| Inspiring Team Success
Class Notes from September 21, 2004 Teleconference
If you do not have your own reports to review, you can visit the links above to view sample profiles. Click here to purchase your own DiSC Classic or Team Dimensions profile. These assessment tools have been used by over 40 million people to better understand themselves, and in turn, to perform better in the workplace. The information you’ll gain from the Team Dimensions and the DiSC Classic profiles can be used to improve communication with others, reduce conflicts in the workplace, build productive teams and relationships, increase productivity and efficiency, and much more. Team Dimensions Profile Overview The Team Dimensions Profile is a self-scoring, self- assessment tool that helps individuals identify their unique approach to innovation and teamwork. It also helps team members understand their roles in the team process. The profile provides people with a personalized interpretation of their natural tendencies, allowing them to collaborate more effectively in a creative team process. The profile identifies four distinct approaches to thinking and behavior among people involved in a team process. These approaches are the Conceptual Approach, the Spontaneous Approach, the Normative Approach, and the Methodical Approach.
- Conceptual Approach: People who take a Conceptual Approach like to come up with new ideas. When presented with a problem or an opportunity, they are good at exploring alternatives and discussing concepts.
- Spontaneous Approach: People who take a Spontaneous Approach want freedom from constraint. They tend to move from one subject to another, focusing on many things at once and sometimes showing impatience.
- Normative Approach: People who take a Normative Approach prefer to put ideas in a familiar context. They tend to let their past experience guide them, and they like to see the consequences before they act.
- Methodical Approach: People who take a Methodical Approach prefer order and rationality. When presented with a problem or opportunity, they tend to follow a step-by-step process, examining the details and carefully considering things before acting.
Typically, an individual will use a combination of two or more of these approaches when they manage problems and tasks on a team. The integration of these approaches defines the roles of team members and provides a structure that teams can follow to achieve their goals.
- Creator: The Conceptual and Spontaneous Approaches combine to form the Creator role. The Creator:
- Often generates fresh, original concepts and ideas in ways that defy generally accepted structures or rules.
- Recognizes alternatives and perceives the “big picture.”
- Looks for what is new and different (conceptual), brainstorming, looking at everything from a different angel
- Don’t like to go back to doing it the same way.
- Generates a lot of energy and enthusiasm, tend to stand-up, walk around
- Challenge: Just because they are the ones to speak up first (come up with new ideas), doesn’t necessarily mean they are the best leader for the group
- Advancer: The Spontaneous and Normative Approaches combine to form the Advancer role. The Advancer:
- Waits for the ideas, adds to the idea what could be more effective --- waits to hear or see an idea that could work.
- Recognizes ideas and new directions in their early stages and develops ways to promote them.
- At their best, love it when they find an idea that is accepting to others and they can be in the “process of persuasion”
- Uses insightful planning based on past experiences and proven methods to advance ideas toward implementation.
- Challenge: They may be so excited about promoting an idea that they run too fast and leave the group behind.
- Refiner: The Conceptual and Methodical Approaches combine to form the Refiner role. The Refiner:
- Detects flaws, identifies potential problems, suggests alternative solutions.
- Challenges concepts, often playing the devil’s advocate
- Uses a methodical process to analyze things in an orderly and strategic manner, looking at how it all fits in to meet the goals
- Often says, “Wait a minute, what if….”
- Want to make the idea better and often times get stuck in the refining mode to the point of not moving to implementation or execution
- Give refiners a deadline to help establish some discipline for them or they could continue to refine
- Challenge: They are often misunderstood as being negative or playing devil’s advocate, when really it is their strength for the group’s purpose.
- Executor: The Methodical and Normative Approaches combine to form the Executor role. The Executor:
- Lays the groundwork for implementation, ensuring that the process moves forward in an orderly manner to achieve high-quality results.
- Great at follow-through to ensure all details are completed
- Wants to have an orderly and satisfactory job done
- Will take care and think of all of the details to put closure to a project
- Challenge: If you don’t tell them to “stop”, they will do what it take to complete or implement fully
- Flexer: This fifth role appears when an individual uses a combination of all four innovative approaches. The Flexer:
- Monitors the contributions of all team members and steps in to fill gaps in the team during the various stages of the process. Can play many roles when necessary.
- Great negotiators and can identify where the team needs to focus their time and energy
- Challenge: They may be misunderstood as not really having an opinion, therefore, they strength isn’t understood by all members.
Benefits of the Team Dimensions Profile By helping people identify the Creators, Advancers, Refiners, Executors, and Flexers on their teams, the Team Dimensions Profile offers several important benefits.
- It helps team members capitalize on their strengths and skills. With the help of the Team Dimensions Profile, organizations can put together well-balanced teams whose members offer complementary strengths and skills. Because team members reinforce each other, innovation occurs faster and with a greater likelihood of success than on typical teams.
