One topic that I’m often asked about is personality, or leadership, diagnostics like DISC, Insights, MBTI, or noughties favourite – the Belbin team model.
Some are very practical in application, some with roots in the psychology of Carl Jung, some with a spiritual slant, such as the Enneagram. Some which have slipped out of fashion a little, like MBTI (or the Myers Briggs Type Indicator) and some which seem to be everywhere – like Colour Me Insights (yes I’m mostly yellow with a bit of red when it comes to work and very little red out of work!)
If you’re anything like me when I switched career in 2010 from fundraising events into learning & development, you might feel a bit bewildered by the range of diagnostic reports that help you understand how you lead / communicate / build relationships / make sense of life. Which is best? How do I understand them all? What if someone talks to me about one I don’t understand?
Luckily at that point I had a very wise boss who held no truck with shiny object syndrome and told me – ‘they all do much the same thing Jennifer, don’t stress.’
It certainly helped me feel less of out of my depth and I started to pay less attention to the voice that said ‘you don’t know what that IS!’ and more to the question ‘what makes any of these things work, and what can go wrong when they aren’t used well?’
Whichever diagnostic you and your organisation are using, it probably matters less which one and more how you work with it. So here are some of my learnings to help you have the best experience:
- Hold it all lightly. A model is just one way of looking at what’s going on. Not the only way. We could also look at behaviour through a lens of gender, culture, race, neurodiversity. Hold that bigger picture.
- It’s a starting point. Just because your report says you are red, or an introvert, or a quick decision maker, doesn’t mean you’ll show up like that every time. Given the self awareness and some energy in your tank, you can adapt when you need to. This is how we grow as humans.
- Yes, your upbringing, culture and the messages you’ve received about how you are supposed to behave given your gender / skin colour / how you look / how your brain is wired will impact how you usually respond and react to situations and how you come across to others. None of this is a judgement, it’s just data.
- Don’t focus on the pitfalls, but stay curious and open to learning and adapting when you need to.
- And don’t allow your ‘profile’ to entrench certain behaviours when a different behaviour would get you a better result. This can look like ‘I’m introverted so I need to only ever work from home including never attending away days’ when actually a more helpful response might be ‘I’m introverted so I know I need a certain amount of time working at home to maintain my energy, and I’ll ask for good notice for away days and talk to my team about my needs so I have the energy to build those relationships in person when I need to.’
- Diagnostics work well when they form a neutral language that teams can share to have conversations about difference of approach (see above example). This can be part of a wider piece of work around what each team member needs in order to thrive.
- Do the initial work with a coach who is comfortable and trained in using this diagnostic. It is SO EASY to over-interpret these things, and most of them will spurt out a report that is indicative to some degree at least on how you were feeling about the world on the day you answered the questions. (Which is why it’s best not to do the questionnaire on a day when the world feels particularly more stressful or full of change than what feels normal.) An experienced coach will keep everything in perspective, help you see the opportunities for learning – as a team and individuals – and create a safe space for those conversations to happen.
If it’s going to help my client – whether that’s a team or individual, get where they want to go, then the diagnostic I’ll pull out is Emotions & Behaviours at Work. I like it because it’s based on a series of scales, not boxes, and it’s all about understanding our preferences then choosing how to show up to get the best result (from the conversation, meeting, decision etc.)
There’s something inherently light about the idea of a scale, rather than a fixed 4 letters or a colour. And the way I deliver it is always to help individuals work out their agility and flexibility along those scales.
Here are some examples from my own preferences:
I’m wired to, under most circumstances, make quick decisions. We can ruminate on why all day, and I’m sure that would be helpful if we were in a therapy space, but what concerns me as a coach is: what serves me well about that?
Well, I get to look decisive in meetings. I move projects forward quickly when needed. I don’t waste emotional energy overthinking (erm, most of the time anyway.)
When does it not serve me so well?
When, and this usually happens when I’m under pressure, I omit to pause when pausing would be optimum. And then regret a decision.
These days, I check in – do I need to sit on this for 24 hours? Sometimes yes, sometimes no.
How can you work on your decision making agility this week?
Maybe you are someone who is comfortable either being consultative and pondering or making quick decisions, and it will depend on the context as to which of these you go to. That’s a great use of your emotional intelligence – your instinct for what is needed. If however you know how you have a distinct preference, read on…
For the quick decision makers ask yourself:
- Who else might need to be part of this decision?
- What would I gain from waiting 24 hours?
- What would I lose from waiting 24 hours?
- When has waiting benefited me in the past?
If you struggle to have confidence in decisions at pace, ask yourself:
- Is this something that I know about e.g. my area at work, a type of project I’ve been part of before?
- When have I trusted my instinct before and it’s gone ok?
- What will be my contingency plan if I make this decision and it doesn’t go well?
- What helps me tune into my instinct and quieten my mind?
If this is you, you might be interested to know that neuroscience studies show that if you’re an expert in an area then you can absolutely trust that instinct. Which is why I can write session plans for workshops in a matter of minutes, but once got into a pretty pickle when I made snap decisions and bought the wrong sink twice in a row….. because plumbing is not in my zone of genius.
Emotions & Behaviours at Work focuses not just on decision making, but how we process stress, respond to change, are driven to get our point across (or not) and many more other elements that are relevant to our work as leaders.
And when I do work with this diagnostic I always hold it lightly, as just one way into some interesting learning.
