“There is an amazing power getting to know your inner self and learning how to use it and not fight with the world. If you know what makes you happy, your personality, interests and capabilities, just use them, and everything else flows beautifully”. ~Juhi Chawla

Have you ever taken a personality profile? Have you been able to discover your strengths and weaknesses in terms of dealing with other people? Or the strengths and weaknesses of the people you work with? What’s the best way to deal with the hot head in Sales, who never has time for you and thinks he’s the best thing since the rotary telephone. What about the very talkative person in Marketing who turns a 5-minute meeting into a gut-wrenching hour? How do they have so much to say? Knowing the personality types of these individuals may help you engage more effectively with them.

A personality profile is a tool used to provide an evaluation of an employee’s personal attributes, values and life skills in an effort to maximize his or her job performance. The two best-known personality assessments are Myers-Briggs and DiSC. After answering a series of multiple-choice questions that ask you about yourself, the assessments give you a surprisingly complete picture of what makes you, well, you. Areas such as temperament, decision-making methods, communication style and general attitude towards work and life are analyzed.

Full disclosure: I have been a distributor of the DiSC® profiles (Yes, the “i” is supposed to be lower case) for a number of years, and feature them on my website. In addition to aspects of personality, DiSC measures what we can see–the observable traits of our behavior, such as the words we express, the tone of voice we use, and the body language we show. One of the reasons that the DiSC model has been so successful over the years is because it gives people an easy, simple and memorable way to understand themselves and those around them.

Benefits of using personality assessments include:

  • Leadership and Executive Development
  • Management Training
  • Sales Training
  • Conflict Management
  • Building stronger and more effective relationships
  • Teambuilding
  • Customer Service
  • Communication
  • Job Coaching
  • Helping you understand people who are not like you…or are too much like you

DiSC starts out by dividing people into 2 main groups. Are you Active or Thoughtful, and are you Questioning or Accepting? See diagrams below:

It then goes on to divide you into 4 main groups based on the above illustrations:

It is very important to note that people do not fall directly into one main group. Everyone has some characteristics of every group, but we are more distinctly associated with one or two of the main groups. To break it down even further, here are some characteristics of each group:

Here is a good definition of each letter:

The D (Dominance) style is active and questioning. This describes people who are direct, forceful, and outspoken with their opinions.

The i (Influence) style is active and accepting. This describes people who are outgoing, enthusiastic, and lively.

The S (Steadiness) style is thoughtful and accepting. This describes people who are gentle, accommodating, and patient with others’ mistakes.

The C (Conscientiousness) style is thoughtful and questioning. This describes people who are analytical, reserved, and precise.

When you receive your personalized report, it details where you fall on the graph, your strengths, and weaknesses, as well as how to use your style to engage with the other types of personalities. Here is what one graph may look like:

The further a dot is to the outside circle, the more dominant the trait. The graph above shows the person has both equal tendencies in the S as well as i quadrants.

When businesses have their employees take the personality assessments, which are completed online, they have the choice of sharing all information with their teams, none of the information, or just the profile for that employee. It is helpful for management to see where their employees may fall. This is especially helpful when putting together teams to work on a project or to see where an individual might be most effective in working with a company. A team with all the same profiles will not work well together. You want people who represent all the quadrants, as this will be a team that covers all the bases and works especially well together. And you definitely will not want a room full of D personalities running your Customer Service department. The HR department can be trained and certified to administer the personality assessments.

If you haven’t had the chance to take a personality profile, or if you would like more information or training, please contact me at Paul@PaulRutterSpeaks.com or visit the DiSC website. I was a bit skeptical at first, but now I fully believe in the personality profiles and what they can bring to your business.

Paul Rutter is a customer loyalty, repeat business and customer service expert, a keynote speaker, corporate trainer and business author. He has had the unique opportunity to live with his customers and co-workers for months at a time traveling the world, and shares his experiences with land based businesses. For more information on More Than Perfect® Service, contact Paul at Paul@PaulRutterSpeaks.com, follow him on Twitter on @RealPaulRutter or visit him on Facebook/PaulRutterSpeaks.

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