DISCovering Yourself
Have you ever wondered why different people act and behave differently in certain situations?
I was chatting with a business owner the other day with regard to their total frustration with some of their team members, in seemingly not understanding the instructions on how the business owner wanted a specific task completed.
The issue was related to “Why can’t they just do as I have asked, it is simple, follow the instructions!”. So why do people have difficulty understanding and following instructions that they have been given and then act and/or behave differently to what you may expect, especially when they come under pressure.
I first started working with DISC profiling assessments a number of years ago and quickly came to a realisation that I wished I had known more about DISC much earlier in my professional career. It would have saved me a great deal of heartache and frustration in my interaction’s with Customers, Superiors, Peers and Subordinates.
The key thing to learn about DISC is that not everybody sees or interprets things the same way that you do. DISC measures observable behaviour and emotions in the four DISC styles of Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, and Conscientious.
Research shows that the most successful people share a common trait of self awareness. When you can understand the reasons why you act and behave in certain ways in certain situations, you are then better able to adapt your communication style when communicating with different people.
The 4 DISC Styles
DISC is a simple , practical, easy to remember and universally applicable model. It focuses on individual patterns of external, observable behaviours and measures the intensity of characteristics using scales of directness and openness for each of the four styles:
Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, and Conscientious.
Within our own personality profiles, we all have a component of each style within us, although we will be much stronger in one or two of the different styles. When we understand what our own characteristics and tendencies are in our own behavioural patterns, then we can start to understand that not everybody has those same characteristics that we do.
This is the reason why in certain communication situations you may find that you come into some differing points of view on how things should or shouldn’t be done. W hen this is all broken down, the end result of achieving the goal, will be the same, the different parties just have different ideas on how to approach the subject to achieve the end goal.
What is important for you is to understand that people do see things differently to you, do interpret things differently to you and so it is really important that when you are communicating with someone that you check in with what they have understood you have meant. Remember, ‘True Communication is the Response You Get’
For example, my wife and I were having a discussion on the latest developments of the Coronavirus restrictions in Victoria and how it was going to affect our plans for camping on the river. My wife was interpreting the section that allowed “other recreational activities” as a green light that we could still go camping. My interpretation of this was that the overall intent of the new restrictions was “Stay at Home”, meaning that camping was again on the list of banned activities.
Putting this all into context, when you understand you own personality style and then other peoples styles, you are better able to adapt your communication to ensure that everyone is on the same page of what the ultimate goal is and that there may be a number of different ways in achieving the goals. In fact, someone else may come up with a better idea on how to achieve the goal that you may not have thought about.
As a Certified DISC Practitioner, I can assist you with a number of different DISC assessments that will help you better understand yourself, your team and your customers. Please reach out, I am here to help …
