High D in DISC and Teamwork Weaknesses (MTDISC) - Part 2

This episode discusses strategies for individuals with a high D personality type in the DISC model to enhance teamwork by mitigating weaknesses and embracing more inclusive decision-making processes.

1. High D personalities should seek feedback and buy-in before pushing their ideas to prevent conflicts.
2. Embracing inclusivity by involving every team member in decisions can improve relationships and team cohesion.
3. It's beneficial to recognize and mitigate the intimidating aspects of a high D's approach in professional settings.
4. Acknowledging and adapting to the contributions of others can enhance a high D's effectiveness within a team.
5. Pre-wiring ideas with individual team members can facilitate smoother decision-making processes in group settings.

1: Introduction to Challenges

An overview of the typical challenges high D personalities face in teamwork, emphasizing the need for patience and inclusivity. Wendy Capland: "It's your idea and you can probably remember a few times when this has backfired on you."

2: Effective Communication Strategies

Discussion on strategies such as pre-wiring and seeking consensus to avoid teamwork pitfalls. Sarah McVanel: "Ask the people who'd be affected by whatever this change or idea of yours is if they think your idea is good or not."

3: Building Relationships

Tips on building stronger team relationships by allowing others to contribute to decision-making processes. Wendy Capland: "So once you have everybody's support, then you can take the action or go ask the person who has authority."

4: Embracing Team Input

How embracing team input can lead to better outcomes and less resistance. Sarah McVanel: "You're asking them will cause them to agree with the idea because all they ever wanted was just to be asked."

5: Conclusion and Reflections

Summarizing the episode's key points and reflecting on the importance of adaptability in high D personalities. Wendy Capland: "Being a high D isn't a strength or a weakness any more than being a high I, an S, or a C is."

1. Before making a decision, pre-wire your idea by discussing it individually with team members.
2. Use open-ended questions to gather genuine feedback without leading the conversation.
3. Include every team member in the decision-making process, even those you think might not support you.
4. After gathering feedback, if there's resistance, be willing to consider alternatives or modifications to your initial idea.
5. Publicly acknowledge and appreciate contributions from team members to build trust and reduce perceived intimidation.

Part 2 of our guidance for High D's when working as a part of a team.

People

Wendy Capland, Sarah McVanel

Content Warnings:

None

Wendy Capland

Welcome to career tools. This week, the high d in disc and teamwork weaknesses, part two the questions this cast answers as a high d how might I be hurting my relationship with my team? As a what behaviours should I stop doing to improve my relationship with my teammates? And as a what behaviours should I start doing to improve my relationship with my teammates?

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Sign up at manager dash tools.com training. Last week we talked about waiting to speak and stop interrupting. This week we're going to start with not bamboozling everybody into taking our ideas and instead either persuading them or, shockingly, taking other people's ideas on board. So if you didn't think waiting to speak and not interrupting were hard enough, this next one has a podcast all of its own for this singular topic that is pre wire your ideas. Pre wiring is essentially asking for time with each of your colleagues ahead of when you're going to present or suggest an idea to a group, and instead individually prior to that presentation, asking for feedback in the guidance.

Sarah McVanel

Again, we have a podcast. It's called pre wiring a meeting. We give the example of a presentation at a staff meeting, but that this can be as big as a divisional reorganizational presentation or as small as renaming a folder on a shared drive. Whatever it is, however big or small the idea, you can pre wire your. Idea because what you would naturally do is assume your idea is best and either take unilateral action or recommend it to the person who can make the change, or just suggest it in the team meeting without asking anybody else and expect that everybody will be happy because it's clearly the best idea.

Wendy Capland

Because it's your idea and you can probably remember a few times when this has backfired on you. If like as Sarah and I as Heidi's can remember a few times when that's backfired on us, it not only has there been an argument that you probably remember about whether or not this was the right thing to do, and also about whether or not you went about it the right way, probably from your boss, which wasn't a fun conversation, right? But there's some longer term damage that was done to your relationships that you probably didn't even notice. There were people who were upset that you made changes without asking them and they didnt say anything and you never even noticed they were upset with you. Mhm, exactly.

