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DiSC® – Building productive relationships that work

Pass the baton

Just how productive is your team?

Using DiSC to change behaviour can transform performance

More and more leading companies are introducing DiSC as the catalyst for improved communication and performance across their entire businesses.

DiSC® has been proven time and time again in the world’s largest companies to deliver real bottom line results – where it matters.

If you haven’t considered understanding more about this effective, yet simple tool to build better working relationships, then maybe you aren’t serious about delivering real change in your business.

Do you recognise any of these symptoms…

  • Conflict or frustration is a common feature among your team
  • Some people resist change… others are frustrated by the slow pace of change
  • Team members seem more interested in protecting their “patch” than making a difference
  • Your team seem incapable of having frank and open discussions about the real issues
  • People criticise each other rather than support each other

If you do, there is a better way to address them – and get to the root cause of them in your team. Introducing DiSC as a platform and common language of communication for the team can be transformational – to motivation, morale and results.

What price would you put on making such a difference?

If you are interested in transforming your team’s performance – call us on 03 4242807 or email us at enquiries@discprofiles.co.nz – or for more details on our Everything DiSC Certification Training click here.

DISC NZ is a leading provider of Everything DiSC Certification training and Everything DiSC Assessments in New Zealand

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What sets great leaders apart from the rest?

sheep_follow_leader

Empower your team through a simple but effective process using DiSC
I’m sure that we’ve all worked for people who we remember as being particularly effective leaders – people who we respected, supported and felt real loyalty to. On the other hand, I know we’ve all come across people who simply didn’t connect as leaders – people who seemed always to miss the mark in getting the team working towards the common goal.

I remember a conversation with a coaching colleague who recounted this story…

Simon was the Sales Director of a large multi-national branded sporting goods manufacturer. He was intensely driven and competitive, he knew that he was good at what he did and expected his team to emulate him!  Problem was that Simon had a single approach to motivating people – tell them what you want them to do, then tell them again (but clearly spelling out the consequences of failure) – and then tell them once more! Needless to say the results of his approach weren’t always what he hoped for!

Simon repeatedly criticised his team members – none of them appeared to understand why he was upset and frustrated. It was clear that at some level there was real breakdown in communication.

When my colleague started working with Simon, he was near the end of his tether – his frustration at (in his words) “the lack of progress made by his team” was palpable! The daft thing was that in reality, he and his team had beaten their sales targets for each of the previous 3 years, but he wasn’t happy! He believed that there was more to come and that he needed to become even more forceful to ensure that he got the best from his team. How wrong he was!

What my colleague brought to Simon was an approach which took into account the differences between the individual members of his team – and also recognised that unless all the team members were fully on board with the tasks and changes needed to deliver Simon’s desired performance, it was simply not going to happen.  Once Simon became aware of the gap between his and the team’s understanding and expectations, it became easier for him to acknowledge the need for a changed approach.

My colleague was able to introduce a simple methodology involving crafting a VISION of new possibilities, gaining buy-in and ALIGNMENT from the team, and then getting results by EXECUTION of the new approach.

Sounds simple, doesn’t it? Well it is! Simon’s team went on to beat their budget for a 4th year, but they also found time to enjoy working together – frustration and stress levels fell for both Simon and the team and their reputation as a high performing team was acknowledged (and envied) across the entire company!

Using Everything DiSC® Work of Leaders® provides a framework which encourages leaders to understand their own leadership behaviours and how they impact their effectiveness. It connects to real world demands, generating powerful conversations that provide a clear path for action.

About DiSC

Creating a culture of clear and direct communication that empowers everyone in the team can be achieved by introducing DiSC to your organisation.  A powerful aid to developing truly effective leadership skills, DiSC is the most trusted behavioural learning instrument in the world.  DiSC is based on more than 80 years of research and development and is used across the globe in hundreds of leadership development, training and coaching applications, with around 70% of FTSE 500 companies either using or having used the system.

