If you’ve ever taken one of those “personality tests” and thought, “I think any of these options describes me!” this post is for you.
Here’s the Reader’s Digest version: You are at least partly right. But going through the exercise can be crucial for trust, teamwork and engagement in your workplace.
4 types
First, a quick review of the DISC posts so far (I’ll link to them below). Let’s get one thing straight:
It’s not really a “personality test.” You can’t pass or fail it, so it’s not a “test.”
And my favorite one–DISC–measures behaviors, not all the layers and complexities of “personality.”
So let’s call it an assessment of your preferred behaviors.
Specifically, we all have preferences for how we evaluate and interact with the world. DISC’s model describes all humans as having one of four styles, or types, of doing those things: Dominance, Influence, Steadiness and Conscientiousness.
“But,” some say, once they learn about each of the four, “I feel like I do all four of these types.”
To which I say: Correct.
We all “do” all four of the behaviors. But you probably have a preference for one or two of them. It’s the difference between riding a bicycle downhill or struggling to pedal uphill. You can do both … but one takes a lot more effort and energy.
Paying attention to DISC keeps you from “overheating your computer.”
It’s incredibly practical in that way. And that practicality flows out of some truth. What truth? The truth that, for as long as people have been noticing other people, we’ve been noticing four basic categories of how people behave.
Those four basic types described in DISC have been with us since at least Hippocrates, the Father of Medicine. You see, his system assumed the bloodstream had four fluids, or “humors,” in it. To quote the great choreographer George Balanchine, the theory goes like this:
Each one of us possesses these four humors, but in different degrees, and it is from the dominance of one of them that the four physical and psychological types — melancholic, sanguinic, phlegmatic, and choleric — were derived.
We don’t practice medicine that way anymore. And we don’t much use those antiquated terms for the four “psychological types.” But I quote Balanchine because he was the father of American ballet–and his first masterpiece … created in the 1940s … was a ballet based on the four humors.
We’ve categorized people into the four categories as far back as Hippocrates and as recently as modern dance. This is a useful way of looking at people that has stood the test of time.
4 window panes
In my last DISC post, I pointed out that you could identify a person’s style with two simple questions.
You can also use those questions on yourself.
In fact, you should probably start there.
Once you can describe yourself a bit using DISC’s four categories, you can use that to share with your team and learn about your team.
There is a famous graphic, called the Johari Window, that illustrates how practical this is.
Johari breaks down what I, and others, know about myself. In both cases, it’s a simple two-option list: There are things I (or others) know about myself, and there are things I (or others) don’t know about myself.
The four panes of the window are the letters in bold:
| Known to self | Unknown to self | |
| Known to others | The Open Area | The Blind Spots |
| Unknown to others | The Hidden Area | THE JUNGLE |
We all know what Blind Spots are. I’ve often seen administrative assistants who work for bosses that think they are in control of everything. The reality is, they are poor at scheduling (or communicating with others, or organization, or …) and it is really the administrative assistant who fills in the gaps and saves the day.
The Hidden Area makes sense, too. But notice that something could be hidden on purpose … or accidentally. Maybe you don’t know a coworker is divorced because it is too painful for him to talk about. And maybe you don’t know he can juggle because you’ve never asked him.
The Jungle is the scary one. It is difficult to work with. Have you ever worked for someone who suddenly had an extreme emotional reaction to something, and you didn’t know why? … And neither did they? That’s the Jungle at work.
“Know thyself,” the ancients said. You have to learn about yourself and let others learn about you.
Reducing Blind Spots, Hidden Areas and Jungle are key, in other words, to being a better human. You have to reduce the Unkowns of the Johari Window.
DISC is one heck of a way to do just that.
3 Stories
Now let’s get even more practical. Here are three stories where DISC helped in the workplace.
I’ll change a few details to protect the innocent.
Trust grows when people get vulnerable and share. Once upon a time, I shared with a team the basics of DISC. I invited them to identify what letter best described them and share that with the group.
They did so, and one particular team member opened up that he was a C and extremely concerned with details. In his role, this made him really strong.
It also, it turned out, made him stressed. By the end of our day, he admitted that he was considering quitting because he was unable to get all the details addressed.
This was a surprise to the boss and opened up an ongoing dialogue. The boss cared about his staff and made sure there was more conversation about what was, and wasn’t, important to address. Employee: saved!
Teamwork grows when teams acknowledge all four types. Once upon a time, I took a management team through DISC. They learned that most of them were S types.
It made sense. The client was a destination employer, famous for taking care of not just employees but customers.
They laughed when they realized how it had happened that they were all S: The owner himself was a pure S. His “dot” was all the way to the edge of the circle!
This led into a discussion about what the Blind Spots might be.
Good teams answer four particular questions when making decisions. And it so happens that each of the four styles is naturally attuned to ask one of those questions:
- C: Why are we making this change?
- I: Who might be impacted, and who needs to be on board?
- S: How are we going to implement?
- D: What are we going to do?
More on that another time. Suffice to say that the team has become focused on ensuring they take action–compensating for what they can miss as an S culture.
Engagement grows when you learn what your people prefer and are good at. Once upon a time, I provided DiSC assessments to a client who was already a fan. (That’s not a typo: Wylie’s official DiSC assessment spells it that way. Contact me if you’d like to take it.)
In fact, they had a great anecdote about the power of DISC. The client is in a service industry and has locations in multiple states. They had a team member struggling at one of their locations–someone who should have been good.
They they looked at the DiSC makeup at the location. There were two Ds in leadership roles. What would happen if they changed the under-performer to a different location? One that needed a D?
You can guess the happy ending. It wasn’t just an under-performer who improved. Two whole teams improved performance.
And can you imagine what it feels like to know your boss is trying to put you where you will most thrive?
Even if you can’t quite see what your type is–even if you’re not sure you have a type–the exercise of uncovering it for yourself and others is the key. That sharing, acknowledging and learning is what leads to trust, teamwork and engagement.