Criminal Minds is enthralling: a bunch of gun bearing nerds with a private airplane fly to places to find serial killers by profiling their behaviour and personality. So cool.
Maybe you want to be a profiler too.
If you thought I was going to say next, “and here’s how you can do it”, well, sorry. You can’t. Unless you get a degree in psychology, train a number of years, and get hired by the FBI.
However, I can offer a simple profiling technique you can use for fun and profit. Well, mostly for fun, I guess.
Introducing DISC
DISC is a pretty old model for personality assessment. It’s not considered really scientific, but that actually doesn’t matter much in this context.
The fact is that “scientific” personality assessment means you can replicate the result consistently: if you take the same test two years apart, you’ll get the same results.
We don’t care. What we’ll do is to simply and quickly categorise people we work with. Note that you might need to reassess and correct your stance in the long run, but it works pretty well at an approximation.
How does DISC work then?
The idea is that every personality sits somewhere on a spectrum. This spectrum is shaped like a wheel (or, well, a disk…), and has the four letters on it. It starts (arbitrarily) at D, moves to I, then S, C, and eventually goes full circle to D.
Let’s see them quickly.
The Four DISC Types
D is for Dominant
Dominant people are driven, direct and self-confident. They are generally go-getters, and are motivated by success and competition. They like competency and concrete results. They worry about lack of control and being taken advantage of. They struggle to be vulnerable.
I is for Influencing
Influencers are charismatic, enthusiastic, collaborative. They value relationships, freedom of expression and coaching. They have a strong focus on individuality. They worry about social rejection and disapproval, and fear being ignored and not feeling listened.
S is for Steady
Steady people are loyal, patient, warm. They value helping others and security. They get motivation from cooperative settings, and being sincerely appreciated. They worry about losing stability, change, and offending others.
C is for Compliant
Compliant people are systematic, analytical, objective. They like to learn stuff and are perfectionists. They enjoy challenges and accuracy. They worry about being wrong and they fear criticism.
Before we continue, though, remember that:
- The words are technical. “Compliant” doesn’t mean passive or weak, for example. Dominant doesn’t mean violent or bossy.
- Everyone sits somewhere on this wheel. You could be, say, between dominant and influencing, or between steady and compliant.
- In reality people are very nuanced and it might not be super clear cut.
How to Identify DISC Types in Practice
This is all great fun, but how do you know what type of person you’re talking to?
Typically, you take a test. You can find them online, and they’re more or less reliable. You answer a bunch of questions, by scoring them (1 - not like me at all, 5 - very much like me), or by selecting the option you feel more aligned with you among a few choices. You then submit the test, in some cases pay a small fee, and you get a report with your “personality profile”.
That’s all very nice, but it’s pretty unactionable if you ask me: how often would you go to someone in a meeting and ask them to take this quick test before you can start discussing their plans?
Yeah, I thought so.
Well, turns out there’s a reasonable approximation that lets you infer the profile of someone by observing them and taking into account a fairly small amount of information.
Here’s how it works.
Assess Extraversion
First, you want to assess roughly where the person you’re looking at stands on the extraversion dimension.
Now, let’s be clear: introverted people are not necessarily shy or unsocial. Extraverted people are not necessarily brash party goers and socialites.
Technically, extraversion is about how strongly someone reacts to positive emotions and social situations. Extroverts enjoy joyfully the “fun”, while introverts need less stimulation to be at ease, and too much will overwhelm them.
The practical implication of that is the well known, “extroverts gain energy through social interactions, introverts expend energy through social interactions”. However, that doesn’t mean extroverts can’t be alone or introverts can’t go to parties.
So, you can’t really assess extraversion just by saying “this person talks to lots of people or not”.
Here are some signs you can use though. One caveat though: each of these signs by itself is not very significant. If you find clusters of them, and repeated behaviours though, that’s a better indicator.
How do they interact with larger groups of people vs. one on one?
Extroverts interact with groups more easily than one-on-one, and viceversa for introverts.
Note however that this is a relative sign: it’s how they behave in one situation relative to the other, not relative to other people.
How do they prefer to learn?
