Strategies for creating positive influence

¶ … Positive Influence

Using DISC in the workplace: Personality overviews

Ideally, personality differences should be a source of productivity in the workplace, rather than discord. However, all too often interpersonal conflicts are the result of team-based initiatives that blend different personality 'types' in an ineffective fashion. It is essential that ice-breaking activities foster awareness of the diversity of interpersonal approaches within a work team or a place of employment. Only through awareness can workers overcome their tendency to see the world in a different way and focus on the task at hand. "Understanding personality is also the key to unlocking elusive human qualities, for example leadership, motivation, and empathy, whether your purpose is self-development, helping others, or any other field relating to people and how we behave" (Chapman 2010). Bruce Tuckman identified four critical stages of team-based formation -- forming, storming, norming, and performing -- and as part of the forming process, understanding different approaches to problem-solving and interpersonal styles can minimize the divisive nature of the storming process, and move a work team more quickly into the norming and performing phases (Smith 2005).

The DISC personality overview offers four distinct personality classifications: dominant, interactive, steady, and cautious. Because of the popularity of the DISC classification scheme, and its unique relevance to the workplace, many employers are having their workers take the DISC test as part of team ice-breaking activities. DISC stands for 'dominant, interactive, steady, and cautious (also referred to as conservative or conscientious)' to represent the four different styles classified by the paradigm. Dominant personality types are the typical leaders of a group: they are extroverted and focused on furthering their own ambitions. Interactive types are socially driven. They are also extroverts but need affirmation in terms of their relationships. Steady types are introverts who are often the backbone of the organization: they do not like to take a 'front row seat' to organizing others like interactives, but they wish to maintain organizational harmony. Cautious types are introverts like steady types, but are analytical in nature and rule-bound.

While these personality characterizations may seem quite general in nature, they are further broken down into sub-types. The dominant director type enjoys leading and delegating; the dominant pioneer type seeks out new opportunities. The dominant adventurer type is a great risk-taker who is hungry to be independent and stand out from a crowd, while a dominant producer type is directed to achieve self-improvement by realizing the goals of the project, often "according to an internal timetable" (McCloud 2010). When assigning workers to a team project, having a dominant individual is often useful to deploy as a 'leader' figure but the type of project will determine the type of dominant individual required. A producer might shine on a project that gives him or herself an opportunity to learn new things; a pioneer might delight in being the first project manager for an assignment with little precedent or direction; an adventurer might leap at the chance to have a showy position on a prominent team project.

Interactive types can provide the interpersonal 'glue' that keeps a team together. The four sub-styles of interactive types include socializers, who are gregarious and seek approval from others, helper types who foster interpersonal relationships by giving aid to others, impressers who crave social esteem and approval, and enthusiasts who enjoy mentoring and influencing others (McCloud 2010). On some projects, an 'impressor' might be helpful if the project needs to garner publicity, while on other work teams having a helper or an enthusiast to mentor less experienced workers would be a plus. This is again an illustration of how awareness of types and subtypes can prove useful.

Steady types are introverts who seek stability and show intense organizational loyalty. They are the backbone of many work teams and workplaces, enforcing rules and mutual respect through a good personal example. However, this can put them at odds with the more daring dominant types, although steady types like to follow a leader. Some steady subtypes, like 'the relater' are more driven to seek personal stability, which can cause them to ignore an organization's need for change along with steady 'harmonizer types' who also seek to minimize conflict. Having too many relators and harmonizers on a team that needs to foster change and overcome change resistance may be problematic. However, other steady type subtypes like 'the specialist' who seeks to know more about his or her organizational role and 'the go-getter' who seeks "a steady flow of more accomplishments" may be more proactive and flexible (McCloud 2010). Past performance and results on the DISC assessment can help a manager select subtypes who will work well together, even while blending a variety of general types.

Cautious types are analytical and introverted. They are often the most technically proficient members of a team, and are the polar opposites of interactors. While interactors put people before policies, cautious types focus on facts and data -- what they deem to be 'right' and correct, rather than what is popular, It should come as little surprise that one of the dominant subtypes of the 'cautious' type is that of 'the thinker.' Another type, "the master-minder whose goal is to increase opportunities for unique and significant personal accomplishments," is more extroverted and shares some similarities with the 'producer' dominant subtype, although the dominant type is more interested in adding to his own personal list of accomplishments (McCloud 2010). Cautious types are less focused on ego, and more on the project itself, although "the assessor whose goal is accomplishing goals with excellence and the perfecter whose goal is predictable results" can exhibit some dominant traits (McCloud 2010).