Anticipating the future determines the actions we take in the present. Whether it’s planning for the new year or planning for new people, every business can benefit from a little insight.
Our last meeting for 2014 at Rainmakers was on Wednesday. As usual we ran through our prepared agenda that included tasks and big picture items for the year ahead. It was all exciting stuff but we were anxious to get to the last part of the meeting: the DISC test. If you’re unfamiliar with DISC, in short, it’s a test that aids in determining behavioral styles of people – a kind of modern day crystal ball. Companies use it as an aid to form better teams or to determine the compatibility of new hires.
So, during the second part of the meeting, Nikki administered a mini DISC test. Even though our team meshes well with each other, we’re still a new team. Two of our members don’t even come into the office on a regular basis. We would benefit from extra information – a glimpse into our working relationships.
Advance information is useful when communicating with your team. Personality tests like DISC are really a best guess at determining behavioral characteristics. While the test is not an exact science, our team still benefited from the insight the results provided. It was especially helpful in creating awareness about how to work with people whose working style differs from your own.
Here are some key points from our DISC discussion:
- Understand how to “read” people better. Understanding how different personality types operate allows you to tailor your communication (to some degree) for better interaction with personality types that are different from your own. For example, some team members are more action oriented and prefer to view things from a high level sans detail.
- Become more self-aware. The DISC test not only highlighted the strengths of the various personality types in our group, but it also explained the corresponding weaknesses. Identifying negative personality traits can help you eliminate self-limiting behaviors.
- The more varied the team, the better. A team composed of different personality types is optimal. Our team is varied but we kind of knew that already. It was interesting to see exactly how different we were.