For further information about how DiSC can help your organisation, the range of unique Everything DiSC products, or to place an order please visit  DISC NZ or contact us via email on enquiries@discprofiles.co.nz or telephone on 03 4242807.

Best Regards
Ross Denton

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Avoiding the Pitfalls of Unsuccessful 360 Degree Feedback

There’s little new about 360 degree feedback – it’s been around for quite a while. When it pops up in Dilbert cartoons or episodes of The Office, you know its mainstream!

If you haven’t experienced it, in a nutshell this is the process:

Feedback is given through a structured questionnaire by your boss, your direct reports, and your peers.  They feed back on your strengths and the areas where, in their opinion, you could be better – let’s call them your “development needs” or “opportunities”.  So in essence you get input from people who know you and work with you from all sides. hence the name of “360 Degree Feedback”

Done well, 360 programmes are a route to individual team members getting feedback to improve in important aspects of their performance – areas that could be stalling their career progress or even causing major conflict within a team.  Beware, though – there are risks to using 360 if it is not carried out and managed properly.  Outcomes that you don’t want could include mistrust, anger and conflict.  At worst, team morale is at risk of being lower than at the outset.

7 Reasons why 360 Programmes Fail:

  • Lack of involvement or commitment from the boss.

    360 programs that get driven by HR without much attention from the boss are not effective. Whatever the boss gives importance to gets the attention of his/her reports. The boss has to be a believer that this stuff helps the team.

  • Vague or inappropriate questions.

For a 360 questionnaire to be effective it needs to offer specific and tangible outputs.  If it doesn’t, you’re likely going to have a hard time translating your team’s profiles into specific and measureable actions. Selecting the right tool is crucial in getting back information that can be acted upon.

  • People make unconstructive comments that are personal and negative.

There are many people who have had very bad 360 experiences.  This is usually because people they work with choose to take the opportunity to “have a dig” or get something off their chest – whether right or wrong.  You can imagine that this is a sure fire way for the exercise to be devalued and fall into disrepute. It’s crucial that all involved are clear that the aim is to be constructive, not personal.   If you ask yourself the question “Would I be prepared to read this comment about me?” and the answer is “Yes”, then fine.  If not, perhaps the comment needs phrasing differently!

  • The feedback process doesn’t include a plan of action.

You will have a rich vein of feedback that can be used to transform performance. but only if it gets acted upon.  The worst type of programme is the one where people give their input and nothing useful ever becomes of it.  Changing behaviour requires acting differently. otherwise things stay as they were.

  • Following up only once isn’t enough.

So, your process includes a feedback session and an action plan. but it’s not enough on its own.  It is well recognised that to change a habit – i.e. to change behaviour – people must act in the new way repeatedly – and that needs more than one reminder!  The action plan needs to be revisited regularly for it to have lasting impact.  How often?  Well, we’d suggest a quarterly review over two years. then the time will be right to carry out the process again to refresh the feedback and find out how people’s perceptions have changed.

  • The feedback isn’t fully confidential.

It’s no surprise that those new to the 360 process often worried about how their inputs will be used – and if it will be treated as confidential. It is crucial that everyone involved appreciates and trusts that it is a confidential process; that there won’t be any unhelpful come back that could affect their own future treatment. Many businesses consider using third party coaches to help deliver and manage the feedback process.  This gets over the concerns that may surface about the consistency and objectivity of internal coaching.  When you think about it, there needs to be independence here as all members of the team or department are involved with the feedback, so there must at least be an internal coach from HR if not someone from outside.

  • Ignoring strengths and only focusing on weaknesses.

Let’s face it, we all know of companies where the entire focus is in fixing what’s broken, rather than building on the considerable strengths and positives which already exist.  Taking a positive “coach” perspective – seeing everyone as having significant untapped potential and helping them to unlock this potential – is the best way by far to get the most from the people in your team.  The bottom line is that to get the best from anyone we want them to recognise and accept their “weaknesses”. whilst at the same time building and relying on their strengths.  After all, it is those strengths that got the person to where they are in their career.

