Chapter 13

Behavioural profiles

We considered behaving, but it’s against our nature.

O.R. Melling

In any business communication, whether it be in person or virtually, it really helps to know what sort of person you’re talking to, and by that I mean their behavioural style, which makes up their behavioural profile.

Determining people’s behavioural profiles fascinates me and I believe everyone should have a basic understanding of it. Not only can this information give you a better understanding of why you do some of the things you do and feel the things you feel, but you can understand other people more clearly too. I think it’s a great skill to have in business, but also one that anyone living with a partner or family should also understand.

The concept of profiling behaviour was developed in the 1920s by psychologist Dr William Marston, who had a theory that there are four basic personality types, characterised by the following letters: D for Dominance, I for Influence, S for Steadiness and C for Conscientiousness (or DiSC®). Incidentally, Dr Marston was also credited with developing the first accurate lie detector.

There are many behaviour profiling tools available and they all work on the same principle; they just use different icons or names. One adaptation of DiSC® is BEST (bold-expressive-sympathetic-technical). Another adaptation, Dr Gary Couture’s version, uses bird names (dove, owl, peacock and eagle) and others use four different colours, shapes and so on. They’re all based on the same four quadrants and they amount to the same four behavioural styles.

My personal favourite behaviour assessment tools are the DiSC® method (www.discprofile.com) and the Extended DISC® System, which you can find at www.extendeddisc.com. They’re both great tools and I suggest you test yourself as it’s enlightening to see what you find out about yourself.

DiSC® behavioural profiling

DiSC® behavioural profiling is based on four quadrants:

• dominance

• influence

• steadiness

• conscientiousness.

Figure 13.1 shows the four quadrants of the DiSC® behaviour assessment tool.

Figure 13.1: DiSC® profiling

You may see yourself in one of these four quadrants already. Here’s some information about each quadrant to give you a more detailed picture of each personality type.

The ‘dominance’ quadrant mainly describes people who:

• are in a hurry

• are direct and blunt

• will interrupt you

• only need the top-line executive summary

• want to know what the bottom line is for them

• are aggressive and demanding.

If you fall into the ‘influence’ quadrant you’re likely to:

• be open and friendly

• talk a lot

• get excited

• be animated

• talk about others you know

• not be worried about detail

• not listen for a long time.

People in the ‘steadiness’ quadrant are:

• calm and easygoing

• not usually excitable

• good listeners

• keen to build a relationship before doing business

• good at keeping their opinions to themselves.

‘conscientious’ people:

• are reserved and quiet

• are detail focused

• ask lots of questions

• are cautious

• look for proof

• study information carefully.

So there you have a very broad brushstroke of what each quadrant’s behavioural profile looks like. But most people are not just one or the other; they can be a combination of two or even three of the quadrants. For instance, when I took the test, I found that I was pretty much an equal split between ‘I’ and ‘S’. When I think about the type of person I think I am, influential and steady is spot on. I would hate to think that I had upset someone in some way and I like to build a relationship with the person I’m talking to in order to make more friends and acquaintances.

My husband, on the other hand, is at the opposite end of the behavioural profile diagram: dominant (D), with a large chunk of C (conscientiousness), as attention to detail is important to him. That makes us, as a couple, a pretty good match.

So now you can probably see where in the quadrants you sit.

Next, you need to assess the behaviour of the people you want to get to know. How should you react to someone you’re meeting? How do you relate or ‘sell’ to another person? Let’s look at each quadrant again and see what you can do to make it easier for a new relationship to evolve.

Under each quadrant heading in figure 13.1, we could insert a list of things to do in order to be sympathetic to the natural style of a person whose personality falls in that quadrant, as shown in figure 13.2.

Figure 13.2: how to behave towards people once you have determined their DiSC® behavioural profile

So if, for example, you were talking to someone who is a high D (dominant), you’d need to be direct, focus on the key issues and let them speak. If you were talking to an S (steadiness) person, you’d need to spend some time chatting and building a relationship. If you were to try chatting and building a relationship with a D (dominant) you’d drive them nutty because they would just want you to get on with it!

It’s worth pointing out at this stage that you can force yourself to be someone you’re not, but it takes a huge amount of energy to be able to carry it off for any length of time. When you come under stress, your natural self will surface — not who you’re trying to be.

