a lot of stuff with people, but yeah, there are certain people or certain things that will give me energy outside of myself, but then also I can home it for weeks, yeah. Mmm. on this one. Yes. And then Emma, you are also an ambivert, but the other way around. So when you're thinking about it, and you're putting yourself in this workspace, you're very much leading with extraversion. When you're less thoughtful about it, or when you're perhaps home with friends, family, not thinking about how you come across, you are very much on the extraverted side of things. So you've got both in that. So that's quite interesting too. So you're the same but opposites. Yeah. yeah, because a lot of my friends, think, especially in the past been like, what must you be like to work with because you're mad at home? Like when we're out, but at work? No, no. She holds it down. m to the shock and awe of most people. for you, Michelle? Like, obviously we weren't going to necessarily dig into you a bit, but it's interesting because I know there's a lot of reds in this room. How do you find that for you? And what does it make you conscientious of when you go into a room with people? Yeah, this is interesting. I also lead with red. So I am very similar to Ruta and my second color is blue. So again, very similar to Ruta. So those two in the first order, but I do have yellow in my kit bag, like available to me. So where you guys have two colors, I have three. Yeah. okay, cool. Yeah. it. Yeah. So if it's over half, we call it over the line. Yeah. So I've got an extra color in there of yellow and often with me, people will miscolor me as leading with yellow because I'm so jazz hands and extroverted when I need to be. But actually my real space is very much like sitting back and telling people what to do because red. But it does. I think the interesting thing is like you can suss, you can kind of suss people out. I always tell people to go away and treat it like a bit of an experiment where you can just kind of watch what people do and say because they'll be leaking out their little colour energies all the time but you have to take it as like a bit of a longer term view because somebody meeting me for an hour would say my god all the sunshine yellow like i'm exhausted just listening to her but the reality is that's me showing off for an hour not me as my whole self so it's always quite interesting to like just spot it out in people but like even you guys working together didn't quite nail it for each other although it's very similar like similar but it didn't quite nail it for each other and that's where you've got to think about like what I want to show you versus what I kind of am as myself I guess so that's where I sit with it. Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? Because especially, I think, because Ruta and I do work together and we are also friends, like we do a lot of stuff outside of work together as well. I think, yeah, we probably, I probably be more conscientious of the way you are outside of work. And I, but I think because we, our friendship has been based on being work colleagues first, you know, that's where the friendship stemmed from. I know what it's like to work with Ruta. You why I'm like, yeah, red, of course she's red. Of course she's got a bit of yellow in there. I see that. So yeah. not read outside of work though. Like if someone can like make all the decisions for me, I'm so happy. Like, go for it. outside of work I would say she's like so so green. She's like a sensitive little bunny. She is! She is! How dare you say that about me! I've got so many feelings! So Rita, you're red, your color red in your like, we call it like, in your less conscious. So when you're not thinking about it, your red is 57%. But when you're thinking about it, living your best corporate life, goes up to 85%. She red. girl yeah yeah that I can see that it also highly depends who I'm around if I need to be red or not if I'm living my best corporate life and I can depend on every single person to do what they need to do I'll be like chillin it's all good if not then yeah I can see that 80 whatever percent coming through yeah And Emma, yours is interesting because your red is exactly the same in conscious as it is less conscious. So your red is 82 % friend. all the time. To be honest with you, we did record another podcast and there was a clip from it where I was just like, I am confrontational. There's the proof. she is. And your blue goes from 78 % in your less conscious to 88 % in your conscious. So actually your two colours are quite high and quite close together. Yeah, I definitely get very, and this is in my personal life as well, I do get very upset if I think people are not doing things properly. What are you doing? Yeah, my definition of properly is the right one, just to be clear. Yes. And interestingly, when you've got two colours above and they're red and blue or blue and red, so all of us in this room, that is called a perfectionist profile. Because you love the detail and you love to get shit done. Yeah. think we were perfectionists. No... I... yeah... But I think we are about certain things, maybe. We are perfectionists when it comes to doing the marketing right. yeah, it has to be done our way basically. Otherwise it's not the right way. And then if there's a spelling mistake, it doesn't matter because like, you know, the overall is right. okay. my god. what sort of things should, if Ruta and I are working together, Michelle, and is there, because I would say that probably even though we're very similar, red and blue, there is probably space for conflict there, right, between the two of us, which we haven't ever really had, but occasionally one of us has to say to the other one like, are