Earlier this year I had a bit of an epiphany. It occurred while one of my colleagues explained the Needs data, during a workshop with a large group of Business School students (using hoozyu).

He said something along these lines, and although it was nothing new, there was something about the wording of it that gave me new insight into my own scores. Here’s what he said:

“You may be someone who would thrive in an environment where you are surrounded by enthusiastic sales people - even if you would never ever want to be a sales person yourself.”

Pretty simple right?

In other words, the environment that you will thrive in may be full of people who are a lot like you, or a little bit like you, or even the complete opposite of you. There is no predictable correlation between what you want to be involved in and what you need from the people around you.


Perhaps the reason this struck me so much was because I have an extremely Green Need score. I know that I like to be around enthusiastic and outgoing people - while being pretty low-key and introverted myself. But because I also have a very low score for Persuasive Interest, I have always avoided ‘sales’ like the plague.

I do not under any circumstances want to be involved in sales myself.

…But this had blinded me to the recognition that, despite this, a sales environment (i.e. being surrounded by people involved in, and enthusiastic about, selling, interacting and keeping people engaged) would absolutely suit me - provided I wasn’t required to do any selling!


Perhaps something similar is true for you. If your Need score is the same colour as your very low Interest scores you may recognise a similar tension between the kind of people you want to be around, and what you yourself want to be involved in.

Here’s some simplified examples of how the different combinations might play out (remember this will look slightly different for different people, dependent on the rest of their data / the exact scores they have):

Strong Green Need + Very Low Green Interests = you want to be around enthusiastic, outgoing, motivators… but without having to motivate, enthuse or sell to others!

Strong Red Need + Very Low Red Interests = you want to be around practical, straight-forward, doers… but without having to get involved in the hands-on or technical / mechanical stuff yourself!

Strong Yellow Need + Very Low Yellow Interests = you want to be around careful, organised, systematisers… but without having to be involved in systems, numbers and administration yourself!

Strong Blue Need + Very Low Blue Interests = you want to be around thoughtful, future-focused, innovators… but without having to be involved in writing, designing or artistic expression yourself!


Realising that both those (seemingly contradictory) statements may be true for you, opens up a whole scope of potential new opportunities. Maybe you are the systematiser that the sales team needs! Or the innovator on the factory floor. The motivator in the admin office. The doer who gets the design team moving…

Your unique mix of Needs, Motivations and Perspectives makes you uniquely fitted for certain roles and environments. The data in your (hoozyu, expresso, snapshot or signature) report gives you the keys to figure out what those are - and from there? You’re a step closer to finding your niche.