Archive for Communication
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
ITA WON and You Helped!
Posted by: | CommentsThe voters have spoken, and ITA’s R.E.A.D. program is the winner for the $20,000 Readers’ Choice Literacy Grant.
Turns out this was the first time they asked people to vote. Over 27,000 people cast their votes, and in the end it wasn’t even close — R.E.A.D. was far and away the winner with 25% of the tally! That’s a lot of support!
Here is the press release: http://www.betterworldbooks.com/custom.aspx?f=readers-choice-winner-jan10 It’s interesting to read about both organizations and how this contest came to be.
THANK YOU for all your votes, your willingness to spread the word, and the great enthusiasm everyone shared. We heard from people all over the world who were pulling for R.E.A.D.
Hunka and I appreciate your votes for ITA’s R.E.A.D. program.
Read on!
Alicia
Resolution Remedy 2010!
Posted by: | CommentsSolo-E, a virtual learning resource for solo entrepreneurs, is hosting a one-of-a-kind event that couldn’t be more timely … the Post Resolution Hangover giveaway. This isn’t your typical giveaway … each item is a real product that you normally would have to pay to get. The value of each item is the price at which it sells today. How cool is that?!
The gifts include ebooks, audios, home-study packages and more, on topics including: 101 Ways to Attract Clients, Create Your Second Life After 40, The Social Media Content Creation Kit, Building a Strong Brand in a Weak Economy, How to Move Through Fear for More Money; From Drab to Dynamic, The Finding Time Quick-Start Guide and lots more. Here’s how it works:
For just 12 days, January 25th to February 5th, business owners are invited to visit http://www.solo-e.com/PostHolidayHangoverRemedy and gain immediate access to these incredible resources to help cure your Resolution Hangover, provided exclusively by solo entrepreneur gurus including your truly…
Alicia Smith, Nina East, Ann Ronan, Loren Fogelman, Tracey Lawton, Allison Babb, Tina Forsyth, Rebecca Zwar, Christine Gallagher, Lou Bortone, Heather Dominic, Laurie Weiss, Laurie Mandato, Zahra Efan, Hazel Palache, Laura West, Eva Gregory, Alicia Forest, Michele PW and Paula Eder
The goal in the Post Resolution Hangover giveaway is to provide you value while supporting the growth of your business at the same time. The best part? Just visit http://www.solo-e.com/PostHolidayHangoverRemedy and download your gifts.
So join us, learn what the fuss is all about and at the same time gain immediate access to fantastic resources.
Visit http://www.solo-e.com/PostHolidayHangoverRemedy
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.
Crawl, Walk, Run – the natural learning curve at work
Posted by: | CommentsPeople do not like to be labeled, put in a box, catagorized or sterotyped by assessments. Yet, when people first learn the DISC model all of those actions are a natural state of the learning process.
You’re a high D. She’s a high S. He’s such a C. Her i’s so high we call her “Your i-ness.”
I liken this to the fact that as infants we have to crawl before we can walk, and walk before we can run. So, in this sense, we do “label, box, categorize and stereotype” people.
It is a learning technique; part of the learning curve. It’s not a reality. If only people were that simple.
As people hone their observation skills and refine the nuances of human behavior they become so much more sophisticated in their assessment of observable style. The reality is that all people have scores in all 4 style areas. So the “labeling” phase is a place to begin the DISC journey.
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.”
Are We Always One DISC Style?
Posted by: | CommentsLet’s address this question from 3 separate points of view.
First, when you take a DISC assessment you actually have scores in all four quadrants. So, the answer is clearly NO, you are not one style but rather a blend of 4 styles in concert with one another. The reality is that we tend to focus on people’s highest DISC scores, and as a result, we often “narrow” our focus to that style.
Second, speaking of “highest” scores, the majority of people have two or three plotting points above the mid-line, so it is statistically more likely than not to see a blend of 2 – 3 styles in any given individual.
Third, the DISC assessments take into consideration that (thankfully) people are both flexible and highly capable of learning. On any given day we “shift” our behavior (sometimes consciously, but more often than not unconsciously) to adapt to the many environments we find ourselves in. What DISC can help you do is to consciously choose the behavior that will give you the greatest outcome in any given environment/situation. Now, how neat is that!
DISC Model in Public Domain
Posted by: | CommentsWilliam Moulton Marston’s DISC model, introduced in his 1928 tome, “Emotions of Normal People”, is in the public domain. For a copy of his work visit www.discninja.com/emotions-normal-people
Although this is good news, it also creates a certain amount of confusion. People tend to think that “DISC” is one product, when in fact a number of publishers have created their own proprietary product lines.
Even within Inscape Publishing, my vendor of choice, there are many variations of the DiSC® assessment. Each has its own price point, level of detail, applications and training materials.
To learn more about the variety of DiSC® assessments, visit www.discninja.com and click on the DiSC® Products and Services link.
For more information on Marston you can visit his Wikipedia entry at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Moulton_Marston
Frustration of Forced Response
Posted by: | CommentsWhen responding to the The DiSC® Classic Profiles you are asked to choose one word, out of four (in 28 sets of four), that “most” describes your behavior and one word that “least” describes your behavior in a given situation. In other words, you are asked to participate in a “forced response” format. Many people who have taken the profile experience multiple words that most or least described them.
The experience is often described as very frustrating because of being forced to choose one most/least, and only one, response per set.
It becomes easier once you understand that the four words represent the 4 quadrants in the profile. And that the power in the profile is in forcing people to make those finer distinctions, and that each one of those words is attached to a DISC behavioral style; one of the four quadrants, the dominance, influence, steadiness, or conscientiousness. So those are some of the basics about how the model is constructed.
Now, what we’ll do is we’ll take a quick look at the four styles and then each week we’ll go in a little bit deeper to those. And as I’m going through each style what I’d like you to do is think about people that you know, friends, family, clients or even yourself and let me know if you feel like you might fall into that category and then I’ll ask you to tell us something that gave you a clue.
