The Four Elements of Success

A Simple Personality Profile that will Transform Your Team

Laurie Beth Jones

• Publisher: HarperCollins Leadership
• Year: 2006
• Print ISBN: 9780785288107
• eBook ISBN: 9781418513566
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Personal Success
• Index: Business

Laurie Beth Jones, management expert and business consultant extraordinaire, noticed that none of the personality/temperament profiles in the market today, none of them provided a tool that was simple, visual, intuitive, and powerful enough to create a shift in thinking as well as relating. So she developed The Path Elements Profile (PEP), which can be used in recruitment, placement, retention, team building, and customer relations as businesses transform many individuals into a harmonizing, humming force for good. Within the framework of the book will be scriptural examples as well as modern day business stories.

Based upon the elements of Earth, Water, Wind and Fire, the Path Elements Profile helps determine both individual and team behavioral tendencies that affect everything from career choice to daily "to do" lists. We choose to act on what we value, and each element type values very different things:

• Fire personality types love and thrive on challenge
• Water personality types thrive on harmony and calm
• Wind personality types love chaos and change
• Earth personality types love order and structure

PART I of this book provides an overview of the elements themselves as individual personality types. Jones will explain each element's strengths and challenges and will have the readers identify their own as well as those of their team members.

Then in PART II, readers will assess their teams. There are 28 one-day principles, that, if followed will take readers on a simple yet radical journey to a transformed workplace.

INCLUDES an Assessment Test for Your Team's Elemental Strengths and Weaknesses

PART I

Learning the Elements

1

UNDERSTANDING THE ELEMENTS: WHICH ONE ARE YOU?

Earth. Water. Wind. Fire. Which one are you? And what does it matter? This book will help to educate and convince you that knowing the difference is important indeed. And it will also help you take this individual tool of the Path Elements Profile^™ (PEP) and expand it into a team assessment that can help transform not one, but many individuals into a harmonizing, humming force for good.

It is imperative that leaders first understand their own elements in order to assess their strengths and challenges.

One CEO I was coaching, for example, is an inventor—and a certifiable genius—from the Silicon Valley. However, he had burned through six assistants in a year, blaming each one of them for their failures. Only when he saw his element, Fire, and understood his current and most willing assistant, Water, did he realize that his flame was not giving as much light as heat. He was on the verge of accomplishing nothing of worth without a team that understood him and, more important, that he understood and respected. Are you a Fire burning through your team, or perhaps another element with its own unique set of strengths and challenges? Let’s find out now.

IDENTIFYING THE POSITIVE CHARACTERISTICS OF EACH ELEMENT

In this section, please take the time to contemplate each of the four elements. These activities are designed to trigger new synapses in your brain and create a new mind map for you to better reference and absorb the information that will follow.

What are the unique and positive characteristics of each of the elements? All are powerful. All are beautiful. All can be dangerous when unharnessed or out of control. Yet for our purposes here let’s consider the positive characteristics of each element.

• Quickly name five positive characteristics of Earth and write them here:

Earth is/does . . .

1. solid

2.

3.

4.

5.

• Name five positive characteristics of Water and write them here:

Water is/does . . .

1. transparent

2.

3.

4.

5.

• Now name five positive characteristics of Wind and write them here:

Wind is/does . . .

1. invisible

2.

3.

4.

5.

• Name five positive characteristic of Fire and write them here:

Fire is/does . . .

1. all-consuming

2.

3.

4.

5.

• Now quickly choose the element you most relate to and write it here:

I feel most like _______________________.

If you are torn between two elements, write both of them here:

I feel I may be a blend of ______________________ and _____________________.

If you are uncertain, ask family, friends, and coworkers to choose for you. They usually can identify your elements.

PICTURE A QUADRANT.

At the top of the quadrant are the words Deliberate and Fast. Place a dot in the quadrant that is most like you.

At the bottom of the quadrant are the words People and Results. Place a dot in the quadrant that most attracts you.

If you placed yourself in the Deliberate quadrant, you tend toward Earth.

If you placed yourself in the Fast quadrant, you tend toward Wind.

If you placed yourself in the People quadrant, you tend toward Water.

If you placed yourself in the Results quadrant, you tend toward Fire.

Now look at your two dots. Where they are may be a reflection of your personality blend. For example, if you are in the Fast quadrant and the People quadrant, you are probably a Wind/Water. If you are in the Deliberate quadrant and the Results quadrant, you may be an Earth/Fire.

