Personality » DiSC Profiles

Motivation and the DiSC profiles

Originally posted at CLASS5 Energy Insights blog.

Are you trying to motivate your employees, customers, or clients? You’ve probably already learned that what motivates you doesn’t always motivate them. You might have worked on a yearly fundraising campaign where some people always showed up for a fun group activity while others never showed up but gave generous donations anyway. How can you identify and reach different types of people?

DiSC is a personality assessment tool used to improve work productivity, teamwork, and communication. The DiSC style concepts can be helpful generating creative ways to motivate different types of people. Consider the people you want to motivate. You might not know their DiSC style and that’s OK. You simply want to be sure that your motivational campaigns address every style.

If you’re having trouble with a department or team, you might want to ask your HR department if they know the dominant DiSC style of that group or can give you insights into them. Groups can have personalities, too.

The dominant personality

The first style DiSC identifies is the D. This reflects a person who desires to be in control and to win. They want to see positive results and know that they had a hand in them. For this type of personality you might want to sponsor a competition where they can lead a team or be a judge. You might want to put an influential D on your committee. They like to be challenged and to solve problems, so don’t be shy in giving them one or two. Let them know when you observe their results.

If you don’t have a strong vision and the strategies to achieve it, this style might try to take things into their hands. You should avoid giving direct orders to a person with this style.

The influencing personality

The i-style is motivated by social recognition, group activities, and relationships. If you’re sponsoring activities to raise awareness or celebrate a success, you’ll find these people enjoying themselves. They are often a good choice to plan for such events. They will appreciate being given the authority and recognition. Let them be your cheerleaders, and be sure to cheer on their efforts. They will enjoy achieving results as part of a group effort. This style also appreciates hearing about personal experiences and stories.and can identify with a personal story.

A person with this style might want to be a spokesperson for your campaign. You might also want to let them work on something other than facts, policies and procedures. They will appreciate not being bogged down with the details.

The conscientious personality

The details will appeal to a C-style person. This personality wants to gain knowledge and become the expert. They are often cautious and don’t like change, so be sure to give them access to all the facts and information they need. Let them know what steps they need to take to be successful. They won’t need recognition as long as they can tell that they’ve reached a tangible goal.

Be aware that a person with this style might have trouble making quick decisions or delegating any tasks you give them. If you create new procedures and don’t stick to them, you may offend the C folks.

The steady personality

The S-style person really wants to help. They enjoy giving support and collaborating with others. But they don’t like change. Let this type of person know how their efforts make a difference in the world and that their actions matter to others. If their group is making changes, it’ll make it easier for them to do so, too. They can become your loyal supporters and enjoy having a formal role in any activities. Express your interest in how they are helping out.

If a person of this type is heavily focused on another task, then you might want to wait to ask them to do anything more. Take enough time to clarify any issues they bring up and be clear on what you expect from them.

Conclusion

Can you see how one person might respond well to a thank-you card, but another might toss it before reading? How one person will enjoy individual public recognition, and another just wants to know that his or her team enjoyed themselves? Some people will want to know how your top leadership is involved and some will want to know how things will change around them.

No one motivational or recognition campaign will work for everyone you want to reach. That’s why it’s important to know your audiences and run more than one campaign.

DiSC and the Smurfs?

I just have to share a recent blog post by Loucas Papantoniou, These Smurfalicious personas will engage your users. If he can use DiSC as a way to develop personas for web design, there have to a hundred ways for others to use it for sales, marketing, design, politics, etc.

DiSC is basically about communication styles. What do we do that doesn’t involve communication and negotiation? From deciding what to wear, to which movie to watch, to whom to hire to fix our toilet, we make decisions based on our own personalities and on how we want to present ourselves. We find ways to compromise with or influence others to get our needs met. DiSC illustrates how to understand the needs and styles of others to be more successful at these frequent tasks.

Image by Usabilla, used by permission

In this clever article about designing a website to meet the needs of various types of visitors, Mr. Papantoniou uses Smurfs and DiSC profiles to make his point. One example:

Strong-”S” type Smurfs require some understanding and sympathy from you in order to trust you and commit with you. Grouchy of course is a special case, hating everything and everybody. However, if you look deep inside in his heart, he is a very sensitive Smurf. You get his attention by repeating messages that reassure his need to make a personal connection.

How are you using DiSC to inform your business and personal decisions?

Personality types by music and literature choices?

Can your preferences for entertainment tell you about your personality type? That’s the question asked by Scientific American Mind in “You Are What You Like.”

If you’re looking for more material for a training session, you might ask people to read or discuss issues raised by this article. It refers to the “Big Five” personality traits of extroversion, openness, neuroticism, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. (DiSC looks at dominance, influence, steadiness, and conscientiousness.) Research is showing the possibility that these traits correlate with people’s preferences in music, literature, and art.

I’m not sure I’d trust any profile based on whether I preferred Cubist, Renaissance, Impressionist, or Japanese painting styles, but I do find it interesting. Apparently knowing if someone reads comics or books about music or philosophy tells us nothing, yet someone’s iTunes library might be enough to tell us if someone is open to new experiences or extroverted.

How do we judge people? Can we easily determine how someone we don’t know well will respond to a social or work situation? What traits do you think are observable? Do people display different behaviors in differing circumstances? Can you learn to act against your own personality preferences?

If you really want to get a discussion going (and you’re a skilled facilitator) you can talk about Dana R. Carney’s research showing that politically liberal Americans tend to be more open to new experiences than their conservative fellow citizens. Those who identify as being on the right are typically more conscientious, organized, neat, clean, withdrawn, and rigid. Those on the left are more tolerant, creative, expressive, curious, enthusiastic, and drawn to novelty.

If you work in a field like sales or service where you’ll be more successful if you can quickly determine a person’s personality, then let me recommend Everything DiSC Sales Interaction Guides or DiSC® Talk Key to Dimensions Behavior Cards. I think the research behind these has been better tested and validated. And they are more convenient than looking at what someone is reading in bed.