Colors and Such

Before I retired in 2020, I worked as a Nursing instructor in one of the nation's largest community colleges. It was a job I thoroughly enjoyed for fifteen years because I had a heart for the students and genuinely wanted to invest in them and their futures.

Community colleges bring in a diverse, beautiful group of people from all over the world who are hungry to learn and become part of the dream that America offers. There are also local students who have never travelled fifty miles outside of their home their entire lives and those who are the first in their families to get a degree in higher learning.

Students come in different age groups, also. Some were choosing Nursing as their second career. Some were already established in a healthcare setting but wanted to advance their learning and skill. Some were like deer in the headlight new to healthcare.

Each semester I would get a new group of students to take to clinical. The group could be anywhere from five to eight of those combinations of diversities. I would always expect the unexpected but be delighted in the bunch I got. Somehow, I knew they had been put in my basket for a reason and I was honored to be a small part of their journey.

You can only imagine that it could get quite challenging to deal with different cultures, ages, experiences, and even personalities.

To make our group work, we first had to get to know one another and developed a modem of trust because interpersonal skills are vital in the Nursing field. The first person they had to trust was me. They had to trust I would provide opportunities for them to grow, that I had their best interest at heart, and that I could be someone they could safely approach for help. So, the first day of clinical was a day started with icebreakers and games, and personality tests.

My chaos always had a purpose, though. As we learned about one another's backgrounds, we gathered information about our strengths and weaknesses. We learned who our go-to people were for skills and experience, talents and humor when we would need it. Believe me, in Nursing it is mandatory.

I wanted to assure them that we all came with weaknesses, but our strengths would be enough, that it's okay to be vulnerable and ask for help. In fact, it is the smartest thing a student could do and that patient care demanded it.

One of the personality tests I often used was the one like below with colors. For me, it was a quick insightful tool into what each student needed from me as an instructor.

My golds were the ones I knew that like rules and clear-cut instructors. I could count on them to arrive on time and be prepared. They would also give 100% to their duties. Golds would also be the eye-rollers if someone in the group was tardy or slack...no tolerance for such and they expected me to deliver justice for those infractions.

My blues just wanted to be included. Relationships and bonds were forefront. They would get to know their patients on a personal level. They could find out information about patients that the charts could never tell, but nonetheless important to their health. Blues could also become easily wounded as they are very sensitive.

My oranges might have given pause. Everything was a party. And they would leap before thinking things through. I admired their fearlessness, though. I would need to keep them focused and on task. But who didn't gravitate towards their enthusiasm?

My greens, after my own green heart, must be in an environment or work towards a cause that made sense. There must be an explanation involved somehow. Detail-oriented, overthinkers, and the ones who might not ask for help. Sometimes, the ones others would go to for help, though.

For optimal outcomes and growth, I would make them each aware of their own strengths and limitations and would also guide them to understand the tenets of other personalities. If I saw the need, I would pair them up to learn from each other which made them all a bit uncomfortable. But how else to build tolerance and appreciation but to learn from one another?

Golds with oranges, blues with greens, and various other assortments. It made my job much easier, and they learned communication and leadership without even knowing they had.

I hope this might be useful to you as a parent, grandparent, spouse, sibling, manager, or any sort of team member. We are all different for a reason, but we need each other!