Sometime in summer of this year, I was finishing up a project management training session and was wrapping up the importance of project status report as a catalyst for engaging stakeholders as needed. One of my learners talked about using the red, yellow, and green status indicators in project status reports for various project elements like schedule, cost, scope, risk, and quality. Such practices are very standard in project management. Yet, how much do we think about the color of our own communication?
Until a person that I was mentoring approached me while preparing for the career promotions, I didn’t think about discussing it. After discussions with this learner, a thought came to my mind. As leaders of change through our projects, one of which is owing our personal growth and professional career, how much do we identify color in our own communication to bring awareness of potential inherent bias, labeling, and stereotyping or promote diversity, equity, and inclusivity practices to promote belonginess? This blog is a brief synthesis of my research.
Historically, literature is full of using color to communicate differentiating the good from the bad, truth from lie, grace from greed, etc. I saw in movies where people used white cloth to indicate piece agreements during negotiation, an inflammation on the head with a red color, villainous characters are wearing dark red or black costume while heroes wear blue and red capes or dresses. If this is not sufficient, take a look at some of the concepts behind deBono's (1999) dysfunctional hats where white hat is associated with facts, black hat is associated with devil's advocate thinking, green hat focuses on creative possibilities, red hat focuses on emotions and feelings, yellow hat focuses on optimistic outcomes and blue hat focuses on systemic managerial thinking.
Therefore, the concepts of communication have been present and widely used. For example, yellow journalism seems to be referring to those writing practices where newspapers published sensational news as though they were facts (Campbell, 2001). I wonder if the book, "What color is your parachute?" had a reason for choosing color as the differentiator for skills required in networking and gainful employment guidance? Consequently, here are some thoughts to understand how our communication may be perceived by others, because as I always say, "Communication is not about what you said but what others understood." Now, I am not advocating them to be correct or not but only stating them. Just to add a little color, let me illustrate these thoughts with characters from Ninjago!
Black color has been used to indicate bad or evil things. For instance, Lord Garmadon in Ninjago is characterized with Black costume! Even in the computing world, we say "we blacklist the IP addresses" to say certain address schemes exercise adverse reactions. As the concepts of diversity, equity, and inclusivity comes into play, how much does it feel someone of an African American origin to read such a thought? Alternatively, if you used bold black color for emphasis, are you drawing inference in a bad way?
White color is used to indicate good, peace, and intelligence. Zane, one of the four Ninjas with peace and robotic intelligence, is in white! While practice may suggest that we frequently use white background in most user interfaces and black foreground (like font), white shouldn't be used too often to indicate the absence bad or evil things epitomized in the black color. Therefore, associating white as virtuous and referring to "whitelisting keywords" is against the inclusive mindset.
Brown color is often a neutral color with areas like dependability, predictability, and comfort with themselves. Sometimes, it is also used to indicate dullness or depressed behaviors. You can see Master Wu wearing brown robe around his waist often with white dress. But, the Dareth, the Brown Ninja, also is in brown indicating a dullness and depression requiring the other Ninjas to save his Dojo! Personally, while I was in Scotland, I was often called in the streets as a "brownie" and I never associated myself with eating the baked good, "brownie". I can't say I am the only one who experienced such issues. So, when bringing brownies or using brown color to indicate time logged by someone in a report with brown bar, are you indicating anything more than that meets the eye?
The blue color represents both the positive and negative aspects of human emotions and powers. Therefore, blue can be associated with heroic powers, such as Jay in blue costume, or something that may have bad intentions but feel isolated without leadership like the snake, Skales. So, when we use expressions such as, "... bringing blue-collar (manual worker) thinking", "... surprised me out of the blue," or "... required me to explain until I was blue in the face," what are you telling about yourself to others? If other team members are in the same room, how would they feel about your thoughts of them in their absence?" Even the "Blue Ocean" leadership is a reference frame to say how one operates from a tranquil and calm perspective in a strategic decision-making scenario!
The red color indicates an elevated form of human emotions and powers. It is a stronger form of blue. Kai in Ninjago supports the others with both patient pauses required before unleashing powers. Often, red in management context draws attention to the extreme impact in a bad way (one of the reasons why risk is always thought of as a bad word). Variations of red like amber is also frequently used to indicate the same message. So, when we underline something with a red color, or single out a word or resource name in red color, what hidden message are we communicating? Think about red ocean leadership that focuses on strategies with multiple competitors. Is that by itself bad? No, only our interpretation is!
The green color signifies success, rejuvenation, and growth! It also indicates sometimes impatience and reasoning. Can you not see why Green Ninja is the greatest Ninja and why Lloyd wears green? Yes, no wonder we use green to indicate successful sales, successful milestone, successful bid, and renewal of a contract in management meetings. But watch out! I am feeling so green indicates envy and jealousy whereas giving a green light means you are indicating approval!
The orange color is a variation of red. Perhaps reduced intensity but not with any tint of blue positivity. Perhaps, this is the reason why the orange snake in Ninjago was characterized that way. All the energy and enthusiasm relishing small victories but not always working on the correct side all the time. Now, the color itself is not good or bad if the message supports the concept! But please note that if you put orange along the indications of red charts, you are communicating a bad message on a smaller scale!
The yellow color is a neutral color as well but indicates some degree of caution. No wonder, caution is often yellow on streetlights (for the most countries) and is used as 'proceed with caution' messages on project status reports. I am not yet aware of any Ninjago characters in yellow (not caught up on all). While this color may be used for caution in graphical illustrations in status reports and dashboards, in some context, yellow may also indicate limited approval (like a yellow light), uncourageous (yellow-bellied), etc.
The literature is full of many other colors link pink and purple, and yellow. Frequently, I find these colors not clearly defined. Although in the United States, telling someone that they got the pink slip means they were involuntarily eliminated from the workforce.
So, thinking from all these aspects, do we even think about the role color plays in our communication?
References
Campbell, W. J. (2001). Yellow journalism: Puncturing the myths, defining the legacies. Westport, CT: Praeger.
De Bono, E. (1999) Six Thinking Hats, Back Bay Books, New York
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