Making Personality Profiles Work in Your Organization

Robert Amberg:

This is Strategy That Works where we discuss practical solutions to companies’ most complex challenges. I’m your host Robert Amberg, chief marketing officer at Jabian Consulting. Let’s dive in.

All right, hey, everyone. Welcome to the podcast. Today we’re talking about personality profiles, specifically the DISC system and how leaders can help their teams recognize and work within profiles for better communication, efficiency, and teamwork. We’re joined today by Bill Jagrowski, Jabian Consulting’s current chief operating officer and long-time management consultant. Bill, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for being here.

Bill Jagrowski:

Thanks, Rob. It’s great to be here.

Robert Amberg:

Awesome. Let’s maybe just start with the basics. What is a personality profile and how did they come about?

Bill Jagrowski:

A personality profile is basically any way to group or characterize an individual. They’ve been around in various forms for a long time since the ancient Greeks. Empedocles had a model that talked about the elements, so he aligned people’s profiles to earth, fire, water, and air. Hippocrates had the four temperaments, so sanguine, choleric, melancholic, and phlegmatic, so that’s been around for thousands of years. Then really in the 20th century you had different models emerge out of psychology, so it was a field that was kind of gaining a lot of traction. In fact, one of the ones that most people are familiar with, the Myers Brigg type indicator, that came out of Carl Jung’s writing. He kind of put people into this notion, how do they receive responses and kind of think or process stuff? Myers Brigg is kind of based on that. Then in the ’20s there’s a guy named William Marston who started to talk about the emotions of normal people, again, psychologist. Out of that emerged the DISC profile, which is another very popular one that kind of divides people in the four categories. Then I think the most recent model that’s coming out is something known as the Big Five, which basically looks at the five dimensions, and you kind of put people on a Bell curve along these five different dimensions. All in all, these are just different models to try and help people understand, how do different personalities interact with situations? How do they process data? How do they think? The theory is, if you understand that, then you can work better with people whether that’s in a work environment or in your personal life.

Robert Amberg:

Makes a lot of sense. When we look at the different models, I know you just gave a quick highlight of some of their differences, but from a practical application standpoint do some work better for different situations? You mentioned hiring versus kind of a personality aptitude. What’s kind of the main differences there?

Bill Jagrowski:

Each model is a little bit different. My personal view is that if you look at something like Myers Briggs, that is much more a model focused on how people think and feel. Something like the DISC profile or the Big Five really focuses on observable behavior of how people act. I think as we’ve gotten better at observable science and kind of a little bit more objective measures, some of those act-based models tend to be a lot more empirical, but there are devotees of all these different models. You’ll encounter them depending on what kind of company you’re working with or what kind of culture the company has.

Robert Amberg:

Cool. Today we’re going to focus a little bit more on DISC.

Bill Jagrowski:

Yeah.

Robert Amberg:

Break that down for us. Give us a little background on what is DISC? What’s it stand for?

Bill Jagrowski:

Yeah. DISC, it essentially groups people into four categories, Dominance, Influence, Steadiness and Compliance. The phrase DISC, D-I-S-C, is basically the first letter of the model, each of those different categories. What you essentially do is you, based on that person’s personality or how they’re going to act in different situations, the Dominance idea is this person who’s sort of extroverted, fast-paced, very direct, Influence is also extroverted, but they tend to be a little bit more people-oriented, big idea kind of folks. Steadiness is a little bit introverted, but they’re more focused on long-term relationships and this notion of stability, and then Compliance is more introverted, very focused on tasks, and data, and precision.

Robert Amberg:

Most people are probably made up of all of these to some extent.

Bill Jagrowski:

Yeah, I think that’s actually a really good point. Whenever you get into these, you know, it’s a model. The truth is that people fall on a Bell curve, on a distribution. In different situations, people might exhibit one kind of style, and in other situations they might exhibit a different style. The reality is that nobody is pure one of these four things. Nobody is just a pure Dominance or a pure Compliance. They’re going to be various mixtures of those different things, and some of those things are counter to each other. In essence, people are a mixture of those, but they might express or show one of those different personalities more commonly than they would another.

