Archive for Coaching
Everything DiSC® Virtual Showcases
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You’re Invited to one or two Everything DiSC® Virtual Showcases (showcases are from Noon to 1:30 pm Eastern):
- Management Virtual Showcase: February 24, 2010 $40* Buy Me
- Workplace Virtual Showcase: March 25, 2010 $30* Buy Me
*Virtual showcases are a great way to be introduced to the new Everything DiSC® Application Library. You’ll leave the seminar with far more value than the cost of your registration fee. You’ll receive a personalized Everything DiSC® Management assessment valued at $77.50 or a $46.50 Everything DiSC Workplace depending on the webinar(s) you choose and a 90-minute webinar taught by Inscape trainers and a new reality for improving work relationships (priceless)!
Best of all, I’ll continue to be here to support you through any questions or applications you may have. Once you register you’ll receive an email receipt and within 48 hours will receive an access code so that you can take your assessment prior to class. The phone number and pin codes will follow.
Alicia
Alicia Smith, DiSC Ninja™
http://www.aliciasmith.com
Evolution and Online Assessments
Posted by: | CommentsTo be useful, any tool must adapt and change as conditions change. DiSC® assessments have shifted and evolved over time and continue to do so. The online DiSC® profile has made the process even more valuable as it becomes more accessible. As the online version also provides anonymity, its effectiveness also increases.
The online behavioral profiles allow researchers to crunch huge numbers. Five years ago a sample might have been 400 – 1000 people. Whereas, now, the last major DiSC® online research had a sample of 26,000! Computational power allows us to make greater distinctions about human behavior and how to best deal with self and others.
Having these online profiles at your fingertips, evolving all the time, means that you are assessing accurately and researchers are getting data from broader and broader samples:
- DiSC® ® Classic Online Profile
- DiSC® ® PPSS Online Profile
- DiSC® ® Indra Online Profile
- Team Dimensions Profile
- Time Mastery Profile®
- DiSC® ®
- Action Planners Personal Listening Profile®
- DiSC® overing Diversity Profile®
- Work Expectations Profile
Business Transformation Through Leadership
Posted by: | CommentsMaybe you have already started to use DiSC® Products in your organization or in your coaching practice as tools for performing personal assessments. Now you might be looking for ways to transform your business and become more of a leader in the field. I know I am starting to hear that very thing from attendees at recent DiSCNinja coaching sessions that are doing career assessments and possibly thinking of marketing themselves as experienced and knowledgeable DiSC® profilers.
You can literally transform your coaching business with assessments. After years of research, I find that assessments will get you to the desired goals with your clients/staff sooner. The reason for this is you can work more effectively with your clients/staff when you understand what motivates them. Assessments can provide that information quickly and accurately. Your client/staff will see you as more knowledgeable, competent, and professional.
Getting a reputation for having these attributes will come consistently when you use assessments with your clients. Repeatedly producing these results will gain you the label as a leader in your field. Transform yourself through leadership with assessments.
Be a More Competent Coach Using DiSC®
Posted by: | CommentsWorking with clients while using the DiSC® assessments is its own separate skill. Clients often ask for help in building their skills in reviewing the DiSC® assessment results with their clients or staff, as well as improving their methods in administering them.
Knowing how to coach your clients when using DiSC® tools makes all the difference in the results you achieve. After you have refined your skills, deepened your understanding, and built your business around the DiSC® model, your competence and confidence will improve exponentially.
One of the joys of DiSC is that it is elegantly simple. It can be easily understood in an hour yet can allow for a lifetime of learning. People can decide how deep they choose to go.
With coaching I find that the process works best when the coach is part of the background, not at the center, of the process. Try to include a mixture these qualities along the way and your clients will feel confident they are getting guidance and support from a superior coach.
- Compassion
- Drive
- Experience
- Expertise
- Focus
- Honesty
- Humor
- Integrity
- Knowledge
- Passion
- Perspective
- Support
After you develop synergy and are working in sync, a clear understanding and trust develops. This is the basis of the relationship. From there you can move into affecting change or toward reaching the goals set early on in the process.
