Use the DISC Profiles to Understand Individuals and Build a Successful Team
Managers are only as good as their team, so the ability to mold a team, create cohesiveness, and find collective success is critical for managers in any industry. However, it’s not always as simple as it sounds. People are unique and different working styles or conflicting communication styles can cause immense distress on the entire team.
Thankfully, there are many tools available to help managers and their teams work through those common challenges and find success together. One incredible tool teams can employ to better understand one another, learn about unique styles, and better collaborate together is DISC. DISC is a well-known personality assessment test that helps individuals identify their tendencies, strengths, weaknesses, and more. All of this information can be a game-changer in collaborative workplaces, as long as team leaders know how to use the information.
Effectively Using the DISC in a Team Setting
As a manager, the tools at your disposal are only as effective as how you use them. When it comes to DISC, managers must convince their team to adopt the tool and use it regularly. If DISC is new to your team, here are some helpful ways to make sure it becomes an integral part of how your team operates:
Complete and Compare Together
Make DISC a team activity. When the time comes, have each team member – including yourself – complete a new DISC assessment. You might have some employees who have completed a DISC assessment at a prior time or in a previous role, but instruct everyone to take a new assessment.
Once the assessments are complete, sit down together to review the assessments, share your results, and discuss how various DISC characteristics will impact how your team works together. This is often a very interesting, fun exercise. People feel like they are given the space to share about themselves and they are given the tools to do so in a framework that everyone else is familiar with.
Build Ongoing DISC Dialogue
Don’t let the one DISC review session be the end of it. As the manager, your team will follow your lead. If you reference DISC often, they will too. In 1×1 meetings, discuss goals and learning opportunities with the DISC framework. Address concerns or team issues using DISC as a tool. The more you incorporate it into how you manage your team, the more your team members will incorporate it into how they do their jobs and work with one another.
Encourage DISC in Challenging Times
Perhaps you have two team members that struggle to communicate with one another and it can sometimes negatively impact the team’s dynamic. Sit down with these team members and highlight areas from their respective DISC profiles that might explain why they see things differently and struggle to communicate at times. This framework can be so helpful in times of conflict because instead of perpetuating a “he said she said” dynamic, it offers constructive ways to discuss different approaches and working styles.
Managing with DISC in Mind
Once implemented, DISC will be incredibly helpful to your team members, but it will also be a wonderful tool for you. Once you better understand the working preferences of each member of your team, you can slightly adjust how you manage the individuals that make up your team. No two people are the same and managers cannot manage them in the same way. If you know that one person loves to get information prior to the meeting, make a small adjustment that your team sends around slide decks and presentations the day before the meeting.
With enough small tweaks, you’d be shocked at how much happier and healthier your team will be. Tools like DISC are just one aspect of management, but being able to discuss goals, strategies, and challenges within a framework that everyone understands can make a huge difference.
Enhance Team Psychological Safety with DISC
Your team should feel psychologically safe at work. Each person should feel comfortable sharing their ideas, respectfully disagreeing with one another, and asking for help. With the right utilization of DISC, managers can create an environment that feels much safer than it did before. Use this as an opportunity to open up dialogue and enhance the trust that exists within your team.