Robert Amberg:

Sure. Without getting into the deep specifics of this, you mentioned this is observable behavior and what not. How does someone determine what they are? Is this is a observable, like a professional observes someone, or they have to take a test? How is that determined?

Bill Jagrowski:

Typically, what you’ll see is a survey that’s done. You’ll fill out a survey, and it’ll say, “Okay, which of these words describe you and how much do they describe you?” Some of the models will also have other people, where they’ll have other people describe. I’m going to do an assessment of Rob, but I’m going to ask five people who work with Rob, “How would you describe Rob?” The idea being that sometimes how people describe themselves or think of themselves isn’t consistent with how other people observe or see them. Typically, to the question, it’s a series of questions that you go through. A lot of times it’s adjectives or words that describe how does this person act in a specific situation? Then from that, there’s correlations drawn from those descriptions and those words to the different pieces of the model. That’s generally how you get a read from a response standpoint.

Robert Amberg:

Sure.

Bill Jagrowski:

There’s a subjective way, which is just the old-fashioned way, which is just to observe people. You can certainly pick up a lot by doing that. Really, one of the concepts is if you have any of these models in the back of your head, and you’re observing their behavior on your own, you can usually make a read on that person and have a better understanding based on things they exhibit, traits that they exhibit of some of their preferences and things that they might react to better or react poorly to.

Robert Amberg:

Where is that usually personified in real life? Where can we see an example of that?

Bill Jagrowski:

How do you mean?

Robert Amberg:

You observe someone. We were talking earlier about how sometimes you can assign people a personality type based on a character of some movie or show.

Bill Jagrowski:

Yeah. That’s a trick that I employ because there’s so many models and so many different things floating around that, to me, one of the easiest things to do is if you can kind of personify. In the case of DISC, if you personify each of those four profiles with an individual, that just makes it easier for me on how I should actually think or respond to that person. For example, Dominance, I assign the way General Patton is portrayed in the movie Patton. I think it was George C. Scott plays that role, so very extroverted, fast-paced, direct kind of person. Very forceful, big ego, ambitious, driving, which is a great trait for a general trying to move a bunch of soldiers across Europe to liberate it. That’s kind of when I meet people who I think maybe exhibit traits comparable to how Patton is, then that makes me go back and think about, okay, how do you deal with somebody like that? Generally, you’re going to want to be efficient. You’re going to want to be clear and concise. You want to emphasize results and the bottom line. Generally, you want to provide them with options, not opinions because they want to make a decision and just move quickly.

Robert Amberg:

Sure. Let’s maybe go through that exercise just for people.

Bill Jagrowski:

Sure.

Robert Amberg:

I should say I think it’s a really smart way to do it. If you can assign these either historical figures or characters, specifically characters, largely because if you think about when a screenwriter is writing, they are absolutely thinking about this character, and they don’t have a lifetime to develop someone. They have very specific traits that they’re writing for, and so in the case of how Patton was characterized in the movie, they are writing for that personality style. They’re making him say and do things that are consistent with that to build that character, so that’s a good way to go. Who do you put as the I in DISC?

Bill Jagrowski:

Yeah, so influence, the character that I come back with is Tony Stark.

Robert Amberg:

From The Avengers.

Bill Jagrowski:

From The Avengers, right, so Iron Man, extroverted.

Robert Amberg:

Check.

Bill Jagrowski:

Sense of humor.

Robert Amberg:

Check.

Bill Jagrowski:

Enthusiastic. Big picture kind of person. I guess he’s kind of an interesting character because even though he’s a big picture sort of person, he’s also this guy who’s tinkering, so there’s a little bit of a detail-oriented person, which may or may not comport with somebody who’s kind of pure influence, but kind of impulsive. When you’re dealing with somebody like that they have big ideas. You really want to understand and get to their big ideas and give them an environment where they can kind of share that. You also know that if you come in, and you’re controlling the conversation with somebody like that, that’s not going to work out very well. If you’re too focused on numbers that are kind of getting in the way of sort of the big picture, that probably isn’t going to work out the best. That’s generally, again, just an approach or a mental framework to use when you’re dealing with somebody that is that kind of inspirational sort of leader and adjusting your own personality to work with them.

