High I in DISC and Teamwork Weaknesses (MTDISC) - Part 1

This episode explores the challenges individuals with a high 'I' personality face within teamwork settings and provides strategies to mitigate these weaknesses.

1. High 'I' individuals often struggle with detail orientation and can benefit from focusing more on task-related aspects during team interactions.
2. Effective teamwork for high 'I' personalities involves balancing their enthusiasm with the needs and communication styles of other team members.
3. Adapting behavior to align more closely with team objectives rather than personal inclinations can significantly improve team collaboration.
4. High 'I' individuals should be mindful of monopolizing conversations and ensure all team members have opportunities to contribute.
5. The MT DISC assessment tool offers valuable insights into personal communication styles and how they impact team dynamics.

1: Understanding DISC

Overview of the DISC framework and its relevance to understanding workplace behaviors. Wendy: "DISC measures your natural behaviors in team settings."

2: The High 'I' Profile

Discussion on the specific characteristics of high 'I' individuals and their impact on teamwork. Sara: "High 'I's are naturally people-focused and assertive."

3: Common Pitfalls for High 'I's

Exploration of typical challenges faced by high 'I's in teams, such as neglecting details and deadlines. Wendy: "You need to be aware of your natural tendencies and how they affect your team."

4: Strategies for Improvement

Strategies for high 'I' individuals to improve their teamwork by focusing on task completion and listening to others. Sara: "Focus your efforts on what helps the team most effectively."

1. Prioritize task completion alongside interpersonal interactions.
2. Regularly seek feedback from teammates to understand their perspectives and improve collaboration.
3. Practice active listening during meetings to ensure all voices are heard.
4. Set personal goals to improve detail orientation and follow-through on commitments.
5. Use tools like the MT DISC assessment to gain deeper insights into personal behavior patterns and how to adjust them for better teamwork.

Part 1 of our guidance for High I's when working as a part of a team.

Content Warnings:

None

Wendy

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

This is one of a series of casts about disc, and we're going to put this short explanation in each time before the casts because not everybody knows what disc is. So if you don't know or you want to find out more about it from manager tools, you can listen to this. And if you've already heard it, you can just skip to the cast. Exactly. And folks, disc is a self assessment that measures how you naturally behave when interacting with other individuals, at least when you're not thinking about it.

Sara

William Marsden identified four behavioral styles back in 1928. They were dominance influence, steadiness and conscientiousness a la disk. And since then many companies have developed disc assessments, including us here at manager tools. But MTDisc itself differs from many of the other assessments. It's more than an assessment, it's an eye opening, game changing, career accelerating revelation.

Wendy

And I think we say that because all of us here have found it to be that when we found it the first time. Oh yeah, it certainly was for me. So we have free podcasts which describe each of the styles, D, I, S and C, and we have podcasts that describe how each of the styles act in particular situations, like the one that's about to follow, and we will link to them from all of the podcasts in this series. But first you have to know what your profile is. So the MT disc assessment starts with a 20 minutes online questionnaire.

Sara

It's very affordable. All you're going to do is answer 28 questions about your preferences and you'll be delivered a customized 40 page ish. They're all different lengths, I think. Report unpacking your strengths, weaknesses and tendencies in clear and actionable behavioral language. No theories, no psychobabble.

The MT Disc report will give you tailored insights to help you in terms of your communication behaviors. And what I really like about disc and our reports in particular, is they're a language you understand because there's no psycho babble and they're super simple to remember and communicate with other people about. So if there's a bunch of you that learn it, you're all talking the same language very quickly. Yeah, the power of MTDisc lies in what follows, because unlike other disc tools, your report compares your styles to the other profiles with specific guidance on adapting your communication behaviors so that you can collaborate more effectively. And when you apply them, that's when you see how empty disc transforms your relationships.

Because folks, the thing about it is it doesn't actually matter what your natural tendencies are, because your natural tendencies are ones you can change anytime you want to change them. Which will in turn be the theme of this series of podcasts and everything else basically that you hear from manager tools. With MTDisc, youll learn how to adapt your natural communication style to achieve effective outcomes in every interaction. And people are everywhere, so you can. Practice all the time, all the time.