DiSC® in action: business

I once went to meet with the CEO of a chamber of commerce to talk about running some social media workshops for the members. I was led into the meeting room to wait for him. When he entered, he shook my hand, we sat and he went straight to the point. When he started talking it was obvious what profile he was: he had a chunk of D. A huge chunk.

There was absolutely no preamble at all, no chitchat or pleasantries — just straight to it. I was a little unnerved to start with but my radar was turned on so I immediately knew how to react: give him the executive summary, the details, how it will affect his bottom line and tell him when I could begin running the workshops. Bang, bang, bang. I don’t think the meeting lasted longer than 10 minutes because he had what he needed to make the right decision. His assistant finalised the deal the following week.

What do you think would have happened if I had insisted on doing things my way, talking chitchat and superfluous nonsense about the lovely weather and what he did at the weekend? I probably would have bored him to tears and maybe missed out on a deal, but because I could read the situation quickly, I could easily adapt my style. I’m the one who had to adapt, not the other way around. On the other hand, if the person I was meeting was just like me, an ‘I’ and ‘S’, then we would have been having a great time making small talk about the weekend and where we were going for our holidays, and an hour may have passed before the deal was worked out.

DiSC® in action: personal

When my husband Paul (D and some C) asks me to clean his road bike, I do so because it makes me happy to help (I and S) and not because I’m soft. When I need some help planning for the bigger picture of my business life or making gluten-free bread, he’s the man for the job. He’ll spend hours on a wet Sunday afternoon following baking recipes to the letter and doing a great job creating wonderful gluten-free baked goods. It’s a nice trade-off that works well for both of us.

I also struggle coming up with something different for dinner every night — like lots of people who cook for their family — as our food tends to follow a routine. As we’re both fairly health conscious and active, we like to maintain our weight or drop some weight if a cycling event is coming up. Our diet can be a little restrictive in that we don’t eat carbohydrates after lunch, and we eat lots of salad vegetables. From my point of view (I and S) I want to provide variety to our meals and ensure that Paul is eating something tasty each night. From Paul’s point of view, he couldn’t care less what he eats because what I’m currently serving up is a means to an end in keeping his weight down during cycle racing times (D and C). He’s not wedded to the process; he’s only wedded to the outcome.

Assessing a person’s behavioural profile

When you meet someone for the first time, you may not have much to go on to detect their behavioural profile until you hear them speak. So how can you work out their profile type? The short answer is you really can’t, unless they’re talking to someone else and you’re able to observe. If the person is ‘holding court’ at your local networking event with people gathered around hanging on their every word, you can bet on them being a sociable and influential (I) person. If the person is in a serious conversation with someone else, talking about the details of a current news story, for example, they may well be a conscientious (C) type of person. Once you get to meet a person and speak to them yourself, you may be able to pick up the details you need. Not everyone will be easy to read — certainly those people who are a combination of quadrants won’t be — but if someone you come across is mainly one or the other, they should be fairly obvious to spot. You can find out more information by taking a DiSC® test yourself.

~

Use the tools that are available to you to build better relationships with others. By having a basic understanding of how people you deal with are wired, you have a much better understanding of what makes them tick. Every partnership in life and in business should go through the process to maintain harmony at home and in the workplace.

Disclaimer: I am not personally affiliated with DISC®.

Part summary

You must make a simple plan both for networking in person and online. This really just needs to indicate the general direction in which you wish to go. Make a list of everyone you want to meet in person and everyone you want to meet virtually (for now, even though you may meet them in person in the future). Without your end point, you won’t know when you’ve arrived there. Some people will be on both lists: virtual for now, in person later on, just like my story about trying to meet Seth Godin . . . one day . . . !

Leverage wherever you can, both in person and virtually, as name-dropping done the right way will open doors. One thing is certain: if you don’t drop names at appropriate times, it will be that much harder for you to get to your end point.

Understanding behavioural profiles is a great skill to have and will certainly put you one step ahead of someone who is not tuned in to what the person they are talking to wants.

Try practising spotting the behavioural profiles of those around you, looking for the main characteristics of each quadrant. Can you spot them in your close family and friends?

When you next meet someone for the very first time — maybe you have an appointment with them — see how quickly you can pick up on their style and adjust accordingly.

In a nutshell

• Put together a plan for getting to know those people you wish to connect with.

• Make a list of who they are and where you might find them both online and offline.

• Leverage whenever you possibly can. It certainly opens more doors.

• Use behavioural profiles to adjust yourself to what the person you’re talking to wants.