Diversity Icebreaker

Diversity Icebreaker (DI) is a questionnaire. It was developed by Bjørn Z. Ekelund following earlier work on Cross-sectional team performance (Tverrfaglig samarbeidssjekk, TSS).

It is used in seminars where the aim is to improve communication and interaction in the group or between different departments or subsidiaries in a bigger company or organization. Based on the results from the questionnaire the participants are divided into three categories (Red, Blue and Green). Each color represents a certain set of preferences. The facilitator is suggested to follow a certain seminar structure to bring out the effect of helping the participants develop a common comprehension about effective ways to communicate and work together with people with different preferences.

Red, Blue and Green

Red preference is characterized by a strong focus on relations, personal involvement and a social perspective. Blue preference is recognized by focus on structure and task, and through a logic perspective. Green perspective is seen in focus on change, vision and ideas. The meaning of the three categories is established during the seminar. It originates from the questionnaire's items as well as from participant's personal experiences and the local culture, thus making the categories of Red, Blue and Green flexible and applicable in many contexts .

The classical DI-seminar

The Diversity Icebreaker is a process tool often used within the classical DI-seminar structure explained by Ekelund and Langvik in their book “Diversity Icebreaker. How to manage diversity processes” . The seminar is usually run for groups from 9 to 150 persons and lasts between one and two hours. The participants are divided into groups – red, blue or green – based on the questionnaire.

Through the seminar process the sense of the categories is worked out by the participants themselves. They discover the effect of putting labels on each other, as well as the effect of “us” versus “the others” way of thinking. A systematic use of humor is central in the process and stimulates the participants to a safe and open reflection about differences.

The Diversity Icebreaker is argued to train individuals in behavioral flexibility and to reduce the fears related to working in a diversified environment, hence making it a tool for enhancing a flexible human resources management

Users of the concept

Diversity Icebreaker is used to work on a wide range of subjects from focus on communication and interaction in general to more specific topics like team development, intercultural relations, learning styles and conflict resolution. Users vary from bigger multinationals to smaller companies independently of sector of activity, schools and universities, non-profit organizations etc.

Romani describes how she uses the concept when teaching in multicultural classes of business students in Singapore, making the students aware of how the self-other categories have effects on the group dynamics. Similar application of the concept in Bangladesh is reported by Orgeret .

The story behind Diversity Icebreaker

Diversity Icebreaker as a psychological questionnaire is developed by Bjørn Z. Ekelund (clinical psychologist and MBA). The work started following a project in 1995 where focus groups were asked to give ideas on how to communicate to obtain changes in behavior of other people. When the participants sorted the ideas, three main categories occurred. In a marketing and consultant training process for Akershus Energiverk (Norway) these categories was for the first time called Red, Blue and Green.

The first edition of the questionnaire which identified an individual’s preference towards one of the roles Red/Blue/Green was made in 1998 and published in a book about team development published by Dansk Psykologisk Forlag in Denmark . Since then, the questionnaire has been reedited in 2003 and 2005. Since 2012, the concept is branded in the UK and in the USA under the name Trialogue.

Scientific documentation

Norm data collected up to September 2011 gives results from all together about 240 samples with a total of 8859 respondents. This gives the opportunity to compare norm groups related to profession and nationality. The results show that women scores lower on Blue and higher on Red than men and vice versa. Only small differences were detected what concerns age – where persons above 60 years score higher on Blue. Evaluation of the tool through qualitative and quantitative methods has been done in the context of use in inter-disciplinary and non inter-disciplinary work environments .

Reliability

The internal consistency (reliability) measured by Cronbach's alpha based upon 473 respondents is between 0.75 and 0.82.

Validation of Red, Blue and Green towards other psychological concepts

So far the dimensions Red, Blue and Green have been systematically validated against personality traits, emotional intelligence, cultural values, Interpersonal Problems (IIP) and team processes .

The Red, Blue and Green categories have also been used in marketing through research about Brand Personality

Critics

Further conceptual work needs to be carried out for comparing the three categories with other psychological tools concerning for instance communication preferences, problem solving styles and intellectual styles.

The connection between the use of Diversity Icebreaker as a tool to measure as well as the development of the categories during the seminar, mix several theoretical traditions (psychology, sociology and linguistics). So far, it is not clear how this can be handled theoretically and which practical implications that will follow.

Despite that Diversity Icebreaker is widely used and there are much information available, there are few articles published in referee based journals.