you okay with me? You don't hate me, do you? You know, but yeah, what does that mean for us working together, do you think? Yeah, I mean, guess the positive things about you working together with the profiles that you've got are that you really do get shit done and you can do a lot of detail. So those things are really positive. The other thing that's really positive, and I find this personally as well, is actually because we sit on that thinking space, so we're very much about making decisions using head rather than heart. Actually, we don't need to do a lot of like small talk and happy chats when we do stuff. We can just get stuff done. Like you don't have to ask me about how my weekend was because I don't really care. just get on with the things, like that's fine. So there's bits of that in there too, so think that's always quite interesting and it's likely that we will get frustrated with people that do that to us because they perceive that's what we want. That then can feel really frustrating to us as well. it's genuinely fascinating to me that we're all quite similar in that respect. I quite like that. Yeah. hate I Equally, I hate people that don't ask you how you are. But equally I don't want to talk about it for too long And there are I definitely have designated Places that I find it completely acceptable to chat shit and other places. No work is not one of them The hairdressers i'm here. I'm here for four hours. Tell me all of the gossip shit. Let's talk about trash Yeah, but it's really weird. It's like a very it's a very controlled thing for me, which probably makes sense Yes, one of the other things I think that you didn't say in these exact words, like I think none of us mind being blunt or being blunt too. And like it's not offensive. us if we were working together this would be awesome because we wouldn't have to do small talk we can literally crack on and get stuff done and Actually, we can smash it out and not offend each other like jobs good and this is gonna be awesome But actually the the watch out for that is sometimes when we make decisions we might forget about the people bit the relationship bit and we might forget sometimes to like flower stuff up with people and Because some people need that right they need the little easy and the little connection the little point of like this is why we're friends now here's the thing So yeah, that's a really interesting point. I think the interesting element for me is like the little, so each of the colours has its own little motto. So for the fire red colour, it's be bright, be brief, be gone. And if ever there was a motto that described my working life, that was it. That's very, that should be your tagline, Michelle. should so should because also my red compared to yours i'm 93 % red so she read she read i'm even more red than ruta yeah mind-bending combo for me. Yeah, that's all the extra version though. Isn't that interesting? whereas I would describe myself as now much more introverted and so it's really interesting to see that in my profile. But it does make sense because when I go out and I do stuff and I meet people, I do love it. It's just sometimes it can be a lot. Like, that's all. words also to describe yellow like hasty and uh whatever else. Indiscreet. Yeah, flamboyant. feel like, yeah, those, those don't cut, you don't think of them when you think of like what's called sunshine yellow, right? But they're all part of that. So I think that does make sense with the red. Like I can see those two going together well. Well, it's interesting, isn't it? Because, you know, like having done this in a previous organization, quite a lot of the sales people we work with understandably show up quite Sunshine Yellow because they're doing the doing the extraversion thing, which is obviously a huge clash for like us two because we're like, I don't give a shit about your Sunshine Yellow. Stop talking at me. want to do jazz hands with you. What did you do? Do something. How do you manage that when you've got like, because that is, I'm going to say that's probably maybe a stereotypical setup of a marketing versus a sales team. Like that's where, that's where the real, some of the real conflict comes in. Like how do we, how is everyone supposed to be a little bit more conscientious of our colour mix? Yeah, and I think... The way that I think about it is we're more similar than we are different in everybody, right? There's going to always be some kind of connection with people. if we were going to be really typical about salespeople leading with Sunshine Yellow, we might say that, actually you connect because you've both got extra version in easy reach in your profiles. although yours is the fire red version, so yours is the thinking version of their kind of heart led collaborative Sunshine Yellow hands, jazz hands, you both connect on extra version. energy from the same place. So actually you can both kind of help each other out and you can you can have like the bounce, the fun, the laughter for a period of time because you're both in an extroverted space. So I think that's that's where I work it with teams when I do bigger team sessions is what connects us rather than what's going to divide us. And also the questions I get a lot are, oh I've only got like a really low level of green, how do I bring it up? And the reality is, yes, you probably could bring that up and you could work hard to do it and it would absolutely exhaust you but what else have you got that would get you the same result and so kind of easing into your profile is much better than like dragging yourself up into something else so I always say if you find yourself in a different environment that doesn't quite seem to align with how you want to operate or how