Sarah McVanel

So what we would suggest is next time just unofficially, ask the people whod be affected by whatever this change or idea of yours is if they think your idea is good or not. So for example, if youre thinking of doing something like moving a folder on a shared drive and you think this is such a great idea, first speak to each person on your team and say, hey, I was thinking if we moved this photos folder from operations over to social media, it would make a whole bunch more sense. What do you think? Don't tell them you're going to change it. Don't say, hey, I'm going to be changing this thing.

Make sure you're asking them. What do you think? Open ended question. And the thing about changing it is no. If you're just going to tell them you're changing it, you might as well just do it and not tell them in advance because you're still going to live with the exact same consequences.

They're still going to feel like it's been done to them as opposed to they were part of the conversation. Yeah. So if you're going to ask, you have to be willing to follow the advice given in the answer. So if three people say no or they, they say, hey, that doesn't make sense to me because of X, Y and Z, you actually have to take that into consideration. Right.

Wendy Capland

And you also have to ask everybody. You can't just ask the people you think will support you. Yeah, that's, that's not good. As much as you want to. Yeah.

So once you have everybody's support, then you can take the action or go ask the person who has authority or bring it up in the team meeting. And amazingly, this will not backfire on you and you will actually be able to take the action that you want to take. It takes longer. It's harder. It does, it's.

I don't know why you have to go ask all these people, but I can tell you every time I do it this way, it works. And every time I do it the other way, it blows up in my face. There are a certain number of people who just want to be asked first. Yes, we call them high asses. They just wanted to be able to contribute to the idea.

Sarah McVanel

And you're asking them will cause them to agree with the idea because all they ever wanted was just to be asked. Didn't even matter what the outcome was. So in another example, you might be developing a tracking spreadsheet for your team. What we'd suggest you do is incorporate each team member's feedback as best you can into the creation of this spreadsheet. Even if you think their idea is stupid, or it's inconsequential, or it's completely unnecessary and unimportant, you're adding their input into the creation of this spreadsheet will encourage them to give you more consequential feedback later on.

And if you've not been following this guidance long, they think you're scary. Remember back to our last episode, they think you're scary. They think you're a little bit intimidating. Right. And what that means is they're not sharing with you things that could actually truly make you better at your job for fear of it being struck down immediately.

So incorporating those small pieces of feedback now lets individuals know longer term. Youre open to it. And so when theres a situation where multiple people have ideas for solutions and you find in your discussion with another team member that they have a better idea than you do, then tell them that you will support their idea and support it. So when it comes up in the team meeting you say, hey, I had an idea, but I think Brian's idea is better than mine, so I'm going to go with Brian's. You don't even need to hear mine.

Wendy Capland

First of all, this is a win for the team because the best idea is being implemented. There's two of you supporting Brian's idea for a start. And second, this builds your relationship with Brian and all the people who thought you were scary because now they think, oh look, he's being chummy with Brian, so he's obviously not as scary as I thought he was. And third, you can work on something else that's more interesting while Brian goes and implements that thing that clearly wasn't that important because if it was, you'd have had a better idea. So you know, you don't have to do that thing.

You can go and do whatever you want. I love the idea of being able to not do something that I didn't want to do because someone has a better idea for it. That's exactly it. And folks, we know, again, we're high ds. We get it, we get it.

Sarah McVanel

You just want to win. You want to win all the conversations all the time. But let's face it, some things don't matter to you. If it doesn't matter, let people win on those ones. Don't fight for files to be named a certain way.

If you never search for files anyway, let someone else win in terms of them winning, even if they're wrong and you're right. But it doesn't matter to you whether or not it is done correctly. Then let it go. Choose your battles. You don't have to win every conversation.

You don't have to do all of the work yourself, which is what will end up happening if you decide you need to win all the conversations. Yeah, that was definitely my mistake. When I was first in my career, I knew I was right. I wanted to win every conversation, and I took everyone to the wire. It wasn't for a long time that I realized that some of this stuff doesn't matter and I want to win the important ones.

Wendy Capland

And, you know, like, okay, you can have this one. That doesn't matter. Well done, you. Yeah, I'm going to have the important ones. Exactly.

