Extended DISC® Case-Studies
CASE STUDY: Extended DISC® in Consulting Applications
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Brent Strehlow, President, TMI, Inc.
By Karen Friend, a freelance business writer.
Founded in 1995, TMI, Inc. is a consulting firm based in Dallas/Ft. Worth. TMI improves the success of its clients by providing quality professional development programs, processes and tools for leaders at every level of the organization. In 2001, TMI was selected as the Dallas/Ft. Worth regional affiliate of Extended DISC®. We spoke with Brent Strehlow, President, regarding how they are using Extended DISC® to deliver more effective programs and services to their clients.
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CASE STUDY: Senior Team and Leadership Development
Donna van Alstine, Practice Leader for Canada, Right Management.
By Karen Friend, a freelance business writer.
Right Management is a highly respected consulting and career transition firm. They have been using Extended DISC® for about 36 months with hundreds of individuals from several well known organizations. We spoke with Donna van Alstine, Practice Leader for Canada, about their experience using Extended DISC® and what it is doing for their organization.
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CASE STUDY: Extended DISC® in a Fortune 500 Company
Mike O’Neil, Managing Partner, Leadership Development, Inc.
Interview and story by Karen Friend, a freelance business writer.
Leadership Development, Inc. is a firm that provides its clients with business consulting and tailored solutions for leadership development and organizational effectiveness. Mike O’Neil, Managing Partner, spoke with us about how they have utilized Extended DISC for the last two years within a leadership development program they developed for a large client.
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Case Study: Extended DISC® in a Hospital
Dennise Stricklin, Organizational Development Specialist, DCH Regional Medical Center
Interview and story by Karen Friend, a free lance business writer.
DCH Regional Medical Center has developed a Leadership Development Program that has been nationally recognized by The American Hospital Association Commission on Workforce for Hospitals and Health Systems in a national publication: In Our Hands: How Hospital Leaders Can Build a Thriving Workforce. The program includes the use of Extended DISC.
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CASE STUDY: Extended DISC® in a Government Agency
Christopher (Todd) Jones, Ed.D., MBA, Chief, Division of Training, National Conservation Training Center, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
By Karen Friend, a freelance business writer.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is an 8,000-person public organization. They have been using Extended DISC since 2001. We spoke with the Chief of Training, Christopher Jones, Ed.D., regarding how they are using Extended DISC® as both a leadership development and an organizational development tool to deliver more effective training programs and services within the organization.
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CASE STUDY: Employee Development at a Pharmaceutical Co.
Interview with Cathe Johnson, Ph.D., Director, Diagnostics Division, Asia Pacific Human Resources, Abbott Laboratories
By Solja Nygard Frangos, a freelance writer.
Human resource expert Cathe Johnson, Ph.D. of Abbott Laboratories still remembers what happened when she revealed the results of employees’ Extended DISC questionnaires. “I posted the results – without names – on a big board, and in a few seconds, everyone present had congregated by the board,” Johnson said, laughing. “Everyone, even the few skeptics in that management group of 15 people, was very interested to see everyone’s profile, and they started guessing which profile belonged to whom. It was a neat team building moment.”
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CASE STUDY: Identifying the Detail
There's much more to psychometric profiling than just receiving and reading a report. Here we look at a situation where extra valuable information can be recognised through the identification of a trend in an organisation.
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CASE STUDY: Solving Employee Turnover
Employee turnover is a problem that many managers and companies struggle with. It can be a very frustrating issue because not only is it expensive, but is a constant headache for managers. Here we discuss how thinking outside the square can help.
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CASE STUDY: Improving Team Communication
This is a case about a team in a large financial services organisation, which was successful, yet unable to improve their performance. They needed to move forward but could not. See how they succeeded by improving communication.
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CASE STUDY: Discovering Hidden Elements in Recruitment
Here we have a situation where a large manufacturer prevented a major problem by "looking below the surface" when recruiting for a managerial role. They appeared to have the perfect candidate however there was more to the story.
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CASE STUDY: Enhancing Personal Communication
How a Sales Manager identified his communication problems and adjusted his style. In doing so, he became more productive, increased sales and was much happier in his job.
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Case Study: Extended DISC® in Consulting Applications
Brent Strehlow
President
TMI, Inc.