Power Up the Assessments You Use
Posted by: | CommentsMany of us use Microsoft Outlook, ACT! or a similar program to send and receive email. For some, that is all we use them for. But with each new version more and more features have been added so that email is the least of what these programs do.
These programs are just tools, much like the EPIC platform (Electronic Profile Info Center) used to deliver a variety of assessments electronically. The power of an assessment tool only comes with its informed use. We need to be trained or coached in the use of a tool to its full and most effective capacity. Using the assessments available to you through the EPIC platform is no different.
After we administer assessments and get the results, the next logical step is to work with a coach or trainer, whether internal or external, to facilitate change. We will be able to identify your strengths and limitations and use the assessments as a primary tool to facilitate the necessary changes to help you or your teams become the best you can be.
Build Your Top Team Using DiSC®
Posted by: | CommentsEver thought about using DiSC® assessments to get the best and most suitable talent? Resumes and interviews are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to hiring personnel for your organization. They tell you who you are getting, but not necessarily how they will perform. Many people will have the education, background and skills for a job BUT it is also important to get an idea of their behavior so that you can assess how well they will fit into the company culture.
In the interview, you are relying mostly on intuition for the assessment of each candidate. We all know almost any candidate can present a positive impression for the time that most interviews last.
Recently a manager attending a DiSC® coaching assessment session shared that DiSC® assessments have been used in a number of curriculum spin-offs in his company.
I wanted to know more about these spin-offs and what they were. He gave one example saying that the Vice President of Financial Management expanded into project management. The DiSCÒ assessment was key for him in selecting an existing staff member as the project manager. This staff member was able to make a much-improved contribution to the company in her new capacity since the work required of her was a good fit for her most natural strengths.
In addition, the manager in charge of Controls and Accountability was able to spin-off a Resource Center and used DiSCÒ to select an excellent director to head the unit.
This manager readily saw the value of learning about the flexibility and diversity of the assessments and how they can be applied throughout these various situations within his company.
So you can be assured there are assessments that will help you select the best talent, identify issues, or make appropriate change within yourself or your organization. We can work together to get the appropriate assessments to fit your needs.
Resolve Team Conflict with DiSC®
Posted by: | CommentsIf you have children, every day presents incidents and experiences that you can use as teaching opportunities. While subordinates are not children, the same opportunities for teaching or coaching occur during a workday.
For example, I had an airline pilot in a DiSC teleclass, who coaches other pilots, mention that pilots often “don’t play nice in the cockpit” and “people have identified them as problem children.” He is looking for new ways to use DiSC® assessments in his own coaching program to address personality behaviors such as those exhibited by the pilots he coaches.
DiSC® Profiles, used effectively, can provide a tool for affecting change in team members that “don’t play nice”. I’ve found that knowing how to motivate people to change comes easily after they are assessed and the appropriate motivating factors are applied. The change will seem to occur naturally and effortlessly.
I’ve seen this in action. Another client, a VP of Sales and Marketing, told me after we had been using DiSC® in my coaching with her, that she now knows that her young children have very different styles. Her daughter is a D and her son an S. Ever since she saw their behavior through the DiSC® filter she’s known how to ask, support, correct and motivate each of her kids based on their DiSC® style. This was a major “Ah-Ha” moment in her development, not only at home but also at work!
If enhancing relationships is important in your personal or professional life is important, then DiSC® assessments can give you a quick and inexpensive look into the lives of those around you.
Choosing Focus for Responding to DISC
Posted by: | CommentsWhether you’re taking DISC yourself, offering it to a single cilent or presenting it to a group you want to help them choose the appropriate focus.
From my perspective, the problem with choosing work (which is acceptable and encouraged in the instructions of the assessment) is people sometimes answer one set of words based on how they manage, another set how they are with vendors, and a third set how they are with their boss. As a result, they don’t get as clear a picture as they would if they choose a specific focus.