Wendy

Constant. If youd like to find out what your disc profile is, you can just go to the website and purchase it for yourself or an entire team. You can buy in bulk through the website and have the option to distribute to your whole department or a company. And like I said, when everybody, a whole organization, understands the MTDiSc language, it's amazing how much it impacts communication and collaboration. And there are a wealth of other resources on our website as well that will help you continue this path of better workplace relationships.

Sara

So there's the effective relationship podcast series, which is a deep dive on tactics for working with bosses and direct reports of all disc styles, from driving dominant individuals to supportive steadiness individuals through real workplace scenarios. You're going to learn what to say and what to do to be more successful. And then we have a training called the effective communicator. And we have a bunch of ways in which we deliver it to fit your budget and your availability. So we have a video product as an on demand and low cost option.

Wendy

And then Sara, you delivered all of the others. Yeah, yeah, exactly. We have live virtual delivered over Zoom. It's a one session. Oh, it's quite a long session.

Sara

I think it's like four and a half hours somewhere in, around there. And I mean, we deliver it internationally, in person as well as a whole day event. But people can sign up, just sort of open enrollment, anyone can come to our public sessions. But you also will go to companies for groups, right? Absolutely, absolutely.

If you have got a group of individuals in your organization that could all use better communications as a group together, because why not? We all could. We also do come on site as well to work with organizations, groups of people to help them as an organization department company communicate better together. MTDiSC delivers insights that empower you to transform communication and collaboration. And those personalized assessments and actionable reports are just the beginning.

So set yourself up in your workplace, up, I should say, for success by purchasing an empty disc profile as well as any of the coaching and training on our website today. Invest in yourself, break down barriers and propel your career forward. MTDISC is really a revelation for many people and the secret to a positive communication and teamwork environment within your organization. We're starting all of these disc profile costs the same way because the message is the same for every profile. There is strengths and weaknesses for every profile.

Wendy

Depending on the situation and the people in the room, the natural behaviors of one or other of the profiles may be more or less efficient or useful in achieving whatever the objective is in that room. And that doesn't mean that only one of the profiles can achieve the objective, whatever that objective is. If you think that the objective is best achieved by a high s, that doesn't mean only the highest can achieve that objective. Any one of the profiles can achieve that objective if they think about their behaviour and they adapt their behavior to be more high s like. So it doesn't matter what profile you are, you just have to know what your profile is and know what's appropriate in the situation.

So you can't be proud that you're a high I even though you want to be. And you don't need to be worried that you're a high I which I'm sure you're not. But we're going to talk about your natural behaviours that work against you when you're working in a team and how to mitigate those behaviors. The outline for today's cast is first master your weaknesses, then focus your enthusiasm and efforts, followed by meet deadlines and follow through on tasks. Pay attention to details and estimate.

Sara

Don't guess. So we're going to start with mastering your weaknesses. High I's no, it's not enough to know the weakness of being a high I in any given situation you must know them, know the particular flavor of that weakness. I mean, we're not letters, right? We're people where it's variation in where our weaknesses and strengths live.

And not only that, you don't need just an awareness, you need to be able to mitigate them the moment you're in a situation in order to be as effective as possible in that specific situation. To be clear, Mt disc or any disc, personality people call them personality tests. They're not a personality test, first of all, they're not a test because you can't fail them. And they're not testing personality because that's what psychiatrists do. There is a self assessment of your behavior.

Wendy

It looks at what you do on the outside, not the inside of your head. And so you can see and hear behavior because it's on the outside. It's verbal, vocal and visual. And if we look at all people, we see they fall into four groups. As far as those characteristics are concerned, there's people that are task focused and assertive, people who are people focused and assertive, people who are people focused and reserved, and those who are task focused and reserved.

And you are people focused and assertive. But each of those groups shows a different set of verbal and vocal and visual signs. That's exactly it. And folks, a high I is people focused, meaning that in any conversation, they focus on the people before the task itself. They're assertive, meaning they believe and act as if they have the power to change their environment.

Sara

So generally hi, I's want to make sure everyone's having a really good time, and they want to feel like the team is all in sync. And I mean, if you take care of the people, the work will do itself is really kind of how I. Eyes think about it, and we see that in their behavior. High eyes talk about people a lot. They talk about themselves and their feelings, and they talk about other people and their feelings.

