A few weeks ago, I read an interesting article titled On the Job, Nice Guys May Finish Last. The title immediately caught my attention, and I had to take a look.

In reading the article, I saw an immediate connection to my work and for other people interested in using the DISC model in their professional and personal lives.

The point made in this article is particularly significant for people with supportive tendencies (people who are people-oriented and reserved).

People with strong supportive traits are great at building relationships, easing tensions, helping others, and holding a team together. And, as Dr. Christine Riordan says in the article I mentioned above:

People with this natural personality trait may be less likely to face confrontation or other difficulties at work.

I’m not suggesting that having the supportive trait is a problem (it happens to be a strong secondary trait for me). I am suggesting that people with this trait commit themselves to learning the skills of assertive communication.

People with supportive traits often use passive communication strategies in an effort to ease tensions and reduce conflicts. While these strategies are sometimes useful and necessary, I recommend learning to use them intentionally when appropriate rather than as a default because they are more comfortable.

Consistently passive communication and conflict avoidance can create situations where conflicts go unresolved and continue to simmer under the surface until they explode and destroy a team or family. In addition, passive communication can make people, like the lamb pictured above, susceptible to “predators” in the workplace. Both scenarios can have  major negative impacts on your career.

Learning to apply assertive communication techniques can improve the odds of successfully confronting and resolving conflict situations at work by stopping the spread of destructive conflict and confrontation.

Related posts:

1. Communication Tips: Connecting With Reserved, People-Oriented People
2. DISC Model FAQ’s: Could I Have More Than One DISC Behavior Style?
3. DISC Model FAQ’s: Is Changing Your Behavior Phoney?

As I read about, study, and work to apply effective conflict resolution techniques, I see one common and overwhelming problem develop in workplaces, families, and social organizations. I see the same problem develop just about everywhere I see people interact.

What is this huge problem?

People make assumptions about other people’s intentions.

Sadly, they often make wrong assumptions about the other person’s intentions.

This behavior is so common and so prevalent, I have written about it on at least two other occasions.

In one post, I told the story of how I started down the path of wrong assumptions in an interaction with my daughter.

In another post, I shared an observation I made about an interchange where one person based their entire interaction with another person on their assumptions about the other person’s intentions without ever asking for clarification.

Recently, I had the opportunity to observe another interchange between two people who got seriously engaged in a heated conversation because one of the parties took offense to what he believed to be the other person’s intentions. For the purposes of this post, let’s say their names are John and Joe.

In a small meeting setting, Joe raised a question about something John had proposed in a previous meeting. I heard Joe question the proposed approach to solving a problem. Apparently, John heard Joe question the necessity of solving the problem.

John’s body went almost immediately rigid as he turned to face and lean toward Joe. His voice tone grew sharp, and his volume went up. In all fairness to John, I don’t really know what he was thinking. I did perceive his tone and body language to become aggressive.

The conversation got progressively more heated as Joe and John spoke.

As they continued, John made direct, negative comments about his view of Joe’s intentions. He used words like:

• “You just said that because you want to…”
• “You didn’t have the courage to speak earlier about…”
• “I knew you would do this to me…”

In rapid succession, John manged to:

• Negatively label Joe’s intentions,
• Attack Joe’s character, and
• Express his view that Joe was doing something “to” him.

It only got worse from there, and it all began with John’s assumption about Joe’s intention.

John immediately assumed that Joe had a negative intention. His response followed the classic conflict escalation cycle almost perfectly. From this negative interpretation, he went to anger (my interpretation of his emotional state), and both parties found themselves locked in a negative conversational spiral.

Had John been willing to question his assumptions about Joe’s intention and then to engage in conversation and dialogue rather than in attack and recrimination, the situation would likely have gone in a totally different direction.

The next time you find your assumptions about another person’s intention leaning towards the negative, stop yourself for just a moment and question your assumptions.

• Did they mean that as an attack or simply as a statement of their opinion?
• Are they attacking my character or are they just trying to understand my approach?
• Did they mean what I think they mean?

I’m sure you get the point. Take just a moment to slow down and question your assumptions before you dive into the conversation.

Related posts:

1. Why Your Natural Response to Conflict is Probably Wrong & What You Can Do About It
2. Exercise Your Power of Choice in Conflict Resolution
3. Conflict Resolution Insights: Why Conflicts Escalate

… And What You Can Do About It

Have you ever told yourself that you wouldn’t do something? Maybe you said you wouldn’t eat too much at a party. Maybe you told yourself that you wouldn’t speak too soon at a meeting. Or maybe you just told yourself that you wouldn’t break the speed limit on the way home from work.

Whatever it was, you told yourself that you wouldn’t do something that you either normally do, wanted to do, or habitually do, and you eventually “gave-in” to the temptation.

Well, there’s a good reason for this behavior, and Dan Heath gives more details about it in this article over at Fast Company. I suggest that you check out the article for more details. For now, here’s the short version: self-control eventually runs out. In other words, you can only resist so long before you “run out” of self-control.

