Tony, bring down the "D"

We took a day off from the usual stuff yesterday at Teknision, and focused on some team building. We have new faces joining the team, and as any team gets bigger it gets more important for the team to be able to communicate well to be effective.

We had a guy come into the office and work with us all. His name is: Ray Brule from Thruhim consulting. He had all the members of our team do DISC profiles and we spent the whole day analyzing the results and disussing ways that we can all communicate better with each other.

Earlier in the week, Paolo at our office sent the profile survey around to all of us. I must admit that when I recieved it I commented "Ah man, what is this stupid form!?"

Anyways, I am an idiot. The profiles generated by the DISC system are absolutely astounding. All ten members of our team found that when we recieved our personal reports, that the details were bang on the money in explaining how we actually behave.

We shared all of our profiles with each other, which is pretty important if you want to make any team progress. The DISC system suggests ways that one behavioual type can communicate with another in ways that are productive because many times the strengths of one type can be very much in opposition to another.

For example, here is my DISC Profile chart:


This chart suggests that my behaviour at work leans heavily on Dominance and Influence. That makes total sense for the role that I am in at work.

However, other members of our team may be very different, and in order for them to be effective I need to know when to assert my "I" or "D" but sometimes I have to pull them back, as I may overpower people that are more "S" or "C".

Right now I am talking very general, but the details in this system are amazing, and spending a day doing this with a team is very much worth it. Almost everyone on the team felt empowered, and more comfortable due to the fact that they now have new common language to use in the work enviornment with each other.

I would highly recommend that any team working closely together for any extended period of time, should go through this process. Ray provides DISC training locally here in Ottawa, but there are people almost anywhere trained to give these sessions.