By Karen Friend, Freelance Business Writer
Founded in 1995, TMI, Inc. is a consulting firm based in Dallas/Ft. Worth. TMI improves the success of its clients by providing quality professional development programs, processes and tools for leaders at every level of the organization. In 2001, TMI was selected as the Dallas/Ft. Worth regional affiliate of Extended DISC®. We spoke with Brent Strehlow, President, regarding how they are using Extended DISC® to deliver more effective programs and services to their clients.
Most of our consultants and a large percentage of our clients use Extended DISC®. We have integrated Extended DISC® into most of our training programs and use it in almost all of our services to our clients in one way or another. Extended DISC® enables us to objectively assess the behavioral tendencies of people we are working with so we can develop and customize our training programs accordingly. Extended DISC® helps us assess both the strengths and weaknesses of an individual or team. With this information, we are able to create training programs that more accurately target their specific needs. Having these tools allows us to be more effective with our clients, which ultimately saves them both time and money.
Just this last year, we assessed over 1,000 people using Extended DISC®. It’s a valuable part of our program. We recently used Extended DISC® to assess the President and executive team for the western division of the largest travel company in the world. With Extended DISC®, we were able to help this team improve their ability to communicate, to collaborate and to make effective decisions in leading their organization. Extended DISC® was an important part of assessing the specific needs of this client. By understanding the specific styles of each member of the team, we were able to create very targeted and effective tools for them.
Extended DISC® gives us a competitive advantage because of the accuracy of the reports and the multiple applications it provides. I’m not aware of any other product that has the multiple applications that Extended DISC® provides. We use the tools to help our clients with recruiting, management development, sales, customer service and a variety of other needs. We’ve also been able to certify and license our internal consultants and clients to use the tools, which has been a very positive thing for us.
Extended DISC® has continually exceeded our expectations during the years. We have used MBTI and a number of other products in the past, but we prefer Extended DISC®. We like the balance of its ability to assess both the conscious and unconscious behavioral tendencies of people. Our clients are always amazed with the accuracy of the reports and how easy it is to use. We also like the user-friendly interface of the software, the fact that it is web-based, and that it has an international application.
Extended DISC® not only offers accurate tools and valuable reports, they have gone above and beyond the call of duty on several occasions to meet our needs as customers. They are always prompt and professional and provide excellent customer service.
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Case Study: Senior Team and Leadership Development
Donna van Alstine
Practice Leader for Canada
Right Management
By Karen Friend, Freelance Business Writer
Right Management is a highly respected consulting and career transition firm. They have been using Extended DISC® for about 36 months with hundreds of individuals from several well known organizations. We spoke with Donna van Alstine, Practice Leader for Canada, about their experience using Extended DISC® and what it is doing for their organization.
As an organization, we use several assessment tools. I like Extended DISC® because of the wide range of reports. I had been in search of a different kind of report that addressed teams and one of my staff members discovered Extended DISC®. We tried it and we really liked it – particularly because of its team reports.
Our division does a lot of senior team alignment work and new leader assimilation. We use Extended DISC® to help these teams get to know each other and to help them get beneath the surface to truly understand why they react the way they do in certain situations. We then create programs that help these teams work together much more effectively.
I have been working with a high-tech company that supports the back office for mutual fund organizations. This was a team that worked in silo. They didn’t understand each other’s motivation, drive or interest. They also weren’t very clear about the business case for working together as a team. Using Extended DISC®, I got them to see why they were different and how they could add value to each other if they worked as a team. The conversations of this team have developed to rich conversations and now we are really beginning to change the face of their business. All of this stemmed from understanding themselves better as individuals and as members of the team.
Extended DISC® is a valuable tool. It can be a great resource for a facilitator who knows how to use the results effectively to guide training and team building. Extended DISC® has been fabulous to work with and we are getting great feedback from our clients who are using the tools.
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Case Study: Extended DISC® in a Fortune 500 Company
Mike O’Neil
Managing Partner
Leadership Development, Inc
Interview and story by Karen Friend, a free lance business writer.
Leadership Development, Inc. is a firm that provides its clients with business consulting and tailored solutions for leadership development and organizational effectiveness. Mike O’Neil, Managing Partner, spoke with us about how they have utilized Extended DISC for the last two years within a leadership development program they developed for a large client.