Robert Amberg:

Sure. All right, so what about the S?

Bill Jagrowski:

Yeah, so for Steadiness there’s probably a lot of characters that can do it. The one that I land with is Andy Dufresne from Shawshank Redemption.

Robert Amberg:

Right, great movie.

Bill Jagrowski:

A little bit old, but…

Robert Amberg:

No, one of my favorite movies.

Bill Jagrowski:

Yeah, mine too. A lot of people seem to like it. Again, this idea is somebody who’s focused on stability, really calm and patient. Spoiler alert, he takes a while to break out of prison.

Robert Amberg:

He breaks out?

Bill Jagrowski:

Yeah, the version I saw. The idea is he enacts that plan with a lot of patience and a lot of deliberateness. He brings calm into this fairly chaotic prison environment. We’ve been talking about these models. You can apply them to work situations. You can apply them to personal relationships. Certainly, in a work situation, if you’re working with somebody that’s like an Andy Dufresne, if you come in and you rush right into business, or if you try and be domineering, that’s just not going to go over very well. You got to build trust, build relationship. That, to me, would be Steadiness.

Robert Amberg:

C?

Bill Jagrowski:

C, again, in the DISC profile, stands for Compliance. This is somebody who likes order and procedure. Maybe not the best analogy, but the Compliance person I come up with is C3PO from Star Wars, so not even a person.

Robert Amberg:

Close enough though, he’s a droid.

Bill Jagrowski:

Yeah. The idea is tends to be somebody who’s a little bit more introverted, tends to follow the rules, but very math-centric, very detail-oriented, likes proof, tends to be cautious, can be very diplomatic. Again, somebody like that, you’re going to have to have data that substantiates what you think and why because they’re not going to feel comfortable making a decision unless they have that. Again, with that style, if you come in, and you’re too casual, too lighthearted, and not kind of overly friendly in a way, for them, that makes them feel uncomfortable or maybe a little bit suspicious about you.

Robert Amberg:

Kind of like the opposite of the I, the Tony Stark.

Bill Jagrowski:

A little bit.

Robert Amberg:

You sell Tony on the idea. He loves it, let’s go run with it.

Bill Jagrowski:

Yeah.

Robert Amberg:

With C3PO, it’s much more here’s the facts. Here’s how it’s going to work, how it’s going to play out.

Bill Jagrowski:

Yeah. You tend to find a lot of these models, they set up as sort of extreme opposites of each other. Yeah, exactly right, compliance, a pure compliant person, which there really isn’t, but if you had somebody like that, they would be very, very different than a pure influence kind of person. The reality is you have to figure out how to observe cues that people give you to figure out, what are their preferences? Then based on those preferences, you’re going to be more or less successful, depending on how you approach them in a situation.

Robert Amberg:

Cool. You talk about how to approach them in a situation. A lot of the times this is used for work-based stuff.

Bill Jagrowski:

Yeah.

Robert Amberg:

How are these most useful at work?

Bill Jagrowski:

There’s a couple areas where I’ve seen a lot of clients use these. The first is in hiring, so talent acquisition, just understanding the nature of the person. Again, I don’t think that there’s any one particular style that’s better or worse than the others. They have strengths and weaknesses, but if you’re hiring somebody, just having the basics of understanding what kind of person are you getting, and how does that fit into the role or the job? If I were hiring for a CPA or an accountant of some kind, to your point earlier about the difference between compliance and influence, that’s a field that requires you to be a little bit more exacting, a little bit more precise and detail-oriented. If you’re hiring somebody who’s really high I, they may self-select out of that career to begin with, but that probably isn’t going to be the best fit. Typically, in talent acquisition, it’s understanding versus fit, but it can be used for fit. The second area in addition to talent acquisition is just sort of team dynamics. Again, as we said earlier nobody is a pure any of these things, but in any team you’re going to find that folks have different alignments to each of these different models. On any team, you’re going to have folks who are more dominant. Some are more Steadiness, some are more Compliance, et cetera. If people are working together, if they’ve stepped back and sort of done this kind of assessment, it helps them understand each other a little bit better, and it can contribute to improved team dynamics.