Very rarely these days does anyone do one thing, and one thing only, at work. An exception to this would be if you work at a call center, with a headset on all day long, dealing with tech support questions, and that’s all you do each shift.
But, most people don’t fall into that category. They’re wearing multiple hats. So I use the hats analogy to help people choose a focus. For more information on “How Many Hats Do You Wear?” click here.
Here are the instructions concerning focus that I send out to clients taking an assessment. Of course, you can edit this email to work for your situations:
Thanks for ordering a DISC Profile. When responding you will be asked to choose a focus. I’ve found that choosing one of the many hats that people wear at work gives better results than to just choose “work” as your focus. So, I encourage you to choose a very specific focus and respond to the assessment using it. For instance “How I sell, promote & market my business” or “How I manage employees.” If you have any questions about this please let me know and we’ll work together to find an appropriate focus.
How Many Hats Do You Wear?
Posted by: | CommentsTake a moment to list out the hats you might wear on any given day.
At work you could be a boss, employee, team member, peer, client, a customer and/or vendor.
At home you might be a parent, spouse, sibling, child or grandparent.
Consider all of the other places you show up in your life (recreation, religious or civic groups, volunteer, etc.) and add those “hats” to your list as well.
When I look at the hats I wear in my own business life I’m a business owner, a manager of both people and projects, an instructor (I do live training and teach teleclasses) and a coach (one-on-one and group coaching). I also promote, market and sell my services, and at the end of the day I have to account for my services (bookkeeping, placing and delivering orders and tax compliance) as well.
When taking a DISC assessment you will be asked to choose a “focus.” For many people they choose “work” or “home”. Doing so will provide them with good, overall feedback.
I have found both personally (for myself) and professionally (in working with clients) that each of the tasks I listed above could be considered a “focus” when resopnding to the DISC questionnaire. And, if I put on a specific “hat” when I choose my focus then I can more finely slice my feeback and experience.
How might this play out when working with clients? I don’t start out having clients take multiple profiles. Rather, after an intake session, I ask them to focus on the “hat” (environment/situation) in which they want the greatest amount of feedback today. Very often this is the “point of pain” that brought them to coaching, or the area that’s not working as well as they had hoped.
Often, with executive clients, it’s how they manage their team or staff. So they choose the focus “How I manage my staff”. But, it could just as easily be how they manage Vendors, Contractors or Projects. Once we have had ample time to address the issues with that “hat” they may be ready to try on another “hat” and see the variations in responses the report provides them.
Here is what one student had to say about her experience, having taken the DISC assessment twice, each with a different focus:
“I’ve taken DISC twice. I’m a psychologist and I’m a business coach. The first time I took DISC with my focus as a psychologist working with patients. Today, my primary focus is coaching, so I took it a second time with a focus as a business coach, working with clients.”
“The results were quite varied. And, as I thought about it, the role of psychologist vs. coach are so totally different. They pull different things out of my “personality,” and I can exhibit very different kinds of behavior. The perfect psychologist is not the perfect coach.”
Afraid You’re Being Taken Advantage Of?
Posted by: | CommentsEach style has a different fear. For D’s it is the fear that some will take advantage of them. Here is a story from a teleclass student of mine:
“When you spoke about the fear of being taken advantage of, I had that crop up for me last week. I was in the process of designing and implementing a coaching program for a client company. Then, I started getting mixed signals from them and began to feel as though they were going to implement my coaching program without me. I immediately picked up the phone and called the president and said here’s what I fear is going on. After talking with him my fears were allayed. By understanding that a fear of being taking advantage of is likely to trigger me, I am better able to take action and to ask the other person, “is this what’s really happening.”
This person has learned how to recognize her fears, and respond to them rather than react. Once she acknowledged her fear she was able to verify its veracity. By addressing the fear head on she was able to relax and get back to being a productive part of this client’s team.
Without awareness then D’s can go to that really belligerent place and create a lot of unnecessary tension, anger and/or havoc.