One of our clients is a company that was formed as a result of the merger of two very large Fortune 500 companies. Their business challenge, as a result of this merger, was to rapidly nurture a new leadership culture rooted in the strengths of both legacy organizations. To deliver on this challenge, we created a program for them called “Choosing to Lead.”
The implementation of the Choosing to Lead program will span a five-year period and 25,000 people will go through this program. We’re about 25% through this implementation and it’s proven to be a fabulous success.
The centerpiece of the program is a very intense scenario-based, 3-day, small group seminar. This seminar is prefaced by individual web-based learning and assessment and then is followed up by 26 weeks of e-coaching to reinforce and support the skills in action.
As part of this program, we needed to incorporate a web-based self assessment tool that participants could use to identify their natural behavior styles. We needed a vendor whose product was competitively priced and who would also be flexible to our client’s changing needs. It was absolutely critical to us that the tool came from an established, reliable vendor that knew what they were doing and who would be helpful at troubleshooting and tactical issues. Extended DISC was that vendor and we haven’t been disappointed.
In the last two years, we have generated close to 5,000 Extended DISC personal analysis reports. We find the tool to be very accurate, which continues to add to the credibility of our program. Participants look at the reports and they can’t believe how accurate they are. They all make statements like, “Boy, this is really who I am. This is me.” For a capability tool to be that good really says something about what it took to design and the thinking and constant innovation that goes into that.
While the accuracy of the tool continues to add to the credibility of the program, reliability behind the scenes is equally important. The service and support we receive from Extended DISC is tremendous. In the beginning, they took whatever time was needed to help us get the systems in place and to make it as seamless as possible to the end-user. We were very appreciative of that. We’ve also been very appreciative of the fact that when things go wrong, like a power failure in Helsinki that impacted their servers or things like that, they are very upfront. They give realistic timetables as to when any kind of problem will be resolved and they follow through. I find that very refreshing these days. Extended DISC does business the old fashioned way. They have a lot of respect for the people they serve and they just do it right.
They also listen to their customers. They are constantly trying to push the curve by improving the process and the product. We’ve had one or two upgrades in the two years that we’ve been at this. I was impressed to find that they were nice enough to implement some of the suggestions we’ve made over time with revised releases. This responsiveness reinforces the reliability and really shows their commitment to both the product and their customers.
There are outside measurement firms that come in and interview Choosing to Lead graduates, as well as their managers, to find out whether there have been noticeable changes in behavior or new skills employed. We’ve made several representations that the return on investment of this program will be significant for our client and Extended DISC very much helps us deliver on those promises. Extended DISC is one of the critical tools in our tool bag that helps our participants, and therefore our customer, achieve measurable results.
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Case Study: Extended DISC® in a Hospital
Dennise Stricklin
Organizational Development Specialist
DCH Regional Medical Center
Interview and story by Karen Friend, a free lance business writer.
DCH Regional Medical Center has developed a Leadership Development Program that has been nationally recognized by The American Hospital Association Commission on Workforce for Hospitals and Health Systems in a national publication: In Our Hands: How Hospital Leaders Can Build a Thriving Workforce. The program includes the use of Extended DISC.
In my role as Organizational Development Specialist at DCH Regional Medical Center, I design and deliver training modules as well as conduct team building activities within our organization. We have 4667 employees within the system and have used Extended DISC to assess about 300 of those employees through both our leadership development programs and our team building interventions.
LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT
About two years ago, like many healthcare organizations, we realized that as the nursing shortage became more and more apparent, recruiting and retaining employees was going to become a very important issue to us. We found that most people leave their position because of the relationship between themselves and their direct supervisor and in response to this issue, we embarked on designing a leadership development program.
Since that time, we have seen great success with our program. It has been nationally recognized by The American Hospital Association Commission on Workforce for Hospitals and Health Systems in a national publication: In Our Hands: How Hospital Leaders Can Build a Thriving Workforce.
Extended DISC plays a key role in the second phase of our training program which is focused on interpersonal skills. Participants complete the assessment prior to the workshop and then during the workshop, they learn to interpret their information and how to analyze the behaviors of others. Having these skills allows our leaders to be immediately more effective. They learn how to demonstrate chosen behaviors over natural behaviors and they begin to recognize when that is most appropriate.
