Have you delivered an Everything DiSC® program, watched learners gain new insights, and wanted ideas for extending this learning?
Here we offer a few suggestions for helping your participants recall their learning and even extend it. Consider who should get these updates and who they should come from. Should they come from you or be passed along by a manager or other leader? How often should you send them? Should they be personalized? Should they be delivered via different platforms—e.g., email, text, or shared online space?
Reminders
Follow-ups
- Tell a great story
- Day in the life
- People-reading
- Communication
- Conflict
- Motivate
- Reinforce through images
- Quick activities
Additional learning
DiSC® reminders
Share styles
Offer ways for learners to share their DiSC® styles with others. Great times for these reminders are when a team is forming, when onboarding someone new, or at regular intervals after training.
- Remind learners to log in to Catalyst™ and review the My Colleagues section if you used that platform for delivering the assessment.
- Provide them with Workplace Style Guides to complete and post.
- Suggest they fill out A Guide to Me. (Download fillable PDF or Download Word .docx)
- Provide access to MyEverythingDiSC.com.
- Suggest they post their style on a social media site with a link for others to learn more about their style: DC, D, Di, iD, i, iS, Si, S, SC, CS, C, CD.
- Suggest they use a DiSC profile virtual background when on video calls.
Does your organization have an intranet where you can share information about yourself? Or do you have an “about us” page to write? Maybe you have a document you share when onboarding new employees that briefly introduces teammates. Consider sharing your style there, like Joe and I did:
Review profiles
Send learners back to their own reports. (Send out a link reminder to the Catalyst platform or offer to resend a link to their report.)
Any Everything DiSC profile
Ask these prompting questions:
- What do you want colleagues to know about you and your DiSC style? Friends? Family?
- What information is available in your DiSC profile that you use to describe your priorities and preferences? Where would it be helpful to share these?
- Have you become better at some of the challenges a person with your style often faces?
- Is there anything in your profile you could benefit from sharing with your team or your leaders today?
- How could you use information in your profile today?
Agile EQ profiles
Refer learners to specific sections or pages of their report.
Strengths and needs: Ask learners to review their needs. They can find these on Catalyst at Home > Agile EQ > My EQ Strengths or under “My EQ Snapshot” on page 8 of the PDF report. Ask:
- Are your needs being met?
- What steps could you take to get your needs better met?
Developing EQ: Refer learners either to Catalyst at Home > Agile EQ > Develop your EQ or pages 15–26, “Becoming more Agile,” on the paper profile. Ask:
- Are you getting better at practicing behaviors and mindsets outside your comfort zone?
- What are you noticing about your own mindsets and how you make choices?
- What mindsets do you anticipate using later today or tomorrow?
- What’s something you want to try this week? How will you get feedback about how well you’re doing?
Product Conflict profiles
Refer to page 10 and ask learners to again reflect on a recent conflict and how their knowledge of DiSC made it more productive. Refer to page 21 and ask learners how having a few days to integrate their learning has influenced how they’d fill out that page today.
Destructive responses: Refer learners to page 11 of their report. Ask:
- Have you engaged in any of these types of responses in the past week?
- Have you successfully avoided or stepped away from any of these types of responses in the past week?
- What thoughts have you been able to reframe lately?
Management profiles
Directing and delegating: They can find these on Catalyst at Home > Management > Direct and delegate, or on pages 7–11 of their traditional report. Ask:
- What challenges have you been facing recently regarding directing and delegating?
- How can you apply tips from these pages?
- How have you improved your delegating skills since our training?
Motivation: They can find these on Catalyst at Home > Management > Motivation, or on pages 12–16 of their report. Ask:
- How are your employees responding to the environment you’ve helped create?
- How are you using your knowledge of DiSC styles when rewarding individuals and teams?
Take a quick quiz on DiSC and motivation.
Discussion questions
To build an ongoing culture of DiSC at your organization, take a few minutes at the beginning or end of your regular meetings to pose a DiSC-related discussion question. For ideas, see Questions for meetings between or after facilitated sessions.
DiSC follow-ups
Tell a great story
We seem to be hard-wired to respond to stories. They are easier to remember and enjoy than a bulleted list, for example. Have you coached someone who has used DiSC to improve a relationship or inspire change? Ask permission, then share that story. Or share your own stories.
Here’s an example. I was on the phone with a customer service agent to try to get my Internet connection fixed. I began by talking about how important an issue this was to me and how flustered I was. The representative was in full C-style mode, however. She was asking for data and not responding to my emotions. I could have become upset with her. Instead, I switched my style and asked what she needed from me to resolve the issue. I gave simple, direct answers to her questions. It might be that the customer service agent’s style was not D or C, but in this situation, that’s where she was operating. In order to get through the process successfully, I needed to meet her there.
