DataDome Blog

There’s nothing like a summer garage sale to clear the clutter and pocket a little cash before the back to school season is in full swing. What kind of insight can we glean when we look at preparations for this common activity through the lens of DISC behaviors?

It’s no surprise with her high D DISC profile that Dianne has driven her family toward a big goal to accomplish this weekend: empty out the garage and the basement – it’s garage sale time! She’s got the whole family mobilized and she’s already thinking about the new sofa she’s going to buy with all the proceeds.

Her husband Stan, the high S, is a bit conflicted, he agrees it should be a family project, but he likes the comfort of the old sofa. In fact he’s been dragging his feet all week as Dianne has been pushing her agenda. Every item she wants to get rid of he feels nostalgic about, but since his wife and his kids all want to do this he doesn’t want to make waves.

A DISC assessment of Dianne and Stan’s daughter, Catherine, would definitely reveal her high C DISC style. She’s almost as excited about the garage sale as her mom – she always been agitated by her brother’s chaos and clutter and sees the sale as her big chance to restore order. She’s been diligently preparing an inventory list and price tags, and is giving instructions to her brother on how to properly record each sale so there is no confusion about procedure.

Ian, Catherine’s brother, has a high I DISC behavioral style, and he’s also been looking forward to the garage sale. He’s told all of his friends to come over, that it is going to be the best garage sale ever, and he is looking forward to seeing all the neighbors on Saturday – he’s certain it will be just like a big block party.

So how will the big sale go? Will high D Dianne drive the sales or drive her family crazy? Will high S Stan, surrender his favorite sweater to the cause or will he sneak it back off the table and into the drawer where he’s always kept it? Will high C Catherine’s site plan for optimal layout of the driveway be adhered too? Will she arrange the old bicycles by size, color, or number of gears? Will high I Ian’s gregarious nature help keep the buyer’s entertained, or will he disappear when his friends decide to go to the mall? What about rain? Find out more in our next installment of World According to DISC, where the behavior is predictable, but the plot lines are full of surprises….

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Last week the entertainment industry was surprised by the announcement that Ellen DeGeneres was leaving American Idol after being part of just one season on the highly popular show. So what’s behind this move? Well if we look at it from the vantage point of the World According to DISC it becomes clear that we are seeing some classic High I behavior:

DeGeneres was quoted in Variety as saying, “I also realized this season that while I love discovering, supporting, and nurturing young talent, it was hard for me to judge people and sometimes hurt their feelings.” This is a common sentiment for those whose DISC assessment reveals a high measure in the Influence (or simply, “I“) category. High I‘s tend to avoid social rejection – they don’t like to make people feel uncomfortable nor do they like to feel socially uncomfortable themselves. Some of the negative attitudes and harshness associated with the show’s critiques would cause stress for someone with an I-oriented DISC profile as Ellen appears to display.

In the same article Ellen DeGeneres is also quoted on how she left things with the show’s producers, “I told them I wouldn’t leave them in a bind and that I would hold off on doing anything until they were able to figure out where they wanted to take the panel next.” Again this fits right into familiar High I territory – there is a strong impulse for the High DISC style to avoid being seen as “the bad guy,” they would prefer to part on good terms and do what they can to ensure that they will continue to be well thought of even in a situation such as quitting.

It is not hard to glance at our DISC adjective chart to see words under the “I” column that are commonly associated with Ellen, such as: gregarious, pleaser, warm, enthusiastic and magnetic. However, much as we would love to have Ellen DeGeneres visit Data Dome and take one of our DISC assessments, these World According To DISC observations made here are based solely on her general media presence and some of her quotes in the entertainment press.

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The sport of college basketball recently noted the passing of a legendary coach and highly esteemed teacher: John Wooden – a man who not only succeeded as a respected and winning coach, but one who also exhibited a different behavioral style than that which is stereotypically associated with college basketball coaches.

When one thinks of a big-time basketball coach many assume this will be a fiery and dominating personality, highly goal-oriented like a Mike Krzyzewski or the at times volatile Bobby Knight. Wooden, by contast, was described as “self-controlled” and “detail-oriented”. In the NBC Sports obituary Michael Ventre wrote that “Wooden’s attention to detail was almost as legendary as the Wizard of Westwood himself. He instructed his players how to put on their socks and shoes in order to cut down on the incidence of blisters.” Sounds like the adjectives associated with a High C, doesn’t it? In the same article he is described as being “humble, practical and unpretentious” – not the first adjectives that come to mind if one is assuming the stereotype of the High D coach.