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You may not necessarily see yourself as a high d, but understanding your profile as an I, an s, or a c can be incredibly valuable. By gaining insight into your strengths and weaknesses, you can better contribute to your team and enhance your personal effectiveness. The MTDisc assessment, available on the Manager tools website for just $30, is the first step in this journey of self discovery. Stay tuned for future episodes where we'll provide tailored guidance on each of these styles. Go to the Manager tools website and look for MTDisc under products.

Find out your style today so you're. Ready to take advantage when guidance for. Your style is released. So we talked about other people think you're scary. So one of the ways we can get over that is giving other people public credit.

Wendy Capland

So saying things like, that's a good idea. And I like that in public meetings about people's ideas and work product, or when an email goes out to your team with work on it, you reply all. So everybody sees it. And you say things like, good work or thank you. And it's literally two words.

No, it's not a whole paragraph, just two words, thank you. Or even in meetings you just have to make a noise. Oh, uh huh. Good. Mm hmm.

You don't even have to form words. Yeah. And we know you don't need it, folks. I literally had this happen this morning. This happens to me at least once a week over here at manager tools.

Sarah McVanel

I'm sure of it. I received an email from a customer. I wrote back with the answer and then it was assigned to me. When the individual wrote back and said, thank you. And I thought to myself, I know they're thankful.

I don't need to read that they're thankful. But folks, not everyone feels the way you do about that interaction. I know you're like, I don't need to see the thank you. Somebody close this ticket. Stop assign me garbage.

Wendy Capland

Yes. Like, I would have closed that out. I wouldn't have sent that to you. It was assigned to me by a people focused person. Go figure.

Yeah. So that's the thing. I know you may not be appreciative of a thank you, but there are some people who are, and that's the point of it. And another thing to keep in mind is other people winning. It doesn't take away from your success.

Sarah McVanel

Being positively contributing to that was a great idea, or thank you so much. That doesn't make you lesser. We know that that's not really why high ds don't praise in public or private, for that matter. But that's the assumption other people make, is that we're unwilling to share the love, we're unsheath, unwilling to share the joy or the credit for things. And if that's how people feel about it, then we should come across as more willing to share it.

Other people assume that your silence means that you're jealous or at least ambivalent about other people's success, rather than you've just moved on to the next piece of work that needs to be done and no one has time to hear thank you. Yeah. It's like, why do I need another email in my inbox that says thank you that I've now got to delay, but I don't. But other people do. Right?

Wendy Capland

That's why they're sending. That's why they're sending them, because they want them back. People act in the way that they want to have you act towards them. They are sending you signals all day long of how. How they want you to act towards them.

And if you're smart, all you need to do is not, I'm going to say mirror, but that has a really bad connotation. But if you reflect back to them, if they send you thank you emails, send them thank you. Email us back. It's the simplest thing. You don't even have to use your brain.

It's amazing. It's amazing. And as we started to say, your praise doesn't need to be long and flowery. You do not need to write a paragraph of nice words like the high s's and the high I's will write that for you. Yeah, they write that.

You can write well done, or I like that, or you can adopt a phrase that you always use, such as way two go or kudos or something. That's like a one word phrase, and it's the one you use every time for something good got done. And it won't always fit grammatically, but everybody will associate it with you saying something's great. And so they'll just go, oh, it fits. I have a friend who uses dynamic, and every time she praises something, she says it's dynamic, and it probably fits grammatically, like, 20% of the time, it does my head in.

But I've come to realize that it's just her word for, yeah, that's great. And so she just puts it there. She's not actually a heidi, but you can do that. And, like, you don't have to think about it. Anytime something is good, you just say your word and people will think they.

They will interpret that as an entire paragraph of flowery words just for you. You don't have to put them there. They'll put those there for you. That's exactly it. And, folks, in the case of teamwork, when you're being praised, deflect the praise to other people.

Sarah McVanel

That is, instead of saying, oh, my gosh, thank you so much. I'm really proud of this. Say, it wasn't all me, it was a team effort, or it wasn't me. It's all, all John's work. And even if you say it and you actually did all the work, everyone will know that.

But it's so much more polite and so much more kind. Maggie over here does this all the time when she's meeting her revenue goals. It's all teamwork, all part of a team, and that's true of all of us 100% of the time. In an organization, you can't do anything by yourself. You really can't.

