Whether you are a leader, a sales­per­son, a spouse, a friend, or all of the above, your suc­cess in life depends greatly on how you com­mu­ni­cate with oth­ers.  Some peo­ple appear to sail through life nat­u­rally blessed with inter­per­sonal skills, while oth­ers just seem to strug­gle.  But I believe that any­one can learn to be a bet­ter communicator.

I have found that the more accu­rately you under­stand the behav­ioral lan­guage of your­self and oth­ers, the eas­ier it will be for you to com­mu­ni­cate effec­tively with them.  At the root of most behav­ioral study lies the DISC assessment—an effec­tive, easy-to-learn and easy-to-utilize com­mu­ni­ca­tion tool. 

In what fol­lows, I’d like to give you a basic, work­ing knowl­edge of DISC.

The DISC pro­file reveals your nat­ural behav­ioral style (how you intrin­si­cally oper­ate) and your adapted behav­ioral style (how you respond to the demands of var­i­ous envi­ron­ments). The results sug­gest how indi­vid­u­als of a par­tic­u­lar behav­ioral style tend to act, com­mu­ni­cate, and respond emo­tion­ally in four dif­fer­ent contexts.   

D stands for dom­i­nance; it mea­sures how you han­dle or respond to prob­lems or chal­lenges. High D indi­vid­u­als bring vision and exe­cu­tion to an orga­ni­za­tion.  They’re very task ori­ented and are great at exe­cut­ing and imple­ment­ing. Under extreme pres­sure a High D tends to come across as arro­gant, cocky, abrupt, and self-focused, with a default emo­tion of anger.

I stands for influ­ence; it describes how you deal with peo­ple and con­tacts.  I types are highly rela­tional. Usu­ally they’re the life of the party, great influ­encers, and ter­rific sales­peo­ple. Under stress they can be too trust­ing, overly effu­sive, and charis­matic to a fault, with a default emo­tion of optimism.

S is for steadi­ness; it describes how one han­dles pace and con­sis­tency. S types are won­der­ful sup­port­ers. They’re calm and con­sis­tent, and they don’t like fast-paced change. They’re also very rela­tional and are great to have on a team. Under pres­sure they hold a grudge and become slow to act, with a default emo­tion of stoicism.

C is for com­pli­ance; it mea­sures how one deals with processes and con­straints.  The C type is very task ori­ented and greatly val­ues detail and accu­racy. They want to make sure every­thing fol­lows pol­icy and pro­ce­dure.  Under pres­sure, they become bound by pro­ce­dures and lean on their super­vi­sor, with a default emo­tion of fear.

Every­one is a com­bi­na­tion of these four DISC char­ac­ter­is­tics. Some peo­ple are high or low on a par­tic­u­lar seg­ment; some are in the mid­dle. There is no right or wrong com­bi­na­tion.  But how you score on the DISC pro­file greatly impacts how you inter­act with peo­ple, han­dle prob­lems, and look at life. 

If you’re talk­ing to a High D, for exam­ple, you need to know that you’ll cause that indi­vid­ual stress if you start talk­ing about things not rel­e­vant to the con­ver­sa­tion.  With this under­stand­ing, you can jump imme­di­ately into the facts.  If some­one is a High I—deeply influ­en­tial, warm, and personable—and you jump right into the facts as you would with a high D, he is going to assume that you don’t care about him, that you have no heart.  You need an ice­breaker so he knows you care.

We believe it is crit­i­cal for a leader to know how his or her team mem­bers are nat­u­rally wired and how they pre­fer to com­mu­ni­cate. It is the leader’s respon­si­bil­ity to con­nect with team mem­bers in a way that engages them and pulls them for­ward.  By know­ing everyone’s behav­ioral lan­guage, you gain a higher prob­a­bil­ity of doing just that. 

Build­ing Cham­pi­ons is a cer­ti­fied DISC orga­ni­za­tion. We use the DISC pro­file with all of our clients so that we know how to best com­mu­ni­cate with them, and how to help them com­mu­ni­cate with others.

ACTION PLAN:  If you have not yet learned or applied DISC (or another behav­ioral lan­guage), include this in your 2010 per­sonal devel­op­ment plan.  It will greatly improve how you influ­ence others.

Join me again next week for a prac­ti­cal exam­ple of how I have recently used DISC with one of my coach­ing clients.

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Tags: Behavior, DISC, Leadership, Teamwork

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