Throughout the six sessions in this phase of our program, we practice through scenarios and role play. We write scenarios that are as close to real life as we can possibly make them…things that our leaders would actually face in their own offices in the healthcare system. When we setup these scenarios, we actually include the Extended DISC style of both parties in the scenario. Through these exercises, participants get very accustom to noticing the style of the person they are communicating with and what kind of choiceful behaviors they might want to include in this scenario as they play it out.
We have been very impressed with Extended DISC and with the results we are getting. I appreciate that it is so easy for the participants to understand and to use. After just a few hours together, participants have developed skills that help them identify the styles of others and how to adjust their own behaviors to improve their interactions. It also makes my job easier as a trainer because there is not a lot of subjectivity on my part. Participants complete the assessment online and it’s printed electronically. It’s a very clean process and it’s also very believable because the participants provide the data directly.
Since the addition of our leadership development program, we have seen an increase in our recruitment and retention percentages. While I can’t say that it is absolutely related to Extended DISC, it does certainly play a large part in our series. Participants continually identify Extended DISC as a strength in that phase of the program. They really value learning how to change their preferred behavior to a style that would be more effective for them and the employees that they interact with.
TEAM BUILDING
We’ve also used Extended DISC in team building experiences where we go out and consult with in-tact workgroups. We’ve found it to be very effective with team members and improving group dynamics.
One example of this was when we were working with a department that had a new leader. There had been a bad experience with the previous leader and it had created trust issues within the department. Even with a new leader coming on board, the people in this department had not been able to release what had happened before and were very distrusting.
We used Extended DISC with this department and in the assessments learned something that almost immediately changed the dynamics of this group. The group found that everyone in the department had very similar DISC assessments…including the new leader. They found that their values were very similar and that trust was the utmost important value for everyone….again, including the new leader.
This realization caused a huge shift in the department. You could almost instantly see a change in this group. They were able to talk more openly and engage in a much deeper level of communication because now they knew they all stood for the same thing.
The information gained from Extended DISC can really help a group come together and work as a whole.
Markku and Vikki are the people I’ve worked most with at Extended DISC. They are always there when you need them. They have always taken whatever time is necessary to help us work through anything. One time my computer crashed and I lost my hard drive. I panicked because I had all of our Extended DISC points stored there. However, Vikki helped me work right through it. We reloaded Extended DISC on my computer and because they had tracked everything on their side as well, she was able to get me right back into practice. They have just been super.
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Case Study: Extended DISC® in a Government Agency
- U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Christopher (Todd) Jones, Ed.D., MBA
Chief, Division of Training
National Conservation Training Center
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
By Karen Friend, Business writer.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is an 8,000-person public organization. They have been using Extended DISC since 2001. We spoke with the Chief of Training, Christopher Jones, Ed.D., regarding how they are using Extended DISC® as both a leadership development and an organizational development tool to deliver more effective training programs and services within the organization.
The role of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services’ National Conservation Training Center is two-fold. The first role is to provide technical training to Service employees. The other is to provide leadership and supervisory training as well as organizational development services to the organization. Extended DISC has been hugely successful for this organization. We use it in our leadership development program to increase individual awareness about style and in our organizational development work as a direct tool in conducting interventions with groups and teams.
The business issues that we wanted to address with Extended DISC fell within two main areas. On the leadership development side, the issue was to give participants in leadership development programs an opportunity for greater self awareness of their individual styles which would in turn provide greater self regulation. On the organizational development side, we were looking to improve effectiveness in the team function.
I was first exposed and certified to use Extended DISC as a participant in the 2002 University Associates Intern Program. Subsequent to that, I received in-depth coaching on Extended DISC from a practitioner perspective from Jack Knight – President, University Associates. We then started using Extended DISC with our senior leadership team. The Director of the Fish and Wildlife Service was familiar with the instrument from a previous position within another organization. He felt that it was important to have his senior leadership team go through the Extended DISC process. Since that time, we’ve continued to use it increasingly down line in the organization.