And people see it as being kind and polite. And it's a lot like when somebody asks you how you are, we know the polite answer to, this is fine. The polite thing to do when teamwork is involved is to deflect the praise to other people who are on that team. And if you don't do it, the other styles will judge you for not being polite, even though you think of it as being straightforward and direct and just saving time. They do not prize straightforwardness the same way you do.

They prize a lack of conflict, which is upheld through politeness and giving other people credit. Yeah. A note for managers praise and feedback. The way we describe feedback in the feedback model, the manager tools way are different, and we have casts about how to handle the two of those, you need to listen to those. Even though this section is still relevant, high d bosses tend to give less of both, especially positive feedback and praise, but you need to know the difference, and so you need to listen to those casts as well.

So, following along our theme of a lot of guidance, this is another section of today's guidance that comes with its very own podcast. It's called Murder the Unchosen Alternative. The guidance itself is from our podcast on professional subordination. Murdering the unchosen alternative means that while we can and should make a case for a given course of action or an opinion we have or suggests an idea, once a decision has been made, all of the previous ideas which were once being discussed are considered moot and no action is taken toward them. Whether you were supporter of the path that was taken or a different path as part of the larger organization, your obligation is to lay any differences aside once the decision has been taken and act on the decision without regard to any previous opinions.

Wendy Capland

So let's say there's a decision in your organization and you've argued for a and the manager above you decides on b. You have to pretend that a is dead, it never existed, and we're all doing b. I've always wanted to do b over here. Always been a big b guy. Never a, never heard of him.

I'm always. I was always b. I was always b. Exactly. Yeah.

And we know as high ds, you'd much prefer to work on the idea that you put forward because it's clearly the best one, right? Yeah, because otherwise you wouldn't have put it forward. And, you know, you've gone to the effort of pre wiring all your teammates because that's what we told you to do earlier. And you would have expected after you did all that work that they'd support you and you want to have a conversation about why they didn't support you. Like, don't do this, don't.

They're not going to tell you the truth. It doesn't matter. You're not going to change the decision. Like, just don't. Just.

Just decide to be a big guy. Because if you go to somebody's cubicle or even if you just text them or slack them, you are going to be at your most demanding self. Why didn't you support me when you said you were going to? And all of those other styles are going to be under the table quivering and they're not going to tell you anything other than what they think will make you go away. Exactly.

So there's no point in having that conversation. There's no point. Just move on. It's not going to change anything. Move on instead.

Sarah McVanel

Think of it this way. The decision's been made. Whether it's your idea or not. This plays right into your hands. What you want to do is move as fast as is humanly possible towards your end goal.

Now that a decision's actually been made or an idea has been chosen, you can move from that stage to implementation without any more waiting or delay. Don't worry about what the decision was that's been made. Get really excited about enacting a plan to make this happen. That's what you're good at. Just start moving forward.

Just take it. If it wasn't the right choice, we'll figure it out. If it was, we'll figure that out too. Just start doing stuff. Start moving.

Wendy Capland

Who's good at making everything happen the way it should do you? So you could make b happen as well as a would have happened. Exactly. So let's go for it. Just get behind it.

Being a high d isn't a strength or a weakness any more than being a high I. An s or a c is. All that label means is that we have a natural set of behaviors that may or may not support us in our effectiveness in a specific situation and we can change those behaviors any time we like. Sarah and I could, if we thought about it hard enough, change our natural behaviours. And we do sometimes when it's effective.

And working in a team is what we do all day, every day. And so whether we want to or not, learning to recognize the behaviors that work against us and mitigating them is a lesson worth learning and a skill worth developing. After all, as Heidis, we just want to get things done and if this is what it takes, we're willing to do it. Let's just do it. Just get it done.

Get everybody on our side and get it done. Yeah, exactly. Cross it off the list. Exactly. Thanks, Sarah.

Sarah McVanel

Thank you, Wendy. That's all for this week. We'll be back next week with a new topic. Bye, everyone. Bye, everyone.

Wendy Capland

Bye, everyone.

Sarah McVanel

Bye, everyone.

Wendy Capland

Bye, everyone.