Understanding the DISC profile system enhances team dynamic

Are you brave enough to find out what DISC profile you are and more importantly what makes others tick? There’s no wrong or right profile but understanding what you are and learning enough to understand how others might be, then with courage and practice working out ways to meet others halfway, can set you on a path to building stronger relationships.

Recently I received a call from a client to whom two days earlier I had presented a report on his DISC behavioural style. My client was blown away by the accuracy of the DISC report findings! For those who don’t know DISC is an acronym for Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, and Compliance. First described by William Moulston Marston in his 1928 book Emotions of Normal People. It has since evolved into the DISC model, which defines people’s core behaviours across four personality types.

Because the company’s entire leadership team was completing the assessments, my client quickly grasped the importance of understanding that his fellow team members were not wired the same as him. Finally, he had an explanation as to why he was not feeling the love at work. And could I do a report for his wife who was having issues at work and about to leave her second job in as many years? Frustrated and angry she was also mindful of how leaving another job might look on her resume. To cut a long story short we did her DISC assessment and straight away she could see that the jobs she’d been in and was continuing to consider, were just the wrong fit for her. She’s now worked out the science behind what’s going on with her team. With no room to think outside the square and no capacity for others to make any meaningful change it turns out being a high D, led by high S’s, is a hard gig!

• If you’re a high D you’re interested in results and getting things done.
• If you’re a high I strangers are just friends, you haven’t met yet.
• If you’re a high S, then you won’t change for change’s sake.
• If you’re a high C then perfectionism, rules, and process are where it’s at.

So armed with her new knowledge she put an action plan in place and told the executive team in her current workplace both what was wrong and what ideas she had to improve things. They seemed relieved – and within 24 hours had set her up to lead her own department with a new team. Boom!!

Are you brave enough to find out what DISC profile you are and more importantly what makes others tick? There’s no wrong or right profile but understanding what you are and learning enough to understand how others might be, then with courage and practice working out ways to meet others halfway, can set you on a path to building stronger relationships. These assessments take no more than 20 minutes to complete online with the results available very soon after. Why not take the initiative with your team, customers, partner, or kids and contact me to discuss taking a DISC profile assessment? You’ve got nothing to lose!