I often hear people discussing personality profiling as they explain their personality types and wear them like a badge of honour, with words such as ” I’m an ISTJ”, “What are you?” And then they do what? Well they probably file their types away, like postcodes, in their address book or in their office top-drawer, only to be confronted by them again when they apply for a promotion or another job.
I encourage people not to just simply engage with personality profiling intellectually, but to really be serious about how they can be more effective personalities and to develop total engagement in the process
One assesment tool is the DISC personality system and it is a unique process that allows you to more easily understand behaviour and personality in people and in groups, across the workplace and outside. And importantly, how people respond under pressure.
As with all personality profiling assessments, they should never be used in isolation to a development process nor used as a tool to criticise or punish someone, but used as part of a personal or team development programme. The insight that your primary and secondary personality profiles give, allows you to see how you and others can and do interact and communicate. The use of DISC assessment is primarily to develop an understanding rather than for others to make decisions about you and the main objective is to create self-awareness.
DISC identifies your personal motivators and behavioural styles and helps you to see the behaviours that you need to modify or change in congruence with your goals and in the most effective way.
And the most unique part of the system is that it allows you to see and understand how you respond under pressure; behaviour under pressure goes back to your Core Personality or your Private Self. DISC also measures two other parameters; your Public Self or Your Mask – how you appear to other people and then Your Mirror or how you see yourself.
The relationship or dynamic between Your Mask and Your Core Personality indicates where there may be conflict, as The Mask converges or diverges from the Core Personality. So, trying to be the person you are not, by exaggerating or supressing your Core Personality, can lead to conflict with yourself or others. The response to pressure with the DISC assessment, allows you first to be aware of and then to modify or change, most importantly, Your Mask behaviour.
So is the DISC Personality Assessment only useful in corporate environments? Well quite the opposite really, because in small businesses the potential risks of not picking up unresourceful behaviours early on mean that they can end up derailing your business.
When I work with any business, DISC assessment is often the first thing that I do and it really is a great place to start, it generates a lot of positive growth directions and creates a stronger engagement in the coaching process.
Imagine the advantage of knowing your strengths and weaknesses, how you respond to certain types of people who have a different personality to yours and more importantly, how your personality responds to pressure. We all know the pressure that comes from running our own businesses and to have the potential to change negative aspects of behaviour at the same time as developing strategies to reinforce positive behaviours can only lead to an increased effective performance for you and your business.
The Power of Partnership