On my first day at Aptify, amongst the HR forms and IT log-ins, was a link to a required personality test. It seemed fairly innocuous to me at the time and I didn’t think too hard about it as I answered the DiSC questionnaire. On completion, out popped this report, a profile of my personality – and it was SPOT ON!
This tool has helped me navigate my time at Aptify and here are three ways leveraging personality types can help your team.
Before we get too detailed, it’s important to know what DiSC is. From the official DiSC website:
DiSC profiles help you and your team:
- Increase your self-knowledge: how you respond to conflict, what motivates you, what causes you stress and how you solve problems
- Improve working relationships by recognising the communication needs of team members
- Facilitate better teamwork and minimise team conflict
- Develop stronger sales skills by identifying and responding to customer styles
- Manage more effectively by understanding the dispositions and priorities of employees and team members
- Become more self-knowledgeable, well-rounded and effective leaders
Doesn’t this seem like a great tool to use to work efficiently with your team? Here’s how!
Approaching Conflict
I can say, without a doubt, that conflict resolution is one of the hardest things to manage with staff. It can be very hard to know what can cause conflict, how someone will react and how to manage the fallout from conflict. You association probably has a lot of guidelines about how to manage conflict as it occurs, but how about the skills and tools to manage it before it happens?
My DiSC profile is a High I. You can see from my profile that I need to be approached with friendliness and need to build a rapport over time. Coming to a personality type like mine with strict rules from a stranger is only going to exacerbate the issue. So be firm, but friendly and you’ll find that I am keen to be part of the solution. Also, by leveraging the information you know about me, don’t place me in roles where I get to bogged down in the detail, this will create stress and lead to conflict arising. Instead, create opportunities for me grow into more detailed roles, where the stakes aren’t as high and I won’t feel the weight of tasks I am not suited for.
By leveraging personality types, you can manage environments where staff play to their strengths and aren’t rejected for their weaknesses.
Change Management
Change can be tough for tight-knit teams. Heck, change is hard for everyone, and with DiSC profiling you’ll find that some personality types need a little more coddling than others. But isn’t that better to know now, rather than weeks down that line when your staff are unhappy?
Look out for your S’s in particular. The S personality type is steady, stable and supportive and can tend to resist change passively. So how can you pre-empt this hesitation and get an S on board? It’s best to tell an S about change first, give them time to adjust and encourage them to speak up about their concerns. With this strategy, you can gain an S as an ally and they can influence other personality types like theirs.
Feedback & Praise
It’s natural to think that all people love praise and flattery, but all DiSC profiles are not created equal. Be sure you know who you are addressing when you give feedback (positive or constructive) as the way you present the feedback and how it should be delivered will depend on the personality style. Use the DiSC Profile website on Using DiSC to Give Feedback to check your recipients DiSC style before you give feedback.
Interested in DiSC? Our Director of Consulting Jill Beasley is a certified DiSC Trainer and can help your team manage and implement DiSC at your association.