Day in the Life follow-up
Did your learners create posters during a Day in the Life or other activity? Share a photo or screen capture of each of these. Ask one or two of the following questions; answers can be shared with others or simply reflected upon.
- How have you observed these examples in the past week?
- How have you kept the differing styles in mind when writing, during meetings, or when planning?
- Is there someone whose needs or priorities probably aren’t being met on your team?
- After reviewing these posters, is there anything else you’d like to share or discuss with your colleagues?
People-reading
Offer a quick training or reminder on DiSC people-reading.
Ask:
- When is it helpful to quickly assess someone’s DiSC style?
- How can people-reading help you during a customer service interaction?
- How could you use people-reading when meeting someone new at work or at a party?
- When and how could you check the accuracy of your people-reading? (Practice, checking on your assumptions with the person you’re reading, asking a colleague for their style after making your quick assessment, remembering that people can and do flex into different styles.)
Communication
Share the images offered below. (Click on image to open a larger image to download. We grant permission to download and use these images in conjunction with Everything DiSC training. Please do not alter the images. Permission is not granted to use these images in reference to another DISC-inspired assessment or product.)
- How will you use your knowledge of DiSC to improve your communication today?
- Have you noticed others who went through a DiSC training with you adjusting their communication style with you?
- Which style do you have the most difficult time communicating with? What can you do to make your communications more effective with that style?
Conflict
Even if your learners haven’t taken the Everything DiSC® Productive Conflict assessment, you can still offer some tips.
(Click on image to open a larger version to download. We grant permission to download and use these images in conjunction with Everything DiSC training. Please do not alter the images. Permission is not granted to use these images in reference to another DISC-inspired assessment or product.)
- What conflicts or tensions confront you today? How can your knowledge of DiSC help you address them?
- How could you adapt your style to better negotiate tensions with a person with another style?
- Have you tried any of the recommendations from these images? How did things go?
Motivation
Consider an employee you manage and answer these questions with their DiSC style in mind:
- What kind of work do they find rewarding? Do they get enough of this type of work? If the employee would like to do more of this kind of work, can they? How?
- What are some types of rewards they might want? How might these be more present in your workplace?
- Are there other needs they might want satisfied in their work? Are these needs satisfied at present, and if not, how might these needs be better met?
- Do you give the employee frequent feedback and adequate recognition and appreciation? If not, can you do so, and how will you go about it?
- What might be demotivating for them?
- Are there areas in which they might want to stretch or challenge themselves? Are there opportunities for them to practice unfamiliar behaviors?
Reinforce through images
We offer these images to anyone using them in conjunction with Everything DiSC. Please do not alter them. Permission is not granted to use these images in reference to another DISC-inspired assessment or product.
Download a ZIP file of all DiSC images. These include most of the ones offered above, plus four bonus images.
Quick activities
Go through a quick review of DiSC with this DiSC Styles and Dr. Seuss Quotes slideshow (PPTX) or other slide decks you can find at DiSC® posters, slide decks, and worksheets.
Select an activity from DiSC training activities.
Hand out the Everything DiSC Activity Book (PDF) for a fun review.
Additional learning
Provide each learner with an Interaction Guide or other training aids.
Provide a link so learners can read about their DiSC leadership style. For leadership development, we recommend the Everything DiSC Work of Leaders® profile. How about a leadership-themed book club at your workplace using The Work of Leaders book?
Go deeper into Agile EQ with these videos on YouTube: Understanding Emotional Intelligence with DiSC® or Developing Emotional Intelligence with DiSC®.
Suggest additional profiles: Workplace, Agile EQ, Sales, Management, Productive Conflict, Work of Leaders.
Quotes to inspire
You’ll find several collections of quotes related to leadership, conflict, and more at DiSC posters, slide decks, and worksheets. You’ll find more quotes about teamwork, trust, accountability, and more at The Five Behaviors® downloadable assets.
Posts to share
These are some popular posts from our blog that you are welcome to share with your learners.
For Valentine’s Day
For Stress Awareness Month (April)
- Stress: Coping tips for the C-type personality
- Stress: Coping tips for the S-type personality
- Stress: Coping tips for the D-type personality
- Stress: Coping tips for the i-type personality
For Halloween
For December holidays
Follow us on LinkedIn where we share timely articles from business leaders and academic researchers, as well as our own thoughts. You might want to share some of these with your learners.