Are you D.I.S.C.Ohhhhhhhhh??

Oh yes, it’s DISCOhhhhhh time.  So are you a John Travoltar, a member of the Jackson Five, Justine Timberlake, Snoop Dog, Lady GaGa, or a dazzling Dancing Dad?  Do you know what your dancing style is?

Personally for me my dancing style depends on many factors. For example, the number of alcoholic beverages I’ve consumed, the type of music being played, how busy the dance floor is, which friends I’m out with.  I would say that however I flex my style based on these factors, there is a distinct “me version” which sits underneath all versions.  Obviously I’d describe it as somewhere between Baby from Dirty Dancing and Flavia from Strictly Come Dancing (although I’m sure my friends may beg to differ).

I find it fascinating that we all have different dancing styles just like we have different parenting styles and different manager styles, different friendship styles.  It makes life interesting.  We are all different from each other after all, which makes for interesting relationships, interesting communication and interesting challenges.

I bet we can all recount a time on the dance floor when we’ve been shifting some sexy salsa moves and our partner preferred to throw some rock n roll moves.  It makes for awkward synchronicity doesn’t it(as much as it’s entertaining to others)?   But life is like that.  If only we could all walk around with our preferred styles labeled to us.  (It would certainly help dating on the dance floor but that’s probably another blog another time).

For some us, we’re not even aware of our styles, preferring to live for the moment unaware of the effect we have on ourselves and on others.  Unaware of whether that style is working to smooth the way forward or getting in the way of moving forward.   And on top of that, we’re not even aware that we can learn to flex our styles. Yes, just like learning to flamenco, jive or salsa, we can flex any of our styles.

So how do you find out what style you are?

Putting dancing to one side for now, lets focus on our personality and communication styles.  There are a plethora of tools out there that promise to help you understand your preferences and your style better.  Psychometric tools are often used in businesses to help people with self-development and also for team building to improve the relationships between people.  More recently they’re being used to help individuals to get the most from their clients and customers too.

Myers Briggs, Belbin team roles, The Colours, Strengths, Firo-B and DiSC to name but a few.

So how does it work?

Well usually, you’re sent a link to an online questionnaire, you complete the report as honestly as you can and you get a report or a ‘type’ by return.  This is often tied in with a 121 coaching session or a team building day.

The key thing to remember with these tools is that your ‘type/style’ represents your “preference” at any one time.  It highlights your tendency, your priority, your preferred style. That’s not to say that you don’t have the other types in your toolkit, you just prefer to activate your preferred style most of the time.

Why DiSC could be just the model for you.

The DiSC model asks you to think yourself and would you describe your behaviour as more active (fast paced, dynamic, assertive, bold) or more thoughtful (moderately paced, more calm, more methodical and careful)?   Would you describe your behaviour as more questioning (logic focused, objective, skeptical, challenging) or more accepting (meaning more people focused, more empathizing, receptive and agreeable)?  This data then provides you with your personalised profile, whether you have a tendency to D, i, S or C. Dominant, Influencing, Steadiness or Conscientious.

In the full profile, there are many more questions to answer of course, which is what makes it more statistically valid in it’s rigor as well as ongoing comparison and testing.

What clients find most useful is that in understanding themselves better, they can begin to understand how that differs from those they have relationships with. In doing so, they can start to understand how others may therefore perceive them when they’re communicating in “preferred’ style and how that feels to be on the receiving end of.  Often its quite enlightening to realize just how different you could be being interpreted to what you intended and often highlights why those relationships aren’t as easy as they could be (like a salsa dancer trying to partner up with a ballet dancer).

What I love most about DiSC is it’s flexibility, it’s different profile types and the free stuff! It can provide comparison reports with real tangible practical tips about how to amend your styles to get the most from each other so it’s great for mediation and also for team building. There are different profiles for Managers of people, Senior leaders and Sales professionals.  And finally there’s free stuff too. So for example, if you’ve filled in a sales report, you can request as many ‘customer interaction maps’ as you like.  These maps highlight where you are most likely different to your client and provide three key areas where you can adapt your style to get the most from your relationship with them.  And the real beauty, they don’t even need to know that you’ve done it!  They just benefit from the more flexible compatible version of you, and you benefit from a more lucrative relationship.

For more information about DiSC and how it can help you and your teams TODAY, check out the prezi below.

For now, “Keeeeeeeeeep on dancing!”

If you want to find out more about your preferred style and how it could be smoothing the way to your goals or getting in the way of your goals, give me a call on 07786 250 175 or email me at jennifer@simplyjp.com