- It helps team members work together with fewer conflicts. By recognizing their own strengths and respecting the strengths of others, teammates are better able to accept their personal roles and responsibilities. They find others’ behavior less threatening, and since there is less negative emotion, there is less conflict.
- It enhances motivation and self-esteem. Many creativity seminars and problem-solving workshops make participants feel inadequate or uncomfortable. In contrast, the Team Dimensions Profile helps individual team members see how their existing strengths can contribute to a group’s success.
In summary, the Team Dimensions Profile helps organizations identify creative, original thinkers and partner them with team members who can effectively advance, refine, and execute good new ideas. The success of the team depends on the participation and contribution of each member in the team process. Advantages of Using the Team Dimensions Profile Several features of the Team Dimensions Profile make it an especially valuable and useful assessment instrument. These features are listed below.
- Easy to use. The profile can be easily completed and scored. Individuals plot their results and obtain helpful feedback. • Flexible. The profile can be used in an assortment of settings to focus on innovation and team building in various environments.
- Helpful feedback. The instrument contains an opportunity for developing strategies to identif~i the approaches and the roles that team members use, allowing them to identify specific tasks, ensure that tasks are handed off appropriately, and enforce a defined process to accomplish objectives.
- Scientifically sound. The profile has been tested for reliability and validity with excellent results. Click here to view the research report on the Team Dimensions profile.
Demographic Characteristics of the Major Research Sample Research findings reported above were obtained from 686 participants who completed the final version of the Team Dimensions Profile using new items in a rank-order format and an additional 179 responses obtained in 1996. The characteristics of the original sample of 686 are shown in the following summary.
- Age: The median age was 39, but the highest represented age category was aged 40 to 49 years (32%).
- Education: 68 percent of the group had a college degree or higher.
- Occupation: 55 percent of the group was in supervisory, management, or professional positions. The rest of the sample was distributed among Secretarial/Clerical (13%), Sales (9%), Mechanical/Technical (6%), Labor (5.4%), and Other (8%) occupations.
- Geographical Region: 86 percent of the sample was drawn from the central region of the United States. Most of the remaining participants were from the Northeast at 12 percent.
- Heritage: 86 percent of the sample identified themselves as Caucasians. Thus 14 percent were from minority groups, with African Americans contributing 8 percent of the total sample.
- Industry: Industries represented in this sample were, in order, “unclassified” (32%), Transportation]Communicatjons (19%), Wholesale/Retail (16%), Educational Services (11%), Business Services (8%), Finance/Insurance (6%), Manufacturing (4%), Health Services (3%), Public Administration (1%), and Utilities (1%).
- Gender: The sample was comprised of 47 percent male and 53 percent female participants.
Characteristics by Profile Pattern When Creator, Advancer, Refiner, and Executor patterns were examined for differences in demographic categories, the following findings were obtained. Comparisons were confined to those with a clear preference for one role or another and did not include people with combination patterns.
- Gender: Men and women were proportionately represented among Creators, Refiners, and Executors. In this sample, Advancers were disproportionately female.
- Age: Two observations can be made about comparisons by age. Advancers were disproportionately young; however, this factor is confounded by gender (female participants were younger) and occupation (Advancers were disproportionately found in sales, clerical, and professional positions).
The relative proportion of Creators increased with age and the relative proportion of Advancers decreased. Refiners and Executors were more evenly distributed across age groups.
- Education: Creators appeared more frequently as education increased. No clear relationships existed for the other three patterns.
- Occupation: Creators appeared most frequently in management positions than any other pattern. Creators and Refiners dominated in the professional group, Advancers appeared most frequently in the sales and clerical groups, and the Executor pattern appeared as often as all other patterns combined among laborers. The Executor pattern also appeared most frequently among supervisors and technicians. Executives were either Creators or Refiners; few or none were Advancers or Executors.
- Industry: Refiners tended to dominate in finance, insurance, and educational services. Advancers and Executors were predominantly in wholesale or retail businesses. In other fields, no clear pattern emerged.
- Heritage: No meaningful differences were observed by race or ethnic origin. However, sample sizes among minority groups were small.
- Geography: No meaningful differences were observed.
Some of the above differences are statistically significant, while some describe trends in the data that provide a useful background for understanding how certain patterns may emerge more or less frequently in population subgroups. Breakdown by Percentage for Each Pattern Creator: 26%
Creator/Advancer: 8%
Advancer: 6%
Advancer/Executor: 6%
Refiner: 17%
Creator/Refiner: 10%
Executor: 16%
Refiner/Executor: 10%
Flexer (Facilitator): 1% Summary The Team Dimensions Profile has been developed and tested on a number of participants over several years. Careful examination of items and the model itself have produced a reliable instrument that differentiates the four roles that people play in an innovative process. This measure is found to differentiate in meaningful ways among people individually and in groups and to fulfill the theoretical expectations of the model. The DiSC Classic Profile can be utilized effectively in training situations as well as for personal development. This tool will help you and others on your team to:
- Focus on personal strengths.
