Color Confusion: Component Color Changes

Report Support Article Written by Amy Shepley

In the past, (i.e. B.B.N.— Before Birkman Next changes), Birkman noted and trained a high Social Energy score as having a Red Component color and a high Assertiveness score as having a Green Component color. With the development of the new Signature Report and all the Birkman Next changes, we now associate a high Social Energy score with a Green, and a high Assertiveness with as a Red. So, what gives?

First let me say, if you followed that question, congratulations. You get a gold Birkman star for the day.

Here is an explanation and justification for why we made the shift.

If you were around before Birkman Next, you may have attended trainings or read Birkman literature that said Social Energy was a Red/Blue Component. This question actually drove a lively debate around the office over the last ten years or so. Here is the issue:  Social Energy seems intuitively green. After all, green is the color of the communicators. However, if high Social Energy was Green, low Social Energy would be considered Yellow. This presented another issue since we typically think of low Social Energy as a Blue. 

The answer at the time was to make high Social Energy Red, which I must admit, I grappled with for years since it did not feel intuitive.

As we set out to make the significant (and hopefully more intuitive) changes with the Birkman Next era, we revisited the issue again. Next stop, the Birkman R&D department. 

The real answer is that high Social Energy is not Red or Green, it is actually “top of the Birkman Map, bottom of the Birkman Map,” along the extrovert/introvert axis. It is no more or less accurate to say that Social Energy is Green or Red. You may wonder why we didn’t make the Component half Green, half Red.  Let’s just say, we have been down that path before at Birkman. (See the previous Areas of Interest report below. Yeah, that was a fun time.)

The reality is that you, as the Birkman Professional, may find this information helpful or useful, but for the end-user this information is much less relevant. Additionally, making the Component dual-colored would only make things more complicated. At that time, we are striving to make the Birkman data as intuitive and digestible as possible. 

So, the decision was made that at the beginning of the Birkman Next era, we would classify Social Energy as having a Green color. 

As you may have noticed, we encountered the same issues with the Assertiveness Component. Before Birkman Next, Assertiveness was considered a Green Component but is now classified as a Red. The same argument holds here—it is not the color but the direction that the Component moves along the Birkman Map.

Conclusion: Social Energy and Assertiveness are statistically 50% Red and 50% Green—or more accurately, “top of the Birkman Map to the bottom of the Birkman Map.” For simplicity’s sake, we generalize the Social Energy Component as Green and the Assertiveness Component as Red in the new Signature reporting series.