you like to operate think about where you can see some similarities so similarities will be around how you make decisions using thinking or how you get your energy from the extroverted side of things there will always be somewhere where you will connect with someone on something even if it's you using like your second or third colour that will kind of get you in the right space so it's not always necessarily living in that first colour because your other colours can also follow behind. Yeah, that's awesome. Would you say that it's always beneficial to have a well-balanced team? Or would you say that it's actually only beneficial if people know how to work together and can appreciate the differences? Yeah, this question comes up a lot actually about like, oh, should my perfect team be literally like perfect quadrants? And I suppose if you're looking at it from like math's perspective, you'd be able to be like, yes, we've got 25 % of everything, aren't we awesome? But I think the reality is if you've got even with a team like yours, where it's 50 % blue and 50 % red, I think it's about awareness. So if you are aware of that, you know, for example, when you make decisions, sometimes you might forget the people bit or the relationship bit. That's okay because you know that about yourself and you can then work on that So I think there's something for me about not necessarily having like a perfect pie chart of colors But it's about being aware enough to know Where your gaps are and therefore where you might see some opportunities to adapt or do something differently So I think it's about less about kind of trying to fit the perfect pie chart but much more about being able to See where your gaps are and either fill them or kind of work around them in a way that makes it fit for the team Yeah. Do you also find that the kind of team that ends up working together might, well, probably is defined by what kind of culture there is and what the organisation is trying to achieve? Okay. interesting like team, team dynamic sessions where I had a team once who's very similar to yours, funnily enough, all red and blue. And I just looked at their lead colors. And so I pop up the little pie chart and we have the chat and they were saying to me, yeah, but like Steve, when Steve was here, he would have led with green. I'm like, okay. So where's Steve now? And they're like, he left. And they go, but so and so like would have led with yellow. Okay, so where's so and so? they left. because they haven't made the right environment. in which those colours can thrive. So I think again, it comes back to like awareness of your writing route completely, the culture, the context in which we operate the organisation, how we want to show up for people and how aware we are of then how we're to show up. Because it's all very well saying, a lot of teams will say, we'll just hire someone then that leads with yellow because then that will give us the perfect pie chart. But the reality is if you're in a very extroverted or introverted thinking space, you're not going to necessarily make it easy for somebody who leads with sunshine yellow to then come in and be a part of the team. So it's really interesting. when you think about, okay, if we had this person in the team, what would it look like in terms of how we operate, how we make decisions, the culture, the context, all that kind of stuff suddenly changes. So yeah, it's a really good point that it's definitely influenced by the people and the culture around you and whether you can kind of like make space for those other colors and make it okay. Otherwise you're just gonna have a really high turnover in the team. And then when you find somebody who's really similar to you, you're like, thank God for that, let them come in. Yeah, exactly. Which is not great because I think, you know, one of the things that's so great about marketing is when we do have a diverse team, whatever across the board, we perform better, we have better ideas, all of those sorts of things. So for someone, people like Ruta and I, because obviously we go into businesses and we might be presented with people in front of us who are maybe more green, maybe more sunshine yellow. How can we as blues and reds be a little bit more conscientious? I know we were talking about the fact that there's maybe extraversion there, but love to know if there's something we can do to be less dickheadish. Of a dick. Yes, so I think that's a really, really good point. And did we, I think we did this activity when we were together. Did we do the shoes trainers activity where you had the photo? Yeah, so that's another layer, if you like, to the insights wheel. So that is about how we see the world. So in Insights Speak, we see the world in one of two ways. It's either sensation, which is very much like tangibles based. So stuff I can see in front of me that's actually here. intuition, is very much about stuff that's possible rather than stuff that is visible in the image. So for me, some of this extra stuff you can add in, especially from like a marketing perspective, is if you know how someone sees the world, you can tailor your comms to align to that way that they see the world. Or you can make sure that when you're writing your comms or you're delivering to people or you're doing that presentation, is you make sure you hit both points. So you might talk initially about who's doing what by when, but then you might also then flavour it with the the the vision and the possibilities. And I think the same goes for the teams and I think then that hits some of those like earth green, sunshine yellow needs. So the motto for sunshine yellow is involve me. And when I say that, always see it like a little puppy like, involve me, let me