Discover how the iMA Colour Model enhances workplace communication, reduces conflict, strengthens culture, and significantly lowers staff turnover.
What Is iMA — and Why Does It Matter?
iMA (Identify, Modify, Adapt) is a simple yet powerful colour-based communication model that helps people understand how they prefer to communicate, work, and make decisions.
Instead of complicated psychometrics, iMA uses four easy-to-recognise colours:
- High Red – Direct, fast-paced, decisive
- High Yellow – Social, enthusiastic, expressive
- High Green – Calm, supportive, people-focused
- High Blue – Analytical, structured, detail-oriented
When teams understand these preferences, communication becomes clearer, relationships become healthier, and performance becomes more consistent.
And importantly, staff turnover drops.
Curious about your own iMA colour? Take the iMA Colour Profile Personality Test to discover your communication style.
Here’s how.
iMA Makes Communication Easier (and More Respectful)
Most workplace conflict is caused by miscommunication, not incompetence.
iMA teaches employees to:
- Recognise different communication styles.
- Adjust the way they deliver messages.
- Avoid unintentional tension or frustration.
- Speak so the other person actually listens.
When people feel understood, not judged, collaboration becomes effortless.
iMA Improves Working Relationships
iMA helps people understand not just what colleagues do, but why they do it.
For example:
- A High Red isn’t being rude, they’re being efficient.
- A High Yellow isn’t unfocused, they’re connecting ideas.
- A High Green isn’t slow, they’re ensuring everyone is supported.
- A High Blue isn’t negative, they’re protecting accuracy and quality.
This shift in perspective reduces blame, boosts empathy, and builds trust across teams.
Strong relationships equal stronger retention.
iMA Helps Managers Lead More Effectively
Leadership is not “one size fits all.”
iMA gives managers a practical guide for motivating people based on their natural preferences.
For example:
- High Reds need autonomy and clear results
- High Yellows need recognition and variety
- High Greens need stability and teamwork
- High Blues need structure and clarity
When people receive what they need to thrive, their job satisfaction rises and turnover falls dramatically.
iMA Reduces Conflict and Misunderstanding
Imagine if people understood each other’s triggers before they became problems.
That’s what iMA does.
Common frustrations become easy to navigate:
- Rush vs. detail
- Logic vs. emotion
- Facts vs. flow
- Stability vs. change
iMA removes the guesswork from human behaviour, reducing reactive conflicts and creating proactive understanding.
iMA Improves Team Performance and Productivity
When people communicate clearly and collaborate more easily, productivity naturally improves.
iMA helps teams:
- Cut meeting time
- Delegate more effectively
- Reduce duplicated efforts
- Improve workflow
- Make faster decisions
Higher engagement + lower frustration = higher performance.
iMA Strengthens Culture — The Real Key to Lower Turnover
People don’t leave jobs.
They leave environments where they feel unseen, misunderstood, or unappreciated.
iMA builds a culture of:
- Understanding
- Respect
- Appreciation
- Clear communication
When people feel comfortable being themselves at work, they stay longer, contribute more, and feel part of something meaningful.
iMA Makes Recruitment and Onboarding More Effective
iMA also helps organisations hire the right people and support them from day one.
It improves:
- Role fit
- Team balance
- Expectations
- Training style
- Communication during onboarding
A smoother, more personalised onboarding experience makes new employees feel valued , reducing early exits.
Every Person Has an iMA Colour and Every Job Also Has an iMA Colour
Every job is either a High Red, High Yellow, High Green or High Blue. If you recruit accordingly or reassign you will ensure that you have the best people in the right jobs, where they will thrive and gain mastery in their role. People are good at jobs that they like and like jobs that they are good at.
The End Result? Lower Turnover, Higher Engagement, Better Performance
iMA doesn’t eliminate workplace challenges – it makes them manageable.
By improving communication, deepening understanding, and enabling more effective leadership, iMA helps organisations create environments people want to stay in.
Because when people feel understood…
When they feel accepted…
When they feel set up to succeed…
They don’t leave.
They grow.
The importance of retention over constant recruitment is also explored here, showing why strategies like iMA make such a measurable difference.
This is borne out by data provided to me by one of the McDonalds franchises I work with. Before iMA become part of their people policy their annual percentage of staff turnover stood at 67.1% and has been reduced to as low as 32.3%
The beauty of iMA is that is very easy to understand and very straight forward to implement. iMA is inclusive and non-threatening and its magical ingredient is that it depersonalises the situation, any issue that occurs is not about you as an individual but your iMA colour.
