Personality Differences

Sometimes the best colleagues are the ones who don’t think or act like you at all. This is Jeffrey. We worked together at Google for years, on the same team but never exactly side-by-side. Does that make sense? His team was dedicated to onboarding small businesses advertising for Chinese exporters, and my team found and qualified new SMB Google Ads clients across APAC. Different markets, different approaches, different personalities.

He’s calm, analytical, and data-driven. I’m… let’s say the opposite. I’m known to have loud ideas, gut-led vision, and more of a “let’s try it” than a “let’s prove it” kind of guy. At Google, we used a framework called Insights Discovery, which maps people into four colours:

• Fiery Red: direct, action-oriented, decisive
• Sunshine Yellow: creative, visionary, enthusiastic
• Earth Green: collaborative, empathetic, harmony-seeking
• Cool Blue: analytical, precise, detail-driven

Jeffrey was Blue, and I was about 96% Yellow (which apparently is extremely rare and explains a lot about me). Blue and Yellow sit on opposite ends of the spectrum, and normally have a style clash. With Jeffrey, however, it worked. His measured approach grounded my wild ideas, and my energy helped inspire him to try some crazy things without the safety net of data to prove it would work. Together, we found a balance neither of us could have struck alone.

We haven’t kept in close touch after I left Google (totally my fault - I’m terrible at staying in touch, Jeffrey!), but I rediscovered this rooftop photo taken at Google Singapore and it reminded me how much I learned from working with my “opposite friend.” In leadership and life, you don’t need a team full of people who think like you. You need people who challenge you, steady you, and stretch you. I believe that is where the best ideas live.

Who’s been the “opposite” in your career that made you better?