join in. Yeah. And then the earth, yeah. And then the earth green one is show me you care. Aww. Responding like true thinkers there. that's so cute. No feeling. I think it's also important to say that even though Emma and I are red and blue, we are also incredibly emotionally intelligent. They're not two separate things. So whilst we might not present as green or blue at work, if you're having a rough day, I will see it and I will ask you about what's happening and try and be there for you even though that's not my go-to activity. Yeah, yes. think that's it, isn't it? It's because like personal circumstances and life experience is not completely factored in here you know, it can't be because it's a psychometric. you like the fact that you have empathy, you can still be empathetic and be like for me, you can still be empathetic and be autistic, just to be clear. I think it's important to note that, isn't it? Because it's like, it's not like we're completely devoid of that. But I think people probably, when they have worked with us, probably have more likely seen the blue and the red. But the green is in there, especially when you're managing a team, because that's the job. Don't be a dick to your team. Yes, exactly. But you know what, when I was managing my teams, I used to have like a little one to one template. And because I knew I was such a high red, and I knew that all I wanted to do was think and get shit done, I used to have right in the middle of my one to one template in red, ask them how they are. yep. Because I just forget it, because I just go into process get shit done mode. So you're absolutely right. We can be like the feelers. We can be empathetic. We can be really emotionally intelligent. But actually sometimes our preference is to go for those lead colours. And so actually in order to adapt, we have to go, hang on, stop a minute. Have I asked them how they are? Like, or, you know, some equivalent of, but I think there's definitely something about you can absolutely do it. We all have all four colours, but it's more challenging to reach those lower colours. And your natural preference will always be to go to the higher colours. until I have a glass of wine and then let's go green. Glassy wine and hugs on. uh Yeah, so true. So true. I know. yeah all the people and i'm like yeah yeah yeah let's fucking go oh you I mean if you're bringing wine maths into it there's always going to be another bottle of wine isn't there? I mean there's never one. Yeah always. Exactly. Oh yeah go on. at the end. But is there anything else that people need to know about insights that we haven't covered? And if they want to do insights with you or anyone else, how would they go about that? Yes. So if you want to do insights with me, you can connect to me on LinkedIn. So I'm Michelle Hartley, finder of awesome is my URL. But you will find me because I am the loudest, most noisy, sweary, rainbow colored HR person on LinkedIn. And if you want to do that, we can do a session and a profile and I will do a special deal if you blame it on marketing. Drop your name. I'll do a special deal. Always, always. And yeah, I think we've covered most of the site and stuff like as a nice kind of lead on to it. will give you both your profiles in detail as well so you can have a look and see the see the good stuff. yes yes yes. One question I did have to ask actually is... I don't know if this is just something I think about, it's probably something you think about Emma, but obviously in marketing creativity is usually praised quite highly and being the blue reds where we're like in the spreadsheet can be seen as like, you know, not as good at your job of being the creative marketer. But I wanted to ask if the colours actually like equate to, you know, more creativity or more less creativity and more being logical and how does that look like, especially in a marketing situation? Yeah, this is such a good question because it comes up a lot when I do team sessions actually like, which one is the most creative color? Or if I want to do this, what do I do? You can be creative in any of the colors. an example that I always give is one of my team back in my corporate days led with cool blue, really high level of cool blue. And it was the only color she had. So she didn't have like us a kit bag with other stuff. She had like loads of cool blue and the rest of the colors were really quite low. And I used to constantly want to do in our team meetings, like, brainless brainstorming out, let's work it out, let's make a list, can work this out, which is a very extroverted, leading with red, like get shit done kind of way to approach stuff. And I was observing that she would kind of almost like sit back, she very rarely kind of gives me anything. And so it felt like I was pulling teeth. And for her, it felt like I was poking her all the time. When we had our profiles done, we basically worked out. that she can be creative but what she needs is time and detail. what she has to go and do and with our little phrases I need to go and paint my blue cave so she needs to go and be introverted for a bit go and think about her detail go and paint her blue cave and then she'd come back and you know what when she did she would come back with loads of ideas so it's understanding what the person's needs are around introversion, extroversion, thinking, feeling. So and the same with I had an introverted leading with earth green learning partner and it didn't mean she couldn't run sessions because she wasn't doing it jazz hand style it just meant that she did it in a different way. So there's something about like allowing space for people to be creative when they're not necessarily that sunshine yellow perception of what everybody thinks