Compared with other assessment tools we have used in the past, I have found Extended DISC to be more comprehensive. The strength of Extended DISC, in my estimation, is the fact that it offers greater specificity to the individual. Additionally, it has an added benefit that other instruments don’t. It looks at how that natural style adjusts as a person perceives what his or her role is in the workplace. That gives a person a more comprehensive understanding. It says, “Here is your ‘natural’ style and here is your ‘adjusted’ style as you think about executing your work role.” It also provides feedback on the implications or the disadvantages of overusing a particular attribute of behavior. Extended DISC is a more holistic instrument. It has excellent psychometric properties. I believe it’s been richly validated and therefore, in my mind, it’s a preferable instrument.
We are currently implementing Extended DISC in several ways within our division. In leadership programs, particularly in our Advanced Leadership Development Program, the first phase of the program is geared toward the participant examining the role of leadership and their self concept as a leader. In trying to connect the individual with the idea of leadership itself, the tool gives a person increased self awareness about their natural style. It allows them to think through and reflect around what that style means with regard to their concept of leadership, how they perceive themselves as a leader, and where their developmental needs are in leadership.
The organizational development use of the tool serves several purposes. Firstly, it provides me, as the internal consultant, with an understanding of the group that I’m walking into and where naturally occurring possibilities of conflict in styles exist within the group composition. I’m getting insight into the makeup of this group and a greater understanding of the behavioral styles of the group composition as a diagnostician walking into that mix of human interaction.
It also provides insight to individuals participating in a group OD session. It’s a safe way for folks to be able to talk and to bring the group together. They begin to understand how they have been clouded in their understanding of why people are interacting the way they are in direct work-related situations. It’s a very warming tool and a mechanism to bring the group to a safer place, to build trust and to then engage in dialog on more sensitive topics that are really impacting the group function.
As a result, when the team now sees these dynamics playing out, they can stop, take a breath and say, “Yes. That’s just a natural dynamic of group interaction as we understand the composition of this group.” By looking at the profile of the group, it’s suddenly easy to understand why this blind spot exists and instead of attributing a bunch of negative stuff, people can sit back and say, “Oh well. This makes sense. That’s why we are strong in these areas and weak here and why we need to make a more conscious effort.”
We’ve had very successful use of the instrument in OD cases where it has raised the awareness of the group and the trust level of the group to the point of avoiding adversarial human resource related claims in the formal process. It’s hard to put a value on what the transaction costs savings is of intervening in a group and moving one or more people away from being so frustrated and so upset about the group dynamic that they pursue dispute resolution through formal mechanisms. I do think there’s an intuitive ROI when the collective system of the human interaction of the organization is improved. I don’t know how you put a dollar amount on that – other than to be able to look at the efficiency and effectiveness of groups working in a more intact way and what that means to overall effectiveness and efficiency in getting the mission accomplished.
The feedback that we’ve received on Extended DISC from our employees has been overwhelmingly positive. From the standpoint of helping individuals understand themselves better, it is a very revealing instrument. It stimulates a tremendous amount of self reflection. From the standpoint of a group environment, the feedback is that it’s a very powerful instrument that gives directly useful information on how to improve the dynamic of the team composition.
Extended DISC North America Inc., and specifically its President Mr. Markku Kauppinen, is the epitome of customer service. Both from the technical standpoint (in terms of operating the product and how to deliver the product with a group) and from a standpoint that goes beyond the technical. Markku’s knowledge of the product is phenomenal…from a validating and reliability level as well…but also from a behavioral/psychological level which helps the practitioner understand what the instrument is saying and how it’s deriving the output. There’s the delivery aspect, but there’s also the content validity aspect of the instrument...and Markku is simply the best.
Overall, the knowledge we have gained as a result of using Extended DISC has provided us a strong collaborative advantage as an organization. This is a benefit that can’t be directly measured, but that has a direct impact on our organization and the people that we serve. As a public organization and as public servants, I believe that as we are better able to understand ourselves and our interactions with others, we are better able to serve.
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Case Study: Employee Development at a Pharmaceutical Co.
Interview with Cathe Johnson, Ph.D.
Director, Diagnostics Division, Asia Pacific Human Resources
Abbott Laboratories
By Solja Nygard Frangos, a freelance writer.
