DISC & How it Helps You Get the Best Out of Your People

Every workplace is a melting pot of people with different behaviours, background, and levels of experience. For a business owner, keeping your employees happy, motivated, and productive can be a very fine balancing act.

Wouldn’t it be great for you if you understood why people thrive doing certain tasks and not others?

Wouldn’t it make your life easier if you understood what makes your team members tick and what gets the best out of them?

Well with DISC you can.

What is DISC?

DISC theory stems from research that was carried out in the 1920s. Dr William Moulton Marston of Harvard University came up with it as a way of identifying actions and personality traits that existed within human behaviour.

For a business owner, DISC is a very useful tool that helps you to better understand your people so you can build better workplace relationships, resolve conflicts, and motivate and develop them. It’s essentially a behavioural test, and DISC theory says that there are four behavioural styles, and everyone has a unique blend of these styles. The four behavioural styles are:

Dominant

Influence

Steadiness

Compliant

When we know someone’s unique behaviour blend, this arms us with knowledge on how they are likely to act in certain circumstances, how they communicate with others, their ability to organise, and how they deal with conflict. As a business owner, once you know this, you can take steps to get the best out of every single employee.

The DISC Behavioural styles

Here’s an ‘at a glance’ guide to the four styles. Can you identify yourself and your team members?

Dominant

These people are direct and decisive.

They have a strong ego.

They solve problems and are willing to take risks-the classic ‘self-starter.’

What they bring to a team: They’re great at organising things and pushing boundaries. They’re big on innovation.

The downside: They can overstep the mark. They’re argumentative. They try to take on too much.

What they fear: Being taken advantage of.

What motivates them: Having a new challenge. Being given the authority to make decisions. Not having to do mundane tasks. A flexible working environment.

Influence

These people are enthusiastic, trusting and always look on the bright side.

They’re usually very talkative, emotional, and impulsive.

What they bring to a team: They are able to find a creative solution to problems and are great at encouraging others and motivating them to perform better. They’re good-humoured and will usually play the peacemaker in conflict situations.

The downside: They are more concerned about being popular than being effective. They don’t pay attention to detail and often don’t really listen.

What they fear: Rejection

What motivates them: Praise, being popular, and being accepted. They are most happy with a friendly and harmonious workplace where there aren’t too many rules and regulations. They would rather let other people take care of the details.

Steadiness

People with this main personality style are team players. They’re good listeners, they’re friendly, and they’re very reliable.

What they bring to a team: You can depend on them. They are very loyal and they will respect your authority. They tend to be empathetic and adept at resolving conflicts.

The downside: They don’t take very well to change and are sensitive to criticism.

What they fear: Lack of security.

What motivates them: Being recognised for their loyalty. Feeling secure and feeling like no sudden changes are going to come along and pull the rug out from underneath them. 

Compliant

These people are conscientious, precise, and have very high standards.

What they bring to a team:

They work hard and they’re great at gathering information and seeing a situation for what it really is.

The downside: These people will get bogged down in details which can impede them from taking action. They aren’t good at telling you how they feel about things.

What they fear: Criticism

What motivates them: Being able to organise information logically. Keeping standards high and getting plenty of detail when they’re asked to perform tasks.

Embracing DISC: what’s in it for you?

Businesses who use DISC to better understand what motivates their people will find that communication improves, there’s less conflict, more effective and better-performing teams, and a healthier bottom line.

Want to find out more?

All of my consulting packages incorporate DISC and I also run a one-hour DISC information session where we look at what DISC is and how you can use it in your business to create a more harmonious workplace, grow your business, and build a more secure future.

For more information on my packages and how I can help you create the business you envisioned when you started, book a call today!  

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