creative is. So yeah with her it was just time and detail so she needed to kind of go and take the agenda away. We'd have a 15 minute break where the rest of us are just muck about being extroverts and she would go away paint her cave come back and have some great submissions. So there's something in that about like understanding what people need and when I run sessions on this for example we do a lot of like ideas generating stuff lots of brainstorms lots of flipchart stuff but actually what works for people who are more introverted is to be able to write their ideas on post-it notes put the post-it notes on the flip chart and then have somebody more extroverted present them and it works so they get the input they just don't have to stand at the front doing shiny jazz hands so that's where it works Yeah, I personally need data to be creative, which sounds so fucking lame. But like if I'm, I can't thin air, like I need something to work off and in marketing all the time you get data to work off. So if I go into a meeting and it's just like a statement, I'm like, okay, well I need to like log into Google analytics because I don't know what we're doing here. I need to look in HubSpot first because also like, through this. Yeah, I think it's also the logical of like, okay, let's be creative, but like creativity for creativity sake is not for marketing, like be a painter if you want to do that. like, you know, so yeah. Yeah, wonderful. sense with your profile, like thoughtful creativity. Great. that's absolutely it. Oh, guys, this is my yellow. love that it comes with a sound. yeah, it comes, it always comes with the ooh ooh. I wonder if we could have a circle of all the colours and then, because it's marketing, kind of attach a descriptive word to the word creative for each colour. So like maybe in blue it's thoughtful creativity, maybe in green it's like emotional creativity. I don't know what they are. You're probably better. Michelle probably has the words already, so let's make something like that. excellent. Perfect. Ah, okay. like Insta-worthy images that you can send around loads of different stuff. So yeah, I'll send you some, you can have a little look. Yeah, we'll post them for everybody so you can have a look. And like said, if you and your team are interested in it, reach out to Michelle. Before we let you go, Michelle, we obviously love to usually end on marketing gossip. And as you are the queen of LinkedIn, I want to hear what is pissing you off about LinkedIn, because I'm like, I could ask you to be positive, but you were red. So let's go, let's go full on. What the fuck is annoying you, Michelle, about LinkedIn? in LinkedIn. my god. Everything annoys me. Yeah, like literally the fact that it exists annoys me right now. I've got a couple. So the first one is, it doesn't notify me about anything anymore apart from other people's posts. So I don't get notified about my own comments on my own posts. So I have to go in every single day, a number of times a day to my own profile, check my own posts and see if anyone's commented because I never get notified. Same. And then also, LinkedIn doesn't allow you to do leads anymore. I never get leads off LinkedIn anymore because they've changed the algo. So if you're promoting yourself or anything that broadly sounds like it might be a promotion or a sales thing, no visibility. Oh yeah, unless you pay to play, my friend, which we can't all do, can we? I mean, who has money? I've got a very full fridge of wine, but I don't have any money. I know, I've got really nice makeup on. you can see it in the fridge? Yes. Exactly. but yeah that that whole linkedin notification thing that is i have the exact same problem with my posts no no it's really infuriating my and my final infuriating thing is because obviously we have and you said you must do as well michelle you've got several like accounts associated with your businesses um is that i can accidentally post on anyone's on any one of those linkedin profiles even when it says i'm gonna post as me i can i can accidentally post somewhere else Yes. I totally, totally agree with you. And also, you can't seem to schedule on other posts. Like, I schedule my posts on my account, like a week or two in advance, depending on what's going on. And if you schedule something on your business account, and then you go back into your own scheduled posts, it posts them on your own, not your business one. Like, what the fuck, LinkedIn? Yeah. Ugh. Um, there was one that I wrote that was, and then it posted as, luckily it posted as blame it on marketing, not a client. Cause it was the most unhinged post. Yeah. It was really fucking unhinged. And cause it was supposed to be from me. And then the fact that came up in blame it on marketing was just weird as well. Cause it was me. You know, like when you're talking in the first person outside, people must be like, Oh, they finally lost it. She's all right. And just to top everything off, LinkedIn will penalise you from scheduling from other platforms too. So you know, like, you can't get it right yourself and you punish us for using other stuff. eh Come on. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we want the leads back, please. That's why most people have LinkedIn, by the way, LinkedIn, if you had no idea, you know. We're here for work. Michelle, thank you so much. This has been a really fun and enjoyable episode, but also I'm really glad we got to learn about each other and ourselves. And I think that's probably like the biggest takeaway is just be aware of who you are and who the other people you work with are so you can make the right choices and everyone can be their best sunshine yellows or be their best angry reds. We will see you on the next episode.