Human resource expert Cathe Johnson, Ph.D. of Abbott Laboratories still remembers what happened when she revealed the results of employees’ Extended DISC questionnaires. “I posted the results – without names – on a big board, and in a few seconds, everyone present had congregated by the board,” Johnson said, laughing. “Everyone, even the few skeptics in that management group of 15 people, was very interested to see everyone’s profile, and they started guessing which profile belonged to whom. It was a neat team building moment.”
Johnson, who works as director of human resources for Abbott’s Diagnostic Division in the company’s Asia Pacific region, used another DISC system for years before switching to Extended DISC earlier this year. Johnson, who got in touch with Extended DISC through University Associates, was looking for a professional system that could fill a need Abbott, one of the world’s largest health care companies, had.
“I believe Extended DISC can serve our needs the best,” Johnson said. “I wouldn’t say we use the system as an assessment tool, like many other human resource personnel seem to do, but as a development tool, and as such, the Extended DISC has worked well. It provides a perspective on how our employees feel about themselves and it seems to do that task accurately.”
Johnson, who moved to Japan in 1995 and worked for Motorola before joining Abbott about two years ago, said the Extended DISC is “packaged nicely and it is convenient to use. I also think this system is more focused on people’s personalities than the other DISC I used was. That system paid more attention to behavior than I believe the Extended DISC does.”
She also likes the fact she can use the Extended DISC herself – an aspect important to anyone working across the sea from the contact person – and stay self-sufficient. “Ease of use is an important thing for me,” Johnson said. “After I was trained to use the Extended DISC, I have been able to do it without help. But if I do happen to have a question or a problem, I can count on the Extended DISC North America ’s customer support. That is a killer combination; to be able to run the system yourself, but at the same time, to be able to get help when you need it.”
Although Abbott, which has about 70,000 employees in 130 countries, uses other similar tools, such as a 360 performance appraisal tool, Johnson said the Extended DISC plays an important role in her division’s human resource tool kit. “The Extended DISC reports are nicely and clearly done and there’s a wide variety of personality profiles,” Johnson said. “Some other systems offer a more limited scale of profiles.”
Johnson, who introduced the Extended DISC first to her division’s management group and is now working with the Asia Pacific Division’s five regional teams, said she would file the Extended DISC under a “development tool.” She is interested in using the system for team development and building, as well as for individual employees’ development.
“One exemplary use is also related to trust between a company’s employees,” Johnson said. “When a new leader comes to the office, one idea is to ask him or her to share his or her Extended DISC profile with the firm’s employees. That can break the ice between the new boss and the employees, and it can also give the employees a chance to know a little bit about the boss’ personality.”
So far, Johnson has introduced “a few hundred employees” to the Extended DISC, but her goal is to have almost 400 people take the assessment before the end of the year. “I just started this past summer and I am not rushing with this,” she said. “But on the other hand, I want both our bosses and their employees to answer the questionnaire, because I believe doing that will benefit the individuals, as well as our teams and the whole company.”
Johnson is not willing to guesstimate what kind of monetary gains her division – or the whole company - has gained from using the Extended DISC. “Monetary gains are not the only benefits related to using the Extended DISC, though,” Johnson, whose employer reached about $17.7 billion in annual sales last year, said. “Besides green dollars, we can also receive what I call ‘blue dollars.’ Improved relationships between the management and employees are blue dollars. Our teams are also likely to be more efficient when they know more about their individual team members and members of other teams. Basically, using the Extended DISC can make us a more efficient company and a better place to work.”
Getting everyone interested in taking the questionnaire was not always easy, though, Johnson said. Some of her colleagues asked Johnson what she had in mind “this time,” when she asked a group of 15 managers to jot down their answers. “Their tone changed after taking the questionnaire, though,” Johnson said. “I gave them their results back about a week before we had a staff meeting, and they could hardly wait until the meeting to discuss their profiles. When I posted everyone’s results on that board at the meeting, it took only seconds before everyone basically rushed to the board to see better. After even the strongest skeptics saw how accurate the results were, they changed their opinions on the Extended DISC. ”
Besides using the system as a development tool, Johnson is thinking about trying it as an intervention tool if one of the division’s teams is in trouble. “The company that will succeed will be the same one that has the best leadership and the best relationships between everyone in the company,” Johnson said. “And to be able to have good leadership and great relationships, everyone at the company needs to know themselves and be aware of their strengths and weaknesses. I believe the Extended DISC helps us raise our self-awareness and self-knowledge and understand others better, too.”