Your limit might be different from mine, and we all have a limit.

So, what does this observation have to do with this blog?

Since one of the recurring themes here is “get over yourself,” the concept of depleting self-control is vitally important to understand.

Whether you are trying to change your behavior, your team member’s behavior, or your child’s behavior, remember that everyone has a self-control limit, and when you exceed the limit you invite failure.

You invite failure to comply with rules, failure to cooperate, and failure to do things in new and different ways.

This is an observable and repeatable psychological phenomenon. Like so many of the things I write and speak on, I don’t suggest hiding behind the behavior. Rather, I suggest understanding the behavior and then making plans that recognized the reality of life instead of wishing that things were different.

So, what do we do with this observation?

Here are three suggestions to get you started with applying  this principle in your efforts to change your behaviors or to influence another person’s behaviors:

1. Get away from tempting situations as quickly as possible.
   Since we know that self-control will eventually run out, if at all possible, remove the temptation to do things the old way or to partake in some forbidden behavior.
2. Give people (or yourself) a break.
   If you ask someone to change their behavior in a particular situation, make some time for them to get away from it for awhile so that they can replenish their “supply” of self-control.
3. Make big changes in small steps.
   Smaller steps do many things to make change easier to accept. One benefit of smaller steps is the reduction of effort required to remember the new way of doing things. If the effort to remember the new way is small, the time to “self-control” exhaustion is longer. This longer temptation resistance time increases the odds that the new way of doing things becomes easy to remember before our self control runs out.

Photo by NomadicLass.

Related posts:

1. Being Too Nice Can Hurt You
2. A DISC Model Question You Should Ask of Yourself
3. DISC Model FAQ’s: Is Changing Your Behavior Phoney?

Guy Answers the Question: Can I Have One
Style at Work & Another Style at Home?

One question that frequently comes up in my discussions of the DISC Model of Human Behavior is:

Can I have one DISC style at work and another DISC style at home?

- or-

I feel like I am one way at home and another way at work. Is that possible and is it normal?

The simple answer to the question is: “Yes. Differences between your home behaviors and workplace behaviors are not only possible, they are highly probable.”

The longer answer is a bit more involved, but not terribly complex.

When I hear this question or some variation of it, at least two things immediately come to my mind:

• Different environments call for different behaviors. So, you tend to adjust your behaviors to your environment.
• Let’s not confuse how we “behave” with who we “are.”

I’ll take these two thoughts one at a time.

First, let’s recall that very few people exhibit only one DISC style because most of us actually exhibit a blend of the four DISC styles in our everyday behaviors. Since we generally use at least two of the four DISC behavior styles, we can usually “shift” or “float” between our two (or three) primary styles depending on the situation.

Since the workplace environment is often quite different from our home environment (and we usually have different roles in the two environments), we adjust our behaviors to what is appropriate for both the environment and our role in it.

This is completely normal (and probably a good thing!).

The second point is, in some respects, even more important. Our behaviors are our behaviors. They are not who we “are” they are what we “do.”

Our thoughts and emotions reflect who we “are.”

In a full DISC profile assessment, you receive two different DISC behavioral style graphs. One reflects your basic or “natural” DISC style – who you “are.”  The other reflects your environmental or “adapted” DISC style – what you “do.”

These two graphs are often similarly shaped. Sometimes they are not. Regardless, they represent two different aspects of your behavioral style. What is happening in your head and emotions and what is showing up in your behavior. While your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are generally connected, they are not necessarily exactly the same (at least as far as other people can see).

For example, have you ever meant to say or do one thing and then said or done something totally different? I have. This doesn’t happen frequently. It does happen.

In the interest of brevity, I won’t go into all of the details of the distinction between who we “are” and what we “do” in this post. Maybe I’ll dig into that topic some other day. For now, I’ll leave it at this: it is normal, expected, and highly likely that you will exhibit different behaviors in different environments.

This difference does not necessarily imply that you become a different person in those environments. More likely, it’s just a reflection of what you need to do to succeed in the different environments.

Related posts:

1. DISC Model FAQ’s: Can Your Personality Style Change Over Time
2. DISC Model FAQ’s: Is Changing Your Behavior Phoney?
3. DISC Model FAQ’s: Is One Style Better Than the Others?

Using the handout from this month’s Remarkable Leadership teleseminar as a discussion guide, we talked about some really powerful concepts related to communicating change.

This is one of the many ideas we discussed:

Change can be driven by facts, but people are driven by emotions.

As we discussed this observation, we spoke about the importance of connecting with the emotional response that people often have to change rather than ignoring or minimizing it. We also covered some practical tips for connecting with emotions more effectively.

You may have many opportunities to discuss change and the impact of change with your team this year. When you do, remember to acknowledge, address, and understand the emotional component of change in your comunications.

Photo based on work by Rennet Stowe.

Related posts:

1. Decision Making 101 – Check Your Emotions Before You Decide
2. DISC Model FAQ’s: Is Changing Your Behavior Phoney?
3. DISC FAQ’s: Can I Change My Personality Style On Purpose?