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Making
things happen - with integrity. A weekly CyberMemo designed to keep you on task. Monday November 18, 2002 Volume IV Number 46 |
FOCUS - DiSC Profile
When I got home late Friday, I tossed my travel gear on the bedroom floor, ready to shed my clothes and hit the sack.
It was a long day, starting in Delray Beach, Florida, the second of a two day intense business training program which started at about eight in the morning went through lunch and ended just after three in the afternoon. By four I was packed into a shuttle limo with three of my colleagues for the hour long trip to the airport, by five checked in my bags and processed my e-ticket and by six airborne in the darkness, climbing to altitude and heading West and home again.
Including a stop-over at the Dallas/Houston hub, we were nearly seven hours traveling take-off to landing, less three hours off the clock. So while I got home before midnight, it was nearly three AM on my mental clock, and I was ready for some sleep.
But just before I hit the pillow, I decided I’d go ‘head and unload my suitcase. I had this funny feeling I’d left something behind in the hotel room back in the beachfront hotel in Florida, and I wanted to verify the thought – you know, that clear sense that something got overlooked, but still not certain. So I fumbled for the zipper, pulled it around the top, flipped back the flap and looked inside.
Everything was neatly folded and packed, but as I checked over the contents of the bag, it hit me. None of the clothing inside belonged to me.
Road weary and worn, back at the Baggage Claim, I spotted the familiar looking green case and snatched it off the conveyor, pulled out the retractable handle and wheeled it out to the curb where I met my ride. Not until much later, that moment on the bedroom floor back home, did I check the name tag.
Now I know. Some guy named “Rob” owns a suitcase identical to mine. It was right here in my bedroom. I wondered, “Did he take mine home?”
When I dialed the toll free customer service number to report my goof, a recorded voice informed me that “the office is closed.” The situation at hand would have to wait until morning.
That’s when I pulled back the sheets, and crawled in, weary, feeling stupid, thinking about how nice it would be if I could do this one over again, with a haunting sense that I had violated a stranger by opening his suitcase.
And then I comforted myself, calling up an age-old reminder that eases the pain at a moment like this, “Well, it coulda been worse,” I whispered.
Carolyn was so very proud.
And then I nodded off to sleep.
* * * * * * *
A part of our training this week was an exercise in self-awareness. Corporate psychology has been an element in the development of human resources ever since the Enlightenment, operating on the premise that people who understand each other work better together and can be more productive. Managers are more effective when they understand the motivations and styles of varying personality types, and so everybody gets the training, so the theory goes.
If you work for a company who really cares about their people, they will invest the resources necessary. It is quite possible to develop a camaraderie that is built on a shared appreciation for the variety of perspectives and skill sets and ways of processing information and solving problems and dealing with challenges represented among their employees. Without it, conflicts can become costly and counter-productive.
So all of us leader-types in Florida submitted to a popular scoring device in accomplishing this sort of mutual understanding – the DiSC profile. I’ve taken similar sorts of tests before. In fact, for years, as a counselor, I administered and evaluated hundreds of a similar kind of analytical test which we applied to marriage and family and volunteer work. I thought I had a pretty good handle on how I test out, and how I compare to others.
But Friday, over lunch in a Florida hotel, I was handed the results an eight page description of me. And there were some surprises.
DiSC is a measure of dominance (D), influence (i), steadiness (S) and conscientiousness (C). The influences that determine the weight of each component evidenced in every individual remains a mystery – is it genetic? Is it learned? Is it a product of nutrition or education or operant conditioning? No one knows for sure. Probably a combination of all the above. The creators of the test, after literally millions of applications, seem quite confident of their results. And at least for our group of thirty, most seemed to sense that the scores had genuine validity.
Perhaps I am too open to suggestion.
But my scores seemed uncanny in their accuracy.
In its entirety, my DiSC profile described the kind of guy who would sit down and write a thing like LeaderFOCUS every weekend.
Eerie.
* * * * * * * *
Some people need control. Some need relationships. Some need security. Some need structure. Some need them all. A few need none. But most of us tend to favor one, maybe two of the four.
Each handles stress a little differently. The control guy makes demands. Sets policy. The relational guy looks for support. The security guy looks for direction. The structure guy checks the manual.
In our little exercise this week, we learned first to know something about ourselves, and then to think more clearly about the people who surround us. We need to understand our own motives and responses, and then understand that others around us will have their own distinct ways about them.
We should expect them to be unique. We should embrace, and even celebrate, the differences.
* * * * * * *
It’s Monday morning. You are a leader.
On Saturday, we, along with a team of others, assisted our daughter and son-in-law in a move. Ben and Kris left their modest little rental house in the city and moved into a brand new home on the edge of town. Our favorite room is the nursery. Their baby is due in February.
It’s a paradigm shift for them. Everything old is past. The new has come.
I learned at the airport that there really is a difference between the exterior and the interior. That bag looked just like the one I checked at the counter in Fort Lauderdale. But it wasn’t. Inside there was something else.
What’s inside is what mattered.
On the outside, their home is charming, delightful. But we all know, it's what’s inside Kris and Ben’s house that is most important. So far, its all the right stuff. You can see it in their eyes, hear it in their voices and feel it from their hearts.
What’s going on inside of you counts more than what’s outside. It’s good to know yourself. Be true to yourself. You’ve been created with a Purpose in Mind.
Go ‘head. Take the test. Check the score. Get a profile of your strengths and your preferences and your ways of processing information and resolving conflicts. Embrace that unique person you are.
It will enable you to embrace others as they are.
And that will make all the difference.
Posted in Valley Center, California
© Copyright Kenneth E. Kemp 2002
Special Thanks to my good friend David Belcher, owner of Rhino Media Group and creator of WisdomGram
LeaderFOCUS is a service of Good Stewardship Associates
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