When people say that everyone is unique, they are telling the truth. There are similarities between many of us that can categorize us all into a grouping based on our personality types. Identifying and working with each personality type can be difficult, but it gets easier if you know how to go about it. The DISC model of personality types takes each person and assesses their dominance, influence, steadiness, and conscientiousness.
By knowing the personality you’re working with based on the DISC model, you can learn how to better communicate with each type, thus, enhancing your ability to work with all personality types.
The Breakdown of DISC
Each personality type has various strengths and ways of approaching their lives. The dominant person tends to be confident in their abilities and holds accomplishing results in high regard. Influence personalities tend to emphasize their relationships with others, influence or persuade others, and are typically more open than others.
Those who fall under the personality type of steadiness are cooperative, sincere, and dependable. Those that fall under conscientiousness are most concerned with quality, expertise, accuracy, and competency. Each personality type emphasizes varied facets of communication and relationships and thus, requires a different approach.
Identifying The Personality Types
The best way to identify a person’s personality type based on the DISC model is by simply paying attention to their behavior using the OAR method. OAR stands for Observe, Assess, and Recognize. Since each person will have their own way of doing things, you can observe how they act and react to different situations. They will highlight their personality type for you.
As part of the observation, you will pay attention to their body language. For example, someone with an I-personality will likely be more reserved, and thus, make less eye contact, whereas a D-personality will be more direct.
For assessment, you will ask yourself whether or not the person is more reserved or active. You will also pay attention to whether they are more people- or task-oriented. Reserved types will be either an S- or C-style and those who are active fall under the category of D- and I-styles. Reserved individuals focus heavily on the present and the past, are quiet and calm, and hesitant to make eye contact. Active individuals place more weight in the future, are louder, have more animated movements when they speak, and make strong eye contact.
Those who are people-oriented will be S- and I-styles. They talk and ask about people more often, are more focused on people than tasks, and are quick to show their emotions. On the other hand, those more task-oriented will be D- and C-styles. They will focus heavily on the job at hand and be slow to show emotion.
Recognizing based on the observation and assessment is what will help you communicate with each type.
How to speak to different personality types
Each personality type will respond differently, so you will have to adjust accordingly. Once you have gone through the OAR method of recognizing each DISC personality type, you can figure out how to proceed. If you’re working with a D-personality, you should stay focused on the task at hand and on accomplishing the goal. The S-style type will be more interested in team efforts and the involvement of others.
It will take some practice to get all the personality types and the OAR method down, but once you do, your ability to work with people that fall under any category will be that much better.
Colin Bradford is a certified MAPS and The One Thing, Coach.