Self-Awareness Using DiSC Profiles

A successful business stems from its team of employees and its business strategy. At CITY, we take great pride in working hard to find the right people to place in positions where they can be successful. President Colin Wetlaufer says that the people of CITY are the company’s greatest asset.

Businesses use many different tools to discover behavioral traits of their employees to figure out where their strengths and challenges lie. One such tool used by thousands of organizations worldwide is The DiSC model. This tool creates a profile and report that details an individual’s personality and behavior so they better understand themselves and adapt their behaviors with others.

“DiSC” stands for four different primary behaviors that stem from the person’s perceptions of self in relationship to his or her environment. These four types include dominance, influence, steadiness, and conscientiousness.

Source: https://discprofile.com/what-is-disc/overview/

After completing the personality assessment, an individual learns which categories their personality fits best. Based on that, they learn their strengths and challenges, as well as how to better relate to others.

After being introduced to the DiSC model and viewing the results of my coworkers, I noticed how well their profiles fit their personalities. Even though I do not know my coworkers that well yet, the information I gained from viewing their profiles gave me a decent understanding of their personalities – a visual understanding that I could actually comprehend by looking at their graphs.

I also reached out to my coworkers for feedback on how the DiSC assessment helps them on a daily basis. Most people found the assessment to be very helpful in learning about each other.

“Knowing the strengths and challenges of my colleagues is very important. A diverse group is vital to the success of a mission or organization,” said Mark Ballo, Des Moines Regional Manager.

“I think it is a useful reminder to help you frame your communication with an individual in a way that is most comfortable for them,” Nicole O’Brien, Human Resource Manager, added.  “It also may help you make sense of behaviors (or lack of behaviors) that are handled differently than you expected.”

According to Colin Wetlaufer, President of CITY, there are two steps to understanding the DiSC profile. Step one is self-understanding and discovering how others perceive you. And then using that understanding to change the way you communicate to adjust to the person you’re trying to have a conversation with. Step two includes assembling a team with intention by using the DiSC profiles to put people in positions in which they will be successful.

“A lot of people think initially that it’s a measure of what they’re good at and what they’re not good at. But that’s not true. It’s a measurement of the things that they find energy in and what takes energy away from them,” Wetlaufer added.

Certain tasks may excite an individual, and their passion can drive them to succeed, while other tasks may cause them distress. CITY aims to create a work environment where each and every individual fills a need in which they are passionate. CITY does this by searching for people all over the spectrum.

One of the reasons why CITY has individuals take this assessment is so they become more self-aware. Having a better understanding of yourself is the best instrument for becoming more effective when working with others.

I also took a version of a DiSC profile assessment to learn about my own unique personality type. By taking the assessment, I learned that everyone has their own set of priorities, and what may be important to me may not be important to someone else. Overall it gives everyone at CITY a good outline of each employee, and this test provides some very useful concepts in the art of effective communication and self-awareness.

CITY can greatly benefit from the DiSC model. We can utilize this tool to ensure we have the best team in place to achieve our business goals, but we can also use the model to understand our own clients. Understanding each primary behavior in the DiSC model will allow us to recognize where our clients fit. When we understand a client’s distinct personality, we can pinpoint their priorities to provide the most effective service that best fits their needs.

One of CITY’s main goals is to develop long lasting partnerships with our clients and employees, so effective communication plays a large role at CITY. Having effective communication helps build honest relationships. As relationships are built, we want our clients and employees to feel more comfortable so they share objectives and opinions. When you can develop a relationship like that, that is where a lot of CITY’s successes come from.

By using the DiSC model, we can ensure we have the best team in place to achieve our business goals. It is a reliable and effective tool that opens a door of discovery – one that is beneficial to everyone, personally and professionally. Having the ability to understand ourselves and understand our clients so we can build genuine relationships is what CITY strives for. That is one of the main reasons why CITY has had so much success in its past and will continue to be successful in the future.

Article by Nicole Kessell, Marketing Coordinator/Editor