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Case Study: Identifying the Detail
We received a telephone call from a person we thought was the Human Resources Manager of an organisation in one of Australia’s major cities, asking us to process thirty Extended DISC® Personal Analysis Reports for his firm.
He explained that he wanted the whole process to remain confidential and we were to report directly to him. During the process we noticed that twenty-five of the reports showed a tight Profile I and to have some 80% plus with this result was just too unusual to ignore.
So we telephoned our contact and asked him whether he had clear job descriptions for his team, or whether there had been a change in management…..and as an alternative, whether all the reports were being generated for job applicants as part of their recruitment process.
It was obvious that our client was very surprised to receive our call and we wondered whether we might have offended him in some way by asking the questions. He pointed out that the reports never mentioned any of these possibilities. We explained that we had drawn these conclusions from looking at the profiles. After a short silence on the telephone he simply said, “That’s amazing. I have just been appointed CEO of this organisation and I am completing new job descriptions for the thirty people who completed the questionnaire”. He was clearly very impressed!
The main point we learn from this experience is that when completing a series of reports it can be very valuable to:
* Look beyond the obvious
* Treat the project as a whole rather than just focus on individual reports
* Look for trends
In this case our client knew the answer because he was clearly involved in the process. He was looking mainly for job fit, but if, for example, the twenty-five reports had showed a tight Profile II and he didn’t recognise the significance of this indicator (insecurity) then he may well have missed something that was crucial information for management.
Source: http://www.discprofile.com.au/detail.html
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Case Study: Solving Employee Turnover
A 24 hour convenience store firm, was experiencing a 400% turnover in their “graveyard” or third shift. This might not be surprising you could think, but 400% was totally unacceptable because many employees quit their jobs without notice – they simply didn’t show up one day or walked off the job when for some reason they had had enough. In these situations it was straight into crisis mode; an unattended store is not a good thing! For management a call at 2:00 am letting them know that an employee had not shown up is even worse!
As a result, the company decided to conduct an analysis of employees that quit the night shift and the analysis was startling. 87% of the employees that quit were of the same behavioural style and this included those that left without notice and decided just not to turn up! The remaining 13% who were of different styles gave the required notice, which gave management enough time to employ replacements.
The analysis revealed that the managers were employing personable individuals who were likely to get along well with customers. This seemed to make good sense however the reality of the night shift is that there is only a sporadic flow of customers and no co-workers to talk with. It is a lonely job that simply does not fit the behavioural style of the individuals who are good with people and enjoy interacting with others.
Logically, the managers started hiring people that were more suited to the requirements of the night shift – individuals who do not need as much contact with others and who even enjoy the quiet routine of the job. This is of course, something the managers had never considered in the past simply because they were looking for people oriented candidates.
The result? After implementing the new hiring process using Extended DISC® Personal Analysis Reports to choose their new recruits, their employee turnover has dropped from 400% to 50%! Moreover, the analysis is now conducted on the type of store and location in addition to the shift requirements. They have found that some of the original unhappy night shift employees excel in day shifts in other situations increasing sales in those locations.
Source: http://www.discprofile.com.au/employee%20turnover.html
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Case Study: Improving Team Communication
This is a case about a team in a large financial services organisation, which was successful, yet unable to improve their performance. They needed to move forward but could not. The CEO was “almost happy” with the performance of his team, but they were not where he wanted them to be in terms of performance.
The team was made up of the CEO and nine of his direct managers and on the surface, the team’s behavioural style make-up seemed to match well with its goals. The team was comprised of task-oriented individuals who were focused on moving at a fairly fast pace, while maintaining high quality standards. However, below the surface a different story began to emerge. It was a story that explained why the team was not really going anywhere fast.
We looked at the individual personal analysis reports of the executives and they indicated that 50% of the team members expressed a deeper level of emotions that were getting in the way of their performance. More specifically, the personal analysis reports of four of the team members indicated that they were unclear about their own role and felt an uncomfortable level of uncertainty and this was likely caused by:
* A gap between the goal(s) and the executives’ understanding of how to achieve them
* Frequent changes, or perceived changes, in the CEO’s vision
* Lack of understanding what the CEO’s vision actually was
In addition, the personal analysis reports of three of the nine executives indicated that they wanted to have clearer instructions, but were not getting them. This too, created increased uncertainty and anxiety. The executives whose personal analysis reports did not express feelings that their performance was being hindered were all very similar in behavioural style to the CEO.