While the sports world is saddened to say good bye to John Wooden we would like to thank this role-model for demonstrating that there are many paths to success and leadership and that the dominance of the high D isn’t the only behavioral style capable of achieving great results.

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It’s festival season in Atlanta and over the weekend I indulged in one of my favorite treats of the outdoor food court: kettle corn. There is just something about fresh kettle corn that is magically addictive. The sweet and the salty playing off of each other in that perfect crunch. It’s not just one flavor, it is the balance of two strong notes that make the kettle corn such a sweet and savory symphony. It sort of reminds me of DISC.

DISC? What does DISC have to do with kettle corn? When we talk about DISC it is often our habit to explain things in the simplest term. We isolate each of the behavioral categories, the D, the I, the S and the C, and discuss each as if they existed in a vacuum as a shorthand for revealing the attributes and adjectives associated with each behavioral measure. It is often a necessary conceit as time and available space seldom allow for an article or chart to go into an analysis of every possible permutation and gradation in the DISC spectrum. Even when we’ve discussed the low-end of DISC scores (The Low Side of Stress Styles) we’ve simplified the discussion by treating each of the four categories as if they were the only one reflecting the behavior of an individual. However, just like kettle corn, real people are seldom just one flavor.

In the past we’ve discussed the importance of understanding your low scores as well as your highs (DISC: Get to know your low). It is also important to not just focus on your most dominant score (the one furthest from “the line” whether that is above or below), but also pay attention to what’s revealed in all four categories. It is not unusual for an assessment to reveal that not just one, but two or more areas are significant in understanding a complete behavioral profile.

What’s the salty to your sweet? Are you a high I with an almost as high S or high D + low I? If you want to get the full crunch out of your assessment it pays to understand the interplay of all the behavioral flavors. Now pass the kettle corn – I’m hungry for more!

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It is hard to miss all the news lately about Facebook and the privacy concerns that juggernaut of the social media world has raised. From the BBC’s report of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s admission that he “missed the mark”, to reports in BusinessWeek, PC World and many other news outlets, not to mention countless blogs, it is clear that Facebook has stumbled and the whole issue of online privacy is now front and center in many users’ minds.

Here at Data Dome we like to look at these kind of topical issues from the perspective of the classic DISC behavioral styles as a means of helping you understand how your employees, or friends and family, might be interacting with social media from a privacy perspective:

Meet Darlene, a high D. She used to consider Facebook a time-waster, but she joined when enough of her clients were there that she felt it would be productive. She got angry when she read accusations that Facebook is being cavalier with user’s private information: If there is one thing she can’t stand it is feeling that she has been taken advantage of. She went right to her profile to lock down her private information, but found the process too cumbersome (patience is not one of her virtues) and gave up, next she tried to delete her account, but that was too cumbersome too, so she simply stopped logging into her account. She has now flagged all social media friend requests as spam.

And then there is Ira the high I. He joined Facebook the very first time a friend invited him. He also tends to skip the details so he didn’t pay much attention to privacy settings when he made his account. He’s been having so much fun playing social games on Facebook and reconnecting with past friends, alumni, and co-workers that he has essentially built his life story online. He’s not happy about the privacy issues in the news, but doesn’t want to abandon all his friends. He won’t move his profile until most of his friends move theirs.

Sandra the high S might surprise some of you. Sandra didn’t join Facebook until most of her family insisted that it was the best way to share family pictures. Some might think that despite any negative press she wouldn’t quit because that would mean making a change. Although she has a real aversion to change and will not normally buck the status quo, in this case her behavior is more strongly influenced by her protective attitude toward her close friends and family. She feels that this flip-flopping on privacy practices and Facebook’s alleged “apologize after rather than ask permission before” attitude on the subject threatens the safety of the relationships she most cares about. Her account is now cancelled (and she might not try another social media site for a very long time).

Last but not least is Charles the high C. Charles was also reluctant to join Facebook, but he gave it a try because he is a model train enthusiast and belonged to a club that had setup a Facebook page to share information on historical routes and timetables and to post photos of train setups so members could rate them according to historical accuracy. He was very thorough creating his original profile, read the terms of service letter for letter, and created the precise profile he wanted. Thus when Facebook enacted changes to the privacy status without prior warning, he felt that they had broken protocol. Feeling a need to reassert control, he first went step-by step through the process of reconfirming every privacy detail of his account. Then, once he was satisfied that his account was now secure, he went ahead and eliminated his profile.