Wendy

Instead of data, facts, processes, roles, logic, rationale, any place where you could put something else, the high I will put a person instead of talking about how something gets done, they say, jo does it. And as if that's the entire answer. And hi, I's chat a lot about those people and they expect you to chat with them about those people. They share their relationships with you and they expect you to share yours with them. So if you say, oh, I've got a problem with something, and they say, oh, I know someone in that department who will help you out when they have a problem.

They feel slighted if you do not share someone, your relationship with someone or refer them to someone who you know could help. And don't be surprised at all if a high eye goes off on a completely irrelevant tangent, because if you're having a good time, it's not irrelevant, it's relevant. As long as everybody's having a good time. That's exactly it. We would just want to have fun.

Sara

They would just want to enjoy their time together. And generally, in this discussion of personal, many times, off topic kinds of things, they talk quickly, loud, and longer generally than other styles. They tend to interrupt while other people are speaking because high eyes are just so excited to share their stories. Plus, the thing about high eyes is they're not fully 100% listening to your story anyway. So if while you're talking, they also interject and they talk at the same time, it's essentially twice as fun, and we're accomplishing the same thing.

We both get to talk about things that are cool, that we love. Yeah. And hi I's are famous for their exaggerations. If you've ever heard a person in a meeting be like, oh, my gosh, I am starving. Like, I am literally starving to death.

I'm gonna die. That's immediately you're like, that's a high I. There's no way. You're like, seriously? No first world country.

You're going to be fine. We just have to wait for this meeting to be over. We can all go for lunch. That is a high I thing. And the thing about eyes, and this is, in my opinion, where it kind of gets tricky with work, is numbers are fluid.

So, for example, for a high I, $1 million is at least $5 million. They tend to exaggerate, which becomes problematic to other styles in the organization. Visually, high eyes make large gestures, a lot of eye contact, smile all the time, and very, very animated faces. And they move around a lot as if they're constantly distracted. In part because they are constantly distracted.

Wendy

Yeah. You could spot a table of high eyes at a lunch. In a lunch venue. It would be the most animated set of people in a lunch. When you're like, if you.

At dinner, some of those people might have been drinking, but at lunch, if you assume nobody is drinking, the most animated set of people with their arms waving around and making a lot of noise. Those are the noise. A lot of noise. I was going to say, everyone looks over at them periodically because they're so loud. Yeah, those are the eyes.

But has and I. Your behaviors make sense to you, but some of those behaviors are detrimental to working in a team. So, for example, as an eye, you are really concerned with the details. You're moving fast. The facts don't matter as much as the people.

Right? Yeah. As long as we've got pizza, who cares? Right. And who cares about decimal point?

It was a 40 page power point. There was one decimal point in the way. Like, seriously, stop being simply doesn't count. Yeah. Stop being so picky.

Yeah, who cares? So it's not exactly the same color red. Who cares? Right? Yeah, but that's not how other people say it.

See it. Exactly. While high eyes tend to think of themselves as that big picture idea. I'm a strategy person. Other people don't describe you as the big picture idea strategy person.

Sara

They tend to describe you as careless, sloppy, and unprofessional. An individual who's got ridiculous, pie in the sky ideas that are absolutely impossible to implement. Generally, people on the team think that we'll never achieve any of these delusions you're dreaming up, because they are impossible, and especially impossible if you can't even produce accurate slides to brief the team at a weekly team meeting. You think you're the helium balloons pulling the team up, when in fact you're perceived as the anchor pulling the team down by some of the other profiles. So you have to know that's possible, and then you have to know what to do to mitigate it.

Wendy

So first of all, that's probably a shock to you. Yeah, I was going to say, I mean, I've had an eye in my life who has actually said of certain interactions the two of us were in together. I've never found myself in a situation before where the other people around me didn't just love me. This is the weirdest thing that's ever happened to me, and it's because of all of these things, because they were used to working in an environment with many more high eyes. And high eyes, I want to say, have forgiveness for those high eye type behaviors, and not just forgiveness, in my opinion, Wendy, but there's a joy, there's an expectation of it.

Sara

Going back to what you said earlier, you want that counter play between two people. So when high eyes are together, high eyes value you and see your ideas as being truly beneficial to the team. It's not until you find yourself in an environment where you're surrounded by people who are not high eyes that these detrimental effects will be seen by you. The high eye, I think their assertiveness helps because they're moving fast. They have short memories, so if something went wrong last week, they've forgotten about it.