As is often the case, we all get along and communicate comfortably and effectively with people who are like ourselves and this was what was happening to this team. So what caused the problems? The short answer: the way the CEO was communicating in his reporting. He was not doing anything inherently wrong – he was simply communicating in a way that was very natural to him. His direct approach worked well with the team members whose communication style was similar to his, but it caused uncertainty for the rest of his team. For half of the team, his communication came across as inconsistent, lacking clear direction and instructions.
While he had a clear vision for his company and his team, it was not being clearly understood by many of his key executives. This hindered communication of the vision throughout the organisation and, more importantly, impeded its execution. The cascading impact was significant.
The difference in communication styles and the detrimental effects they can have on employee and organisational performance is nothing new. However, being able to detect when they actually occur with validated tools is something that rarely happens.
Are you using the right tools to look below the surface to find out the causes, not just the symptoms?
Source: http://www.discprofile.com.au/team%20communication.html
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Case Study: Discovering Hidden Elements in Recruitment
We were advising a large manufacturer on applicants recommended to the firm by a recruitment consultancy for a managerial role, which was likely to lead a directorship. The recruiter had not completed any in-depth behavioural style analysis such as Extended DISC® and of course, in view of the fee involved, was keen to place a specific applicant.
We knew the behavioural style that would fit the job description and after the applicant had completed the personal analysis questionnaire, we were delighted that Profile II (natural style) of the resulting report indicated the applicant would suit the position.
We noted however, a possible concerning "shift” in Profile I (adjusted style) so further research was carried out on the background of the candidate. This uncovered some unresolved issues involving the applicant. The applicant was therefore subsequently not recommended, which is fortunate, because the applicant was shortly after barred from a director’s role for three years.
Profiles sometimes reflect problems relating to oneself, for example, lack of self confidence. In this profile there was an indication of possible moral problems, which is exactly what turned out to be in this case.
Source: http://www.discprofile.com.au/team%20communication.html
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Case Study: Enhancing Personal Communication
John (not his real name) is a Sales Manager with a sales budget of approximately $5 million. Relationships between John and his colleagues were difficult and many considered him a little arrogant and distant. Feedback from customers was negative and they openly told other team members that they did not enjoy dealing with him.
As a result of customers’ comments, the CEO of the organisation decided that they needed to take some action to diffuse customers’ complaints and so he transferred John as Sales Manager to another area. However there was no improvement in the feedback from his new customers and the CEO decided that he had to take more drastic action. He told John that he needed to do something about his attitude or face the real possibility of being transferred yet again to a position involving less customer contact and less responsibility.
It transpired that John completed the on-line questionnaire to obtain an Extended DISC® Personal Analysis Report. The behavioural style detailed in the resulting report revealed that John was 100% “D” (dominant) in his unconscious behavioural style. A couple of hours was spent with John to help him to better understand himself and explain how he needed to change his communication style. John then began to understand that his strong decisive and controlling style irritated and even threatened other people.
A month or so later, the CEO of the business felt John seemed to be changing his style and he decided to look further into Extended DISC. The firm conducted an Extended DISC® 360° and the results of the 360° Assessment confirmed that John's workmates felt that he should develop a more social and friendly attitude.
John made a decision to work hard on changing his conscious behaviour and everyone began to notice the difference in his communication style. He found that by taking notice of his personal analysis report and the 360° feedback he had noticed a remarkable change in his relationship with customers and his workmates. He now understood the enormous impact that this change in behavioural style was having on his life. Suddenly he found he was enjoying his job and the increase in sales generated through the change in attitude impressed the CEO.
The company now uses Extended DISC® as part of its recruitment process and besides using the 360° Assessment and Job Analysis, has recently conducted an Extended DISC® Team Analysis.
John continues to develop and become more productive without losing the natural strengths of his “D” style.
Source: http://www.discprofile.com.au/personal%20communication.html
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