Facebook is front and center in the online privacy debate, but every day we are presented more opportunities and innovative ways to connect with each other online. Tools and their repercussions are constantly evolving at a faster pace than our behavioral styles. We often take a look at the lighter-side of DISC behavior in this ongoing World According to DISC series, but we encourage you to not take your online privacy lightly. No matter what your behavioral style it is far easier to share information online than it is to hide it away again once it has been shared.

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You know we like to have a little fun here at Data Dome, especially with this World According to DISC series of posts and articles. We like to take look at some illustrative examples of the four key behavioral categories when they are expressed in the extreme and conjecture on how these behaviors could be expressed in familiar scenarios. We hope you find them both instructive and humorous – particularly if you recognize a little bit of yourself in any of the behavioral examples. This post however deals with serious business: Mother’s Day.

Yes the holiday that built the greeting card industry, the day that’s bigger than Christmas in the floral world, the day of overcooked pancakes served in bed and overloaded phone lines, the day we collectively celebrate our moms, even Mother’s Day is not immune to the revealing power of a DISC behavioral profile:

Consider for example Danny the High D – he’s set up his mom in the best retirement community in Florida and he’s already told his assistant to arrange for two dozen roses and a fruit basket to be delivered to her on Sunday. He won’t be going down to visit himself because he’s got to whip his sales team into line during the mandatory 7am sales meeting he instituted for every Monday morning and he just won’t have the time to get back and forth. But don’t worry his son is under strict orders to remind him to call her before noon on Sunday. Interestingly Doris, his High D mom ended up sending the delivery guy back to exchange the roses for some “decent looking flowers”, because she’s not going to let some cheap florist pull one over on her hard-working and important son.

Now by contrast Isabel the High I hasn’t bought any flowers. She hasn’t remembered yet that it is Mother’s Day, because she misplaced her planner, which was mostly blank, but was in a cool shade of pink-dyed leather that people always remarked on so she liked it as a conversation starter. Coincidentally she happened to call her mom anyway, and has been chatting happily with her for the last hour and a half without even realizing the occasion. Her mom, Irene, is also a high I and suddenly had to rush off the phone when she realized she was late for the garden club meeting (which had been rescheduled anyway, but Irene hadn’t checked her email in a couple of days).

Stan the High S on the other hand traveled to his hometown to see his mom like he does every year. He always flies Delta with his family and then rents a sedan from Enterprise every year. This year they were out of sedans and he was very upset about it, but he didn’t want to upset the person at the counter. He ended up getting a subcompact, which is what the rep at the counter recommended even though he thought the mini-van might be more practical for the weekend, but the rep guaranteed that the subcompact is easier to park and that the kids and the luggage would all fit fine so Stan didn’t want to make a fuss. Stan’s mom, Stella, is also a High S. She dutifully stayed in bed on the big morning awaiting her breakfast even though she had already been awake for 2 hours – she didn’t want to break the family tradition.

Catherine the High C arranged a month ago for a bouquet to be delivered at exactly 10am on Sunday morning. She chose irises because her research had shown her that for her mom’s region of NJ this weekend was the optimal blooming time for locally grown irises. She’s planning to call her mom at precisely 10:15am because her analysis of past call logs have shown that is the most likely time to reach her mom still at home, but not still asleep. Charlotte, her High C mom, loved the irises when they arrived, but noted one had a longer stem than the others. She pulled out her tape measure, verified the length of each flower stem, trimmed the excess off the longer plant, remeasured to verify they were now all the same length and then put them in a vase.

Okay, so maybe we weren’t that serious. In fact we were hoping to make you smile, but understanding DISC profiles can give you a serious advantage in building stronger, more balanced and effective teams within your company. And remember, no matter what your DISC profile says your behavioral style is… it’s always nice to behave like a good son or daughter on Mother’s Day!

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Well after a lot of hype and anticipation the iPad a.k.a. the “game changer” hit the market and love it or loathe it, Steve Jobs’ new vision for how we interact with computers is making its mark on our culture. Apps are already appearing in abundance and legions of users are taking the plunge with the new device, including our old friends the High D, High I, High S and High C…

The High D was the first in town to get the iPad, but he didn’t wait in line – that’s what assistants are for, right? He wanted THE BEST model, but when his assistant called from the store to ask which configuration to buy he lost patience and just barked at the assistant to “get the job done and get back to work”. First app loaded: Dragon Dictation.