Robert Amberg:

While the DISC profile is not an aptitude test, it is definitely, like you said, a culture fit and will give you an idea. You don’t want to throw three high Ds into a group of high Ds. That probably wouldn’t work.

Bill Jagrowski:

It would create some interesting dynamics. It would create some challenges.

Robert Amberg:

Yeah.

Bill Jagrowski:

In addition to those two areas, it also is useful if you’re going to be collaborating with clients or customers. I think a lot of sales folks intuitively do this. They get a read on people, and they’re able to … They’re listening with their eyes as much as with their ears, and they understand, what are certain people’s preferences based on just things they say, or things that they have on the wall or on their desk? If you’re working with a client, so in our work we’re a professional services firm, consulting firm. If you’re working with clients, and you can better understand their styles, then how you work with them to come up with solutions, how you work to present information and share recommendations, all that stuff can flow downhill from understanding what their preferences are. In reality, in a lot of situations, you’re not going to be presenting to just one person. There’s going to be a room full of people or maybe there’s two or three big folks making decisions and being able to understand what she or he, how they’re going to respond to that information and data. It’s just, it makes you a more effective person.

Robert Amberg:

Yeah. I don’t know, this really is kind of a small tangent, but you mentioned salespeople walking into someone’s office or see visually that these traits can be demonstrated by what people choose to have in their office, have in their home, whatever. A bunch of family photos, what not, might say something different than somebody who only has either bare walls or the Periodic Chart, type of thing.

Bill Jagrowski:

Yeah, the Periodic Table of Elements is maybe a giveaway, but an interesting anecdote. I had a meeting a number of years ago with a client, and it was the first time I was meeting them, came in their office. We ended up talking for 40 minutes about a poster on the wall. Now the fact that they would talk 40 minutes about a poster on a wall is indicative of their style anyway, but yeah. I think people do, not consciously, but they give those signals. Is it a picture of their family? Is it diplomas? Is it awards that they’ve won? Is it them with a lot of celebrities? Is it pictures of nature? Those are things that that’s information unless they had somebody that was decorating for them, which is my case because it would be a mess otherwise.

Robert Amberg:

Nice. If people are interested in kind of figuring out how they apply this or where they can kind of learn more about it, what do you recommend they do?

Bill Jagrowski:

I guess I’d recommend a couple steps. First, I think you have to figure out the scope. What are you trying to accomplish with this? Is this something that you’re going to use in your hiring practices? Is it something you’re going to use with the sales organization? Is it going to be something you use with the leadership team, or are you trying to influence your internal culture? I’d first figure out, if you’re interested in this, and you’ve never applied it as a company, okay, how do you want to apply it? Then I think the second thing is it makes sense to do a little bit of investigation and figure out which of these models make the most sense to apply whether it’s Myers Briggs or the DISC profile, the Big Five. Whichever one makes the most sense for you to use, just do a little bit of research. There are firms that really specialize and focus on how do you embed this into your organization? Then I think you pick one, and you pick an area, and then you pilot it. It’s going to be something that if it’s done right, it’s going to help you as an organization, so you might as well have a big of a structured plan of okay, I’m going to go into this area, but let’s pick a small group. Let’s just say you were doing something for a whole sales force, I’d pick a subset of that team and start applying and see how it rolls out, and then tweak it and roll it out to the broader organization.

Robert Amberg:

Excellent, awesome. Bill, really great information today. Thank you so much for being here. Appreciate having you on the podcast.

Bill Jagrowski:

Pleasure to be here.

Robert Amberg:

Excellent. Look forward to talking to you again soon.