Extroverts tend to prefer learning by doing: they try things and iterate on their mistakes. They experiment and poke around, especially with their peers.
Introverts prefer to learn by watching others, reading the theory, and try out what the learned by themselves.
Where do the prefer to work?
Extroverts on average like open space work more. They’re going to prefer, say, working in a Starbucks with all the voices and noises.
Introverts generally will prefer proper isolation, headphones on, personal offices, work from home with peace and quiet for maximum focus.
Assess Task or People Orientation
The second dimension you want to assess is around being people oriented or task oriented.
This is about what makes people tick more: is it social connection or tinkering with things? Is it building relationships or building widgets?
You can sense this in various ways, though it might be subtle.
Task oriented people tend to focus on the task at hand, while people oriented people tend to prioritise the people doing the task. For example, task oriented managers will more likely celebrate the successful release of a feature, while people oriented managers will celebrate the great work the amazing team did.
Again, this is often nuanced and subtle, and you should look for confirmation and clusters.
Putting it all together
Ok, this whole thing sounds harder than it is, with a little practice.
Now that you know if your buddy is an extrovert or an introvert, and people or task oriented, here’s what you do. Easy peasy.
You get your DISC disk.
The vertical axis is your extrovert - introvert spectrum. Up near the top is extroverts, down near the bottom is introverts.
The horizontal axis is your task - people spectrum. Left is task oriented, right is people oriented.
So, extroverts who are task oriented are DISC Dominants, people oriented extroverts are Influencers, people oriented introverts are Steady, and introverted task oriented people are Compliant.
For example, I am fairly people oriented and definitely an introvert. So I’m Steady. Which totally fits with my profile.
How to Work with Each DISC Type
Now let’s put that knowledge to good use. Here’s how to interact with, and manage, each profile effectively.
Working with Dominants
Dominants want agency and control. They want to feel like they’re in the driver’s seat, and prefer a collaborative style where you suggest and brainstorm for solutions rather than just telling them to do something.
If they’re under pressure, they might get bossy and impatient. There’s no need to increase pressure on them, typically, though, because they’re generally very driven.
They mostly thrive in jobs that are all about technical impact and recognition: they’re the ones that will go “we achieved this impossible mission, it was great!”
How to manage them: Define clear goals and hint at potential approaches, then let them run.
Working with Influencers
Influencers want to build rapport with people before they can trust them. They want positive relationships, and they mean it: they can struggle to separate social interactions and business interactions.
They are scared by rejection more than failure in itself. They want to work with people they have some personal relationship with.
Because they take things more personally, they’re the most likely profile to deflect issues and blame some external factor, when under pressure.
They thrive the most in jobs that are about customer impact, and making a recognized ripple.
How to manage them: Build a social relationship with them from the get go to earn their trust.
Working with Steady People
Steady people avoid conflict, care about people, are friendly and patient, and dislike change. They need time to get focused, and they need patience to adapt to new situations.
They are scared by conflict. They want to preserve relationships and they will see both sides of the discussion and look for the best compromise.
Being under pressure is bad for them, and they will generally not be as effective when there is an emergency.
They thrive in a job that is about making the world a better place in some way, and are driven by “bigger than themselves” causes.
How to manage them: Give them assurances and guarantees about the effort they need to deliver, so that they can maintain supportive relationships. Then, give the time to achieve it.
Working with Compliant People
Compliant people are structured, organized and precise. They seek order and structural elegance. Many engineers tend to fall in this category.
They are scared by inconsistency. They will push back on estimates, make vague commitments, and change subject when challenged to avoid contradiction.
They will be delighted by “a job well done”, where all the t’s are crossed and the i’s are dotted.
They thrive in a job that is about getting technical details moving smoothly in unison.
How to manage them: Answer all the questions and cover the details they need to motivate them when discussing new ideas.
Putting It All Together
And there you have it! A practical framework for quickly understanding and working with different personality types.
Remember:
- Look for patterns and clusters of behaviors, not single indicators
- People are complex and can exhibit traits from multiple types
- Use this as a starting point for understanding, not a rigid categorization
- Adapt your approach based on what you observe
Hope this helps you with your reports and with your boss. Let me know what you think!