Wendy

They're already onto the next thing, whereas the other styles are not like that. Or some of them. Exactly. Hey, folks, is virtual training as good or better than in person training? Heck no.

Sara

And we would tell you that. However, it's a solid second in terms of value and execution. If you have a workforce that's spread out and you can't get folks together because of scheduling or cost, we can help. We present all of our core client trainings virtually the effective manager, effective communicator, and effective hiring. Manager trainings can all be delivered to your organization remotely via Zoom.

So if you're interested in learning more? Send an email to Maggie on our team by emailing customer serviceanagertools.

Wendy

So in this guidance, we're going to cover five of the behaviors which may be damaging your relationship with the team. There are more, but we picked these five as the first five to work on. So first of all, following every distraction, poor reliability, lack of detail, unrealistic optimism, and interrupting. So we'll start with focus your enthusiasm and efforts when in conversations, either one to one conversations or in a group meeting. Group conversation.

Sara

Focus on the purpose and goal of the conversation. Don't go off on tangents when you hear something that you're super excited about or, oh my gosh, that totally reminds me of this other random thing that's completely unrelated. You naturally want to tell stories and embellish when telling those stories, but be careful of doing it too often. We want you to think about self centering those stories frequently to help your team reach together a conclusion. So let's think about a conversation as a mind map.

Wendy

So the central question is in the middle, and we'll go with something simple so that we can all. It's easier for us to describe and you can get it in your head. So choosing a lunch for a team meeting. So the question in the middle of this mind map is what are we going to have for lunch? And then each of the branches is a kind of food that you can have sandwiches and pizza and sushi.

And what happens to you is that someone mentions pizza and you want to go off down that branch and then down another branch about your favorite pizza place and down a twig of the time that you went there with a group, and then you're out on the farthest leaf and everybody else is still in the trunk thinking about where shall we go for lunch? And that's where. We haven't even established a pizza yet. Right. You're supposed to be there in the middle on the trunk, and you're on the farthest leaf.

Sara

Exactly. And hi eyes. This happens for perfectly logical reasons. It happens because you're just so excited and you want to share, but the entire time it's happening, no one else is speaking. The group isn't hearing about this new seafood place that the highest has found or the fact that the high sea knows that the pizza place that you're talking about has been, well, closed down by food inspectors.

There's a limited time for any conversation, despite how you think about time, in that it stretches to fit your needs. And the entire time you're talking about something that's not a part of the central conversation itself. The team is missing out on relevant stories from other people about the central question. As useful as your stories are, wouldnt you agree that everyone elses stories are useful as well? And the problem is, if you share only your stories, no one elses stories will ever be heard.

Wendy

And whats more, theyre not what a great guy you are to have such wonderful stories, to tell them so well and to be willing to share them, which is what you think is happening. The high ds and Cs who are task focus want to get to the task at hand. They are frustrated because they don't understand why you can't concentrate. Those stories are not endearing. They're not thinking, oh, I love this guy.

He is so much fun to have around. I just wish he was in every meeting that I was in because he makes it so much more fun. That is not what's happening. They're thinking, I'm going to avoid every meeting he's in because he makes everything take four times longer. And I hate that.

Sara

Yeah. Literally every time you do that, you're driving a wedge between you and you're not even noticing. Yeah. Not even noticing having because you're having so much fun. You think this is going super well, but not so much.

Wendy

Yeah. And the high essays, who were reserved will not interrupt you because they are waiting for their turn to talk. And they will wait until somebody says to them, it's your turn to talk. Oh, and the problem with high ss, Wendy, is high ss nod and smile while other people are telling stories. You take that as encouragement?

Sara

Yeah, exactly. The facial expression of an s actually causes the I to think that the s is incredibly engaged in the conversation when really they're not so much. Yeah. And so if you don't leave time for an s and tell them it's their turn to talk, you will never hear from them. And who knows?

Wendy

The s got the same job as you do. You did. If your peers on a team, they're as smart as you are, their ideas are as good as yours and you will never hear them. And they secretly resent you for not giving everybody an equal amount of time to talk because they prize fairness over entertainment. They disvalue you for not giving everybody equal time.

Sara

And I. I'm gonna say something here. Hi. And I'm so sorry. I do.

