Book Review
book review
Career Match: Connecting Who You Are with What You’ll Love to Do by Shoya Zichy with Ann Bidou, Amacom 9780814473641 HK$150 About the author: Whilst idling time away between flights on a business trip Shoya Zichy picked up a dog-eared book in an Asian airport, an obscure and now discontinued interpretation of Carl Jung’s theories, which outlined in particular the differences in the way people absorb information and make decisions. It inspired her to look at a new way of dealing with clients and associates at work and on her return to her Hong Kong office she began to colour code (gold, red, green, blue) each of her customers, based on their Jungian behavioural profiles. She noted a strategy for each of the four colour groups, e.g. “When Gold comes in, make sure all statements are up to date and organized in date-sequential order. If a Blue makes an appointment, call our investment guys in New York and get three new ideas.” Her tactics proved uncannily effective and almost overnight her new business increased by 60 per cent. She also noted that her relationships outside of work began to improve and her stress levels went down. Until then she had never met anyone in marketing who spoke of applying Jungian theory to marketing. Ten years on, in the 1990s, she heard about the work of a mother/daughter team who had developed the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, a new application for the work of Carl Jung, and her life took a new focus: training and lecturing on the business applications for personality styles. The result of her research and experience are revealed in this book - very few of the principles are her own, however, as her client list attests and acclaims, she has pioneered a unique way of applying these ideas to the workplace – her colour coding system called Color Q. Deciding on our career path is the biggest decision we take in life and too often we make mistakes through pressures like money, prestige, family desires or social expectations forcing us into making more “practical” choices. These may not have made us happy, so what will?
Zichy explains to us that whilst her unique Color Q test doesn’t change people, it does change how they view themselves. It moves us to operate from our deepest, most natural talents, fuelling the passion that separates good workers from great achievers. All we have to do is recognize our strengths and use them on a daily basis. How does the Color Q test work? Chapter 2 is a straight forward and very quick (under 10 minutes) questionnaire which you must answer completely honestly (your friends will guide you if you are tempted to stray from the truth). This will give you your primary personality Colour (Red or Gold) a backup Colour (Green or Blue) and an Introvert/Extrovert tendency. That determined, you move to the chapter relating to your primary Colour, which takes you through a couple of case studies and offers suggestions on the type of work, environment and people you will enjoy working with, including the type of boss you will get along with, always an important consideration for the interviewee during the job interview process. The next chapter looks at the blend of your primary and backup colour with the introvert or extrovert tendency added in. It also looks at environments and people that will not be ideal for you and would squash the spirit of your personality. What is great about this book is that it is entirely non-judgmental – there is no right or wrong “type” and in many respects that reassurance in itself is a great confidence booster – (half the battle won). If you bother to read beyond your own personality type, it is very instructive in how you are going to succeed with others in your workplace and how you might change the way you deal with them to lead to success all round. You can even see how best to fuel the entrepreneurial spirit within you. This is a great book to dip into and return to on a regular basis. It should be in all secondary school libraries, HR offices and parents should also be encouraged to read it when their children are getting close to the stage of making those all-important
career choices. As Cynthia Shapiro, author of Corporate Confidential writes in praising this book “ ‘Bloom where you’re planted’ takes on a whole new meaning when you can choose your best soil.” So, you are probably wondering where this reviewer came out in the Color Q test! Well I am a Red/Blue Extrovert and on page 75 I apparently “avoid theories, get to the point, stay in the concrete here-andnow”. Any of you who have read this and February’s books reviews in this journal will see that I definitely favour management books that get to the point FAST and are easy to remember! This one fits the bill precisely and since on page 84 I am told “you need results NOW to feel good about what you’re doing” – please get a copy at your local bookshop as soon as you have read this so you can benefit from it too! Lindi Yeo Consultant Bloomsbury Books Ltd
Books reviewed in this magazine can be obtained from Bloomsbury Books Ltd (tel: 25265387/ e-mail: books@bloomsbury.com.hk) Summer 2007 News Update 21