The High I was shopping at the mall the day the iPads came out, but she didn’t know it ahead of time. She just got there and saw a big line outside the store and struck up a conversation with some of the folks in the line. Before long she knew half the line by first name and was having such a good time she ended up at the counter before she realized it – and she just HAD TO show it to her co-workers so she bought it on impulse. Then spent the rest of the day touring the office so all her friends could see it. First app loaded: Facebook.

The High S is just getting comfortable with his desktop and is worried that the office IT department is going to switch him to a laptop, which would mean taking away the desktop computer. He wouldn’t say no of course because he wouldn’t want to upset the technician, but he has no idea how he would be able to get any work done on the new machine, and where would he put his sticky notes? When a friend showed him an iPad he was upset to see him touch the screen – you’re not supposed to touch computer screens, right? First app loaded: N/A, still using Lotus Notes.

The High C pre-ordered her iPad. She read up on the lines that formed when the iPhone was released and used the data to plan a meticulous schedule for an efficient pick-up the day her iPad arrived. She was originally going to pass on the iPad because a line-by-line comparison of specs with several tablet computers and netbooks revealed missing features. In the end her spread-sheet analysis of increased productivity due to the extended battery life won her over to make the purchase. First app loaded: Project Planner.

DISC behavior is seldom this polarized around a single behavioral style, but we hope you found this to be an amusing and informative speculation. Part of the remarkable value of DISC is that understanding a person’s profile can help anticipate behaviors even when someone is shopping for Apple’s hot new gadget!

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It’s that time of year – we’re just a few days away from April 15th, let’s have a little fun and take a look at how our classic DISC behavioral profiles are handling tax season:

The High D – Just called the accountant, doesn’t understand why she can’t drop everything to work on his filing RIGHT NOW. Gave his receipts to an assistant with orders to organize them and deliver them to the accountant.

The High I – Is chatting with all the friends made at their CPA’s office. It’s the third trip there because of forgetting to bring receipts and 1099 forms.

The High S – Finished filing last month like they always do. Was very upset two years ago when their trusted tax accountant retired and they had to start with someone new. Will take a vacation this year with their return just like they have for the last ten years in a row.

The High C – Hasn’t missed a deduction in 20 years. Always files the long form. Thinks popular tax software cuts too many corners. Receipts are neatly filed and cross-indexed by alphabet, date, and project code.

We hope you enjoyed this lighthearted look at how various behaviors measured by DISC might be expressed during tax season. Hopefully you’re all set for Thursday, and as they say… Many happy returns!

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Sometimes around the office we find that people are “reaching their limit” or “at the breaking point”, but we don’t know why or how things got so out of control. Understanding the impact of various situations and how they relate to differing behavioral styles can help you to better understand your coworkers and perhaps recognize and avoid repeating patterns that in the past were inadvertently causing stress levels to rise.

Previously, as part of our “World According to DISC” series we discussed ways in which one can “stress out” a classic High D, High I, High S and High C (The World According to DISC™: How We Stress Someone Out in Style). But what if someone’s most telling category is one in which they score significantly low instead of high?

How to stress out a Low D:
Tell them that they have to “step up and take the reins”. Put them in charge of a team. Let them know that everyone is counting on them to the lead the way.

How to stress out a Low I:
Ask them to cheer up a co-worker or plan an office party. Give them a big enthusiastic pep talk. Give them projects that involve lots of team interaction. Ask them to drum up enthusiasm for a new initiative among the staff.

How to stress out a Low S:
Force them to work a highly repetitive task. Ask them to work a rigid checklist of activity. Make them wait for extended periods. Demand multiple layers of process and approval for very action.

How to stress out a Low C:
Put them on a quality initiative. Tell them that every fact must be rigorously checked and documented. Ask them to provide detailed annotations. Request that they adhere strictly to the facts and avoid injecting opinion.

Behave Responsibly
We certainly don’t advocate setting out to “stress out” your coworkers, but what we hope is that you will find these examples helpful in recognizing that sometimes, without meaning to, we can say or suggest the wrong thing in the wrong way and end up adding significantly to our coworker’s stress levels.

DISC profiles are powerful allies in learning how to adjust your communication and management style to meet the needs of your employees. Without taking the time to learn the styles and how best to communicate to each, it is too easy to find yourself bringing anxiety and stress when you thought you were bringing solutions.

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