- Create positive relationships and excellent communication with others.
- Increase effectiveness.
- Manage others more effectively.
- Effectively direct, delegate, motivate and problem solve.
- Stay motivated.
- Effectively manage conflict, solve problems, and handle stress.
- Effectively manage time.
Focus-Energy Matrix The Focus-Energy Matrix comes from a book called Beware the Busy Manager. It provides insight as we look at four types of people – those who are disengaged, distracted, procrastinators, or purposeful. This model may be helpful to review in conjunction with the Team Dimensions and the DiSC Profiles as you identify how to best manage members of a work team. Please click the matrix below to view a larger version. 
According to the matrix, 50 percent of all managers have high energy and 50 percent have low energy. Only 30 percent of managers have high focus, versus 70 percent with low focus. Managers with high energy and high focus are purposeful. They are driven by their desires rather than by guilt, coercion, fear, anxiety, tension, or exhaustion. Desire is a very powerful motivator. When we spend time and energy focusing on our strengths, motivation is high. Unfortunately, many goals are set independent of motivation. Here are a few case studies that exemplify this.
- A large advertising agency notifies an employee that his job is on the line if he does not manage his time better and get more organized. Upon further examination, we discover that the employee used to be relatively organized. He loved his work until his responsibilities were restructured six months ago. Getting organized would only enable him to perform tasks that hold little or no personal meaning to him at this point. The lack of interest in his work has affected his ability to be productive. He feels frustrated, angry, and anxious all the time, and he dreads going into work each day. He would quit, but the job market is tight and he needs the income. This employee is disengaged.
- An office manager has been with the same law firm for years and has been very productive. Three months ago she started reporting to a new partner in the firm. Now, no matter what she does, her work is criticized. She is so afraid of criticism and failure that she has given up on taking any initiative to improve work flow and productivity among her staff. She feels completely defeated. Her failure to take initiative has become apparent, and the performance of her staff has been on the decline. This manager is procrastinating.
- An energetic manager of a medical clinic is known for juggling too many new projects at once and then abandoning them. He generates many ideas – some of which might actually be beneficial to implement – but he has no strategy or plan for executing them. In his attempt to address urgent problems in the clinic, his knee-jerk response usually spins him into a frenetic motion -- not to be confused with constructive action. Despite the energy he puts into his work, his “shoot first, aim later” approach does not produce great results. This manager is distracted.
When someone has high self-awareness about their values and desires, they are able to set goals that will enable them to be more purposeful. Without goals we can easily fill our schedules with appointments and activities that represent other people’s priorities – hardly what we would describe as desire. *********** PREVIOUS TELECONFERENCES NOW AVAILABLE ON AUDIO RECORDING The following teleconference calls have been so popular that we have made them available via recording for those who were not able to participate live. *********** Building Trust, Retaining Key People
and Reducing Turnover Work expectations are those things people consider likely to happen in their job situation, either now or in the future. Whether spoken or unspoken, met or unmet, expectations have a powerful impact on our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, and play a key role in driving our attitudes. Research shows that people who have clearly defined, well-communicated expectations find more satisfaction and success in their work than people whose expectations go unspoken or unrealized. And companies that employ satisfied, successful people reap the rewards of increased productivity and reduced turnover.
Visit http://discassessments.net/buildingtrust.html for a link to the recording, class notes, and a sample report. *********** Enhancing Performance Through
Understanding Yourself & Others The DiSC Profile is an excellent tool to assist you in most effectively managing yourself and others. All people have all 4 behavioral tendencies, but in differing intensities. The relationship of the four tendencies to each other creates a profile pattern which provides information about a person’s potential behavioral responses. People who understand their strengths and weaknesses are able to adapt to the needs of others and the needs of their environment in ways that lead to maximum effectiveness, and people who self-manage are capable of becoming peak performers. The DiSC Profile helps us to recognize, understand, and even value differences in ourselves and others. Those who are responsible for managing others must work with and through others to achieve results. We are most effective in managing others when we do what they need us to do, and how they need us to do it.
Visit http://discassessments.net/performance.html for a link to the recording, class notes, and a sample report. *********** Tired of Running Out of Time? Bridge the Time Gap! The Time Mastery Profile® helps individuals set priorities and manage time more effectively by evaluating their effectiveness in 12 critical areas. Setting priorities and managing time effectively is basic to managing individual and organizational performance. The pressure to find innovative ways to achieve goals, pay attention to the competition, respond quickly to customer needs, and enjoy life outside of work is even more intense in today's less structured, information-driven workplace. Meeting the daily challenge of managing professional and personal responsibilities requires a learning strategy designed to meet individual needs.
Visit http://discassessments.net/teleclasses/time.html for a link to the recording, class notes, and a sample report.
Kathy Paauw w www.discassessments.net w kathy@orgcoach.net w 425-881-6627 |