So – if you take on board these examples of “worst” practice and build your 360 process around the polar opposites of the points made above, chances are that your organisation will enjoy a positive 360 experience. and benefit from great steps forward in unlocking the potential of your team and all its members.

Done badly, 360 degree feedback can create divisions, lower morale and increase staff turnover. done well, they can be a major part of driving accelerated growth for both team and organisation.

We can help you!

Everything DiSC® 363 for Leaders is a different type of 360 instrument.   As well as being informed by the established and proven DiSC behavioural model, 363 for Leaders offers the following:

  • Designed for leaders at every level – emerging leaders, high potential leaders as well as experienced managers and executives.
  • Focused on 8 approaches to leadership – Pioneering, Energising, Affirming, Inclusive, Humble, Deliberate, Resolute, and Commanding Approaches – 363 for Leaders concentrates on the areas that are truly relevant to high performing leaders.
  • CommentSmart®  is our comprehensive selectable feedback tool which avoids the negativity of open-ended responses which can derail the whole process.  It also speeds up the feedback completion time for raters.
  • As well as clearly highlighting areas of strength in a leader, 363 for Leaders also provides 3 specific strategies for leader development that form the basis for an action plan based directly on the feedback given.
  • 363 for Leaders is completed on-line through your own EPIC account.  This ensures that the administrator can easily manage multiple responders, whilst ensuring complete confidentiality for both leaders and team members alike.
  • Finally, to support the feedback process over time – ensuring that changes in behaviour are embedded for good – 363 for Leaders includes a Coaching Supplement that ties in the feedback to the leader’s own behavioural preferences and priorities – helping make change stick!

 

Reposted with permission from DiSC UK


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Every organisation needs new talent!

Integrating that talent is a critical success factor for both the new employee and the business. How often is the process ignored in small businesses or over-simplified in larger organisations through a speedy and superficial orientation or on-boarding process?

All that can happen is that new people are simply left to fend for themselves, adjusting to their new role and environment more or less on their own.  This will inevitably adversely affect both productivity and motivation.  Think about it – what will it do to their perception of your company. and what might their response be?  The bottom line is that ultimately your best talent will leave. Never forget that they always have options!  People all need to feel valued, important, and respected. They won’t if they don’t feel that they’ve been given a good opportunity to integrate into their new organisation.

Developing high-potential talent

Your aim as a team leader is to recruit talent with high potential. You are looking for people with a good fit in terms of qualifications, experience and attitude.  People with high talent potential are not short of opportunities – you need to position yourself as well as you can to win the “race”.  To people with some experience in seeking new jobs, the way that they are integrated, both into the role and into the company, has the potential to be a significant competitive advantage for you.

For this reason, it makes sense to look at the whole process of Talent Integration as a progression from simple on-boarding.

Talent integration is the way that we blend new hires into the organisation… but it also covers the integration of newly promoted team leaders and managers into their new roles.

Talent Integration vs. simple on-boarding

At a basic level, on-boarding helps new employees acquire the necessary knowledge, skills, and behaviours to become effective members of your team.  Common methods include formal meetings, lectures, videos, print materials, or computer-based orientations to introduce newcomers to their new jobs in their new organisation. The reality is, though that this often becomes a rather mechanistic checklist type exercise, lacking suitable attention to individual, group, and social integration with a view to maximising the new employee’s effectiveness and motivation.

In essence, the aim of talent integration is in reducing the time for those in new roles becoming productive contributors.  The desired outcome is for them to be quickly embedded into the organisation as a result of forming good relationships, receiving the necessary support, and building loyalty to their new team. The result is improved employee retention as well as being a selling point for attracting new talent.

