DISC Doesn't Belong in a Drawer
DISC can help bring the fuzzy into focus. It can give you great insight into yourself, but also how to interact successfully with others.
“Nobody puts Baby in the corner.””
That quote always makes me smile, and it make me think about what most people might do with their DISC report after their initial training: put it in a drawer. DISC doesn’t belong in a drawer.
You’ve done a DISC assessment. What’s next? Maybe you even did some team training about DISC.
A question I get often is how organizations can ingrain DISC into their culture. There are tons of ideas, but it takes a commitment from the individuals, as well as, the organization.
Often, we attend professional development seminars and are really excited about all the ideas we learned, but when we return to the day-to-day grind, we forget about all the cool things we wanted to try.
Change can be difficult and takes conscious effort, but you do not need to do everything right now. There are small things you can implement easily.
Keep DISC profiles visible
The easiest way to remain conscious of DISC team dynamics is to keep the profiles visible. One organization uses Zoom for all their meetings and they edit their names to include their DISC profile. Another company who was largely in person included each person’s DISC profile on their nameplate at their desk. While the whole report should be kept personal, you can clip each person’s DISC diamond and store them in a central place for people to reference (SharePoint, Google Drive, photo album).
Invest in additional training
We often think that training is really expensive, however it doesn’t need to be. Training doesn’t need to be multiple days, or even a whole day. Try breaking it up into 2 hour sessions. From a teaching perspective, it’s better so people have time to absorb and practice what they’ve learned.
Team Dynamics
Look at your Team Report (which is free for those who have done assessments), and look at your team strengths and blind spots. Keep those in mind as the team discusses and makes decisions. Is the team heavy on S/C styles; ensure you are giving them information in advance, and you aren’t expecting them to make decisions too quickly. Is the team heavy on D/I styles? Be cognizant of the desire to just decide and move on and ensure you have debated the idea enough.
Managing Others
For mangers or supervisors, understanding motivators, situations that reduce motivation and reactions to pressure situations (all standard sections of an individual report) helps you support them. Knowing what situations will cause someone stress or how they show up when they feel under pressure allows you to watch for those and provide extra support when necessary (and often without the person needing to ask). Understanding what motivates people on your team helps you assign tasks to those who really want to do them, helping facilitate higher morale and productivity.
Adapt your Communication Style
If you are a verbose I style, or a detail-oriented C-style writing an email to a D-style, you need to be brief and get directly to the point. They probably aren’t going to pay attention past the first few sentences. If you are sending the same information to a C-style, though, ensure you include all the details. Knowing the communication style preference of the person you are communicating with allows you to adapt your natural style to “speak their language.” Your individual report gives you advice, tailored to your specific results, to successfully interact with each of the four styles.
Team Building
People often think that team-building is about sharing challenges from childhood, falling off tables or maybe attending the odd event. According to Patrick Lencioni, the basis of a cohesive team is actually trust. DISC training and sharing can help build trust. When you understand someone’s natural behavioural tendencies, you tend to give them more benefit of the doubt and start to assume they are doing the best they can (to reference Brené Brown) which builds that essential base layer of trust.
It's easy to get overwhelmed, though, and try to implement all your ideas at once. Take a deep breath, and just start with one small thing. Remember James Clear’s concept of Consistency over Intensity.
So, what is your one small thing?