Another guide is to read the following statements and circle your answer to each one.

• People say I make decisions quickly, often based on just the “scent” of something. True or False (If you answered True, your tendency is toward Wind.)

• When it comes to choosing between people or results, I have to admit I almost always put people first. True or False (If you answered True, your tendency is toward Water.)

• When it comes to decision making, I prefer to move based on evidence. True or False (If you answered True, your tendency is toward Earth.)

• Once I commit to something, I give 110 percent to the task and am often angry when others don’t do the same. True or False (If you answered True, your tendency is toward Fire.)

If you would like to have more information about taking the full PEP test, please go to my Web site, www.lauriebethjones.com, or see the information page at the end of this book.

Before we had the PEP online assessment, which pinpoints accurately each person’s elemental makeup, I thought I was Water. I wanted to be Water, mostly because Jesus said He was “Living Water,” but also because Water is beautifully capable of changing form.

However, my friends unanimously told me I was Wind and Fire, which gave me a whole new insight into how I was behaving in my relationships as well as in my calling. Even though I didn’t get to be Living Water like Jesus, I took comfort when one friend reminded me that the Holy Spirit is compared to Wind and Fire in Scripture.

So, my dominant elements are Wind and Fire, with a little bit of Water and hardly any Earth. Therefore, I love to message with results, but am not too good at nurturing or details. This profile has proven challenging in my career choices and relationships. (My former bosses have openly shared that I was basically not a very good “employee.”) Once I got who I was, however, as a self-directed author and speaker, I began to lead with my strengths and “team” for my challenges. (You may view my PEP report in Appendix II.)

I strongly urge you to pause here and, before you continue, get feedback from friends and family about how they see you in elemental terms. The insights you gain about your behaviors and their perceptions of you will be worth the price of this book. By capturing your essence in terms of Earth, Water, Wind, or Fire, people can communicate your strengths as well as your challenges in nonjudgmental, loving, insightful, and often humorous ways.

In one seminar I conducted in Seattle, a gentleman named Jackson expressed his inner uncertainty. His team unanimously called out, “Jackson, you are Wind!” amid great howls of laughter. Sometimes we see ourselves through a glass darkly, while those around us can see quite clearly.

Stop here and get feedback from your friends and family.

UNDERSTANDING PERSONALITY BLENDS

There are sixteen possible personality blends:

Earth	Water
Earth/Wind	Water/Wind
Earth/Water	Water/Earth
Earth/Fire	Water/Fire

Wind	Fire
Wind/Water	Fire/Wind
Wind/Earth	Fire/Earth
Wind/Fire	Fire/Water

I have developed symbols for each one of these, which are as follows:

Almost 3 percent of the population will be fusions. They will be about evenly matched in all the elements. Because they are capable of changing form as needed, I typically relate fusions to the Water element for purposes of discussion.

The value of having the full overview of your elemental makeup is discovering where you are strong and where you are challenged. The implication of this self-knowledge is profound and far-reaching. It can and will affect (and has been affecting) everything from your relationships to your career choices, leadership style, and happiness needs.

Your personality type influences you in each of the following areas. In this section I will detail each area for the basic elements of Earth, Water, Wind, and Fire.

Action	Adventure	Anger
Authority	Change	Communication
Conflict	Fears	Fun
Ideal Work	Leadership	Learning
Environment	Order	Pace
Leisure	Stress	Success
Relationships	Tasks

Now that you have made a quick guess and/or gotten feedback from others about your elemental makeup, let’s look at the elements in more depth.

EARTH

Earth is “terrafirma” for us. It is the foundation of everything we do. It is our home, our grounding point, our anchor. It is steady and solid. Earth is predictable in its seasons and cycles and rotations. It is perfectly poised and balanced at all times, and is magnificent in its diversity. It supports all life forms and is equally comfortable and at work whether it is winter, summer, spring, or fall. Earth stores and saves and works silently and steadily to maintain diverse forms of life. It seeks balance and sustainability in all things. It is rich, f...

Table of contents

• COVER PAGE
• TITLE PAGE
• COPYRIGHT PAGE
• DEDICATION
• CONTENTS
• PREFACE
• INTRODUCTION
• PART I: LEARNING THE ELEMENTS
• PART II: APPLYING THE ELEMENTS
• PART III: THE 28-DAY CHALLENGE
• NOTES
• APPENDICES
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• ABOUT THE AUTHOR