Relationships – the basis for engagement

For anyone who is joining a new team of people, one of the biggest challenges is in understanding the behavioural culture at both a team and individual level.  A mature team has evolved over time to understand each other (in most cases!) and to accommodate differences in behavioural preferences and priorities.  For the new starter, gaining insight into this can be a massive help in their effective integration – short cutting a large part of the learning curve about what makes their new colleagues tick.

Talent Integration Basics

Effective talent integration embraces the following elements:

  • A basic introduction to the new organisation (often covered in the traditional on-boarding process).
  • A more formal, individual, developmentally focused integration plan covering the first 3-6 months, which includes:

–   A focused discussion with their new manager in the early days to agree clear expectations for job performance, targets and results, relational expectations and how best to work together.

–   Helping the new employee to recognise the organisational culture and “how we do things here” through a mentor within the organisation (probably not their line manager).

–   For new managers, providing a coach to support their integration into the new role, especially if they will need to take on new skills.

–   Planned and regular feedback meetings (at least monthly) where the focus is successes, challenges, their ideas for improvements, and their support needs.  These are two way discussions, not diatribes from the boss!

9 Steps in planning for success

As the recruiter, you will want to give any hiring action the best chance of being successful, by doing the following:

  1. Have a clear view of what the job role requires and what actually needs doing.
  2. Gain clarity and agreement on the necessary skills, behaviours and attitudes for success.
  3. Understand any future role adaptation that may happen.
  4. Underpin your recruitment interview with behaviourally based questions probing experience, history, changes made, and successes.
  5. Use behaviour and culture focused questions to help determine their values and motivators – see how they fit with your organisation.
  6. Give the candidate a scenario-based problem and see how they would respond to it.
  7. Explain your talent integration process; share the experiences of others who have appreciated its value.  Show how it drives success in hiringand keepinghigh potential talent.
  8. Use a behaviour based personality test to get a better understanding of the behavioural preferences of the candidate – and contrast them to the role requirements.
  9. Use this insight to support coaching the new employee to promote a faster and more effective integration.

If you don’t already have a talent integration process, maybe now is the time to consider implementing one.  Hiring is an expensive game – improving the chances of success is a must to improve your bottom line and to attract and retain top talent.

DISC UK can help you with your recruitment and talent management processes – using Everything DiSC® behavioural products, you can improve communication throughout your organisation – building better relationships, delivering moire effective performance, better motivation… and improved bottom line results.

Reposted with permission from DiSC UK


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Would You Make a Good Coach?

Coaching requires a certain set of skills and not everyone is suited to the role of coaching others to achieve their goals.  Below are some of the fundamental traits great coaches should have.

Open communicator

To coach people effectively, there need to be no barriers to communication. The coach should feel comfortable in their environment to be able to talk to their clients in an appropriate and confidence inspiring manner. They should also be able to make clients feel trusting enough to answer their many questions, be good listeners and be empathetic to their client under all circumstances.

Observation

Coaches should have good observation skills – this includes awareness of body language and changes in emotion as well as any signs that the client is failing to engage or is in any way distracted during the coaching session.

Open-minded

Coaches will work with people from all different backgrounds and experiences, not to mention different cultural and social backgrounds.  It is important that they should be able to talk to their clients in a non-judgemental way and respect the client’s knowledge and experience.  One of the cornerstones of the coach approach is that ultimately the client has the answers – it is up to the coach to be open to helping the client find those answers and not simply tell them what they think.

Supportive

Coaches need to be supportive towards their clients in regards to the tasks that the client takes on. They need to help them be accountable for their commitment to take action and improve their performance or work-life balance.

Creative

Although the client may have most of the answers, the coach brings an enormous amount of experience and knowledge to the relationship.  One of the skills the coach must develop is that of helping stimulate the client’s creative thoughts to think outside the box when seeking solutions to problems.

DiSC NZ offer a Foundation in Behavioural Coaching training course that equips coaches with these skills.

For further related reading, take a look at this article from The Learning Hub on “The Joys of Teaching“.

Reposted with permission from DiSC UK