I don't mean to be destroying worlds right now. I don't. But I know that you think that you are the best storyteller that exists in the world and that all of the other people who tell stories are somehow just really bad at it. But there's no objective, really good storyteller. It's entirely subjective.

All of it is entirely subjective. So I know that you think you tell the best stories, but there are definitely people in the world who think you tell the worst stories. They're the other high eyes because they think their stories are best. It's all subjective. And listen.

Hi. You have a powerful enthusiasm drive when it's focused on the central question, making sure everyone is heard and getting the best idea developed. It can move mountains. Your D, S and C teammates will like you so much more, not less. And unless you pay attention to your own behaviors, you won't even notice that you're not listening to other people's ideas.

Wendy

We don't experience the world as the world is. We experience it through the filter of our brain, our own brain. So you have to start noticing what you're doing. We filter out anything that's troubling to us, like, literally, if we're doing something that we wouldn't approve of, our brain tells us we're not doing it. It's weird.

Like, you're probably telling yourself, I didn't go off in tangents in meetings, and if you have a meeting that's recorded, go watch it, because we. I would take that bet that you do. You have to be paying attention to what you're actually doing and saying and not what you're telling yourself you're doing and saying. In order to focus on the task at hand, you have to be present and listening to your own voice, not being in your head and listening to what's going on in there because your own brain is telling you you're doing better than you are. That's absolutely it.

Sara

And you're no better at focusing your work efforts than you are at focusing your words when you're having a conversation. The thing is, hi. You prefer to jump from project to project, always in the ideation and initiation phase, but not the boring parts like planning and execution and, heaven forbid, implementation and closing. How dull. Ew.

No one wants to do that. So what that means is you might just pop back in for launch because that's exciting, and then leave because you'd rather be somewhere, anywhere else than doing the humdrum, day to day actual implementation of some of these projects. But we work in teams because in a group, we have a wider range of strengths than one person has alone. That's why we get together in groups, and that's why organizations exist. So, yes, your teammates are there to make up for your weaknesses.

Wendy

You know, that's part of it. But that doesn't get you off the hook entirely. That doesn't mean you don't have to do some boring parts. Yeah, exactly. You have to.

You have to pull your own weight if you want to be thought of as the cool guy that you want to be thought of as. Because otherwise you're the lazy guy who starts things and leaves everyone else to clean up the mess that you leave behind. Is that the reputation you want? I think not. Yeah.

Sara

Not if you want to have good relationships with colleagues, that's for sure. Because, I mean, it seems perfectly logical when you say it out loud, Wendy. Of course, other people don't love working with people who just leave the boring stuff for them to complete. Of course we don't. I mean, it makes complete sense.

Wendy

And sure, like a high c loves. I was going to say boring. Details. Yeah, yeah, details. Sorry.

High cs. Yeah. But they. They like the spreadsheets and the numbers and the detail. But that.

That doesn't mean that there isn't boring work in that for them, too. You know, there's. There's always work that nobody wants to do and everybody has to do their fair share of it. Well, that's the thing. And everybody wants to have a little bit of a role in launch activities, right?

Sara

Everyone wants to be appreciated. And the problem is eyes again, you swoop in for the appreciation and excitement phases. This is going to sound worse than I mean it to, but essentially sucking all the air out of the room and taking all of the excitement for yourself and then leaving and then no one else feels the excitement. You've taken it and they're just left with the day to day. We all need a little bit everything if we're going to do this well together as a group.

And folks, note, none of this is a medical diagnosis. This is all about visible behaviors happening on the spectrum of normal behavior. Disc was based on Marsden's work. The emotions of normal people. This isn't a diagnosis.

Wendy

Yeah, I comes the closest to people assuming it's ADHD or ADD or something else. That's not what it is. This is within the. Not that people with ADHD are not normal, but that it's within the realms of things that are not medical. So if you think something else, then you should see a doctor, because we're not doctors.

Sara

Oh, we are so not doctors. So I haven't given you some things to think about while you're in meetings next week about whether or not you're going off on tangents. We will give you that to think about. And we'll come back next week with part two with some more things to mitigate your behaviours, which are, unfortunately, destroying relationships with your teammates.

Wendy

And we'll come back next week with part two with some more things to mitigate your behaviours, which are, unfortunately, destroying relationships with your teammates.