You’ve recently started a new job in a new company and so you’ve decided to host a dinner party for your new colleagues at your home, to get to know them a bit better.
You are both nervous and excited and you want to make a good first impression. You decide to make your famous Tagliatelle Carbonara for dinner. It’s your favourite, so there is no doubt it would be theirs too.
You spend the entire day slaving away in the kitchen. Making the pasta from scratch, cleaning the house, and polishing the fancy cutlery that you only use for important occasions.
Your new colleagues start arriving for dinner and everyone settles down at your table to eat.
Out comes the food and there are some awkward shuffles and dead silence.
What is going on?
Well, out of the 6 people you invited.
- One of them is a vegetarian and cannot eat the bacon or egg in the pasta
- One of them is lactose intolerant and cannot eat the milk based sauce
- One of them is celiac and cannot eat the pasta
What a disaster!
If you had just known ahead of time about these people’s dietary requirements, the situation would have been very different.
What has this situation got to do with behaviour profiling? A lot actually.
Firstly, many of us tend to fall into the trap that everyone around us thinks like us. They like what we like, they are motivated and get triggered by the same things. Doesn’t everyone enjoy a good bowl of Tagliatelle Carbonara? This, of course, is untrue and can get us into trouble.
Once we understand this concept, we are able to be more curious about the people around us. How they think and how they tick.
Why would you want to do that?
If we know more about how the people around us operate we can communicate better with them. We start to understand them better. We have more empathy and patience with them. We can establish realistic expectations of them and we can start to build trusting and loyal relationships.
Behaviour profiling is a tool that we can all use to help us understand ourselves and then understand the people around us.
Extended DISC profiling will not tell you if they eat pasta or not, but it will share with you some of these gems.
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Some people prefer clear, detailed instructions before starting off a new project and others will jump in and figure it out as they go
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Some people like to work in teams and others independently
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Some people need to be motivated by others and some people are intrinsically motivated
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Some people naturally like to lead while others follow
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Some people love change and get super excited about the idea of change, other people need to feel safe during the change process
If you knew these unique details about your team mates, employees, colleagues , how would it influence your relationship with them? How would it improve your interactions?
Hand on heart, if you used the tool properly, it would make a world of difference to you and to them.
Instead of trying to work blindly or assume, encourage your team to get profiled. Then use these learnings to improve your communications with them. You won’t be sorry
Nicole is a certified professional coach as well as a certified trainer, advanced assessor and coach mentor. Based in Auckland, she provides a range of coaching options, from individual business owner and management coaching, group and team coaching workshops to personal coaching. Her coaching practice is aligned to the ICF ethos and ethics. Need to hire a professional coach? Contact Nicole [email protected]
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