Yesterday, my daughter, Alexandra, showed one of our cats, Merlin, in our county 4-H fair.

Generally, Merlin is the cat you see in the picture above. He lounges on our deck. He sleeps on the steps. He stays with us in the yard. He insists that we pet him when we are in the garage. He is a really friendly cat.

At the fair, he was in a cage in a hot building surrounded by other cats, people he did not know, and smells he did not recognize. And, he had to wear a harness.

During the judging, a person he had never met before held him and inspected him in front of about 30 onlookers.

He hissed at the judge.

When I took him from the cage to put him in the carrier for the trip back home, he hissed and growled at me.

When I got him into the garage and opened the carrier, he growled at me and ran away.

After I got him back to the garage, he growled and hissed at me as I removed his harness.

As he was lying on the steps from the garage to the kitchen, I petted him, and he growled and hissed at me.

Merlin was not a happy kitty.

In case you haven’t been around cats very much, they can have what is called redirected aggression. Basically, this means that when they cannot directly address something that is irritating them, they just might express their aggression in a different direction against another animal or a person who had nothing to do with their initial frustration.

And, people often respond the same way. They feel stress, frustration, or irritation in one area of their life or in one relationship, and they vent it in a different area of their life or in a different relationship. I’m not saying this is a good thing. I’m just observing that it happens.

In Merlin’s case, I didn’t take him to the fair, and I wasn’t there during the judging. I didn’t do any of the things that stressed him. I just took him home.

Can you believe the nerve? He was mad at me — his rescuer!

When he growled and hissed at me, I didn’t get angry with him. I could see that he was hot, scared, and stressed. He was losing large quantities of hair (that’s a sign of stress in cats). I could tell that he was not angry with me directly. He was simply displaying redirected aggression.

So, I was nice to him. The cat that was growling at me got kind words and petting in return.

It worked like a charm. Within a few minutes of getting home, hearing kind words, and getting his head scratched, he was back to his normal, loving self.

I recognize that people are far more complex than cats. And, can’t we learn a lesson from Merlin?

When people are stressed, tired, frustrated, irritated, scared, or hungry; they just might display some redirected aggression. As long as no one is getting physically hurt, why not try to understand rather than criticize or confront?

Calming words and an understanding attitude just might be what it takes to help them, like Merlin, return to normal.

Related posts:

1. Resolving Conflict Lesson: Watch Your Step
2. Conflict Resolution Techniques: Question Your Assumptions
3. Conflict Resolution Tips: Task Oriented People with People Oriented Individuals

I was helping my wife clean our living room, and I was, as I often am, thinking about what I could write here. I was not thinking about my wife, my kids, or my professional colleagues.

I was just thinking. (Remember, I am a recovering engineer. I am almost always “thinking.”)

I started thinking about how we often misinterpret other people’s meaning, and this little rhyme popped (almost) fully formed into my mind.

So, I share it here with you today:

I’ll never know your real intent,
Until I ask you what you meant.
And, if you choose, in your reply,
To then, tell me the reason why.

Related posts:

1. Effective Communication Skills: You Don’t Know Until You Ask
2. Resolving Conflict Lesson: Watch Your Step
3. Effective Communication: Begin With The End In Mind

A Question to Ask of Yourself:
How do I better control myself?

I often hear people ask questions about the DISC model that indicate a desire to use the model to somehow change others.

Rather than using the model to label, categorize, or stereotype people, I suggest a different approach: use the DISC model to find ways to connect with other people in better, more effective ways.

Towards that end, one question that I suggest you ask yourself is this:

How can I use the DISC model to better understand other people and change my behaviors so that I communicate more clearly?

My message is pretty simple: get over yourself.

Learn to adjust and modify your words and actions so that they are heard and understood more quickly and more clearly by other people.

This is what I strive to do every day. I’m not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. The more I work at it though, the better I get. And you can do it, too.

Do this, and you will significantly improve your effectiveness as a leader, team member, or parent.

Related posts:

1. DISC Model FAQ’s: Is Changing Your Behavior Phoney?
2. DISC Model FAQ’s: Could I Have More Than One DISC Behavior Style?
3. DISC FAQ’s: Can I Change My Personality Style On Purpose?

… 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 Change My Personality Style on Purpose?

People often tell me that they believe that they have changed their personality style, and then they ask me if I think this is possible.

My general answer is this: It might be possible. I don’t think it is probable.

In short, I don’t think that your core, inner, basic personality style changes unless you experience some type of major psychological or brain trauma.

I do think that you can learn to behave differently in different situations. I think that you can learn to adapt, mold, and shape your behavioral style to increase your effectiveness in a broad range of situations.

However, changing your words and actions does not change your personality style.

Further, why would you want to change your personality style? Assuming that you fall in the range of normal human psychology, your personality style is just another expression of “normal.”

Wanting to change your personality style implies that there is something wrong with your natural one.

In the vast majority of people, there is nothing wrong with their personality style. So, why try to change it?

As we consider the question raised in the title of this post, we have to carefully distinguish between who we are and what we do.

Personality style relates to our perceptions, interpretations, priorities, and reactions to the world around us. Behavior style is often related to our personality style, and it is influenced by many other things. Personality style is part of who we are. Behavior style is merely what we do. They are definitely related. They are not exactly the same thing.

So, can you change your behaviors in response to the world around you? Absolutely you can!

Can you change your personality style? Not real likely.

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. A DISC Model Question You Should Ask of Yourself

Guy Answers the Question:
Is Changing Your Behavior Phoney?

As I teach, train, and coach using the DISC model, people hear me say that I encourage them to change their behaviors to fit the situation and to better connect with other people.

Sometimes, people ask me if consciously changing behavior is phoney or fake. This concern raises another common question about the DISC model, and how I recommend people use it to connect and communicate more effectively.

In answering this question, I often refer to a Thomas Jefferson quote:

In matters of style, swim with the current. In matters of principle, stand like a rock.

As I see it, choosing a behavior, word, or tone that will improve your communication effectiveness is not a moral or ethical issue. It is just a matter of style.

We often change our behaviors for different environments. For example, most people recognize that appropriate behavior during a wedding ceremony is likely to be different from appropriate behavior at the celebration party after the ceremony. Different environments call for different behaviors.

As long as your intent is not to defraud, manipulate, or somehow deceive the other person, behaving in a way that might be uncomfortable or unnatural for you in the interest of connecting with them is not fake or phoney. Rather, I see it as working to create a better environment for the other person.

Related posts:

1. A DISC Model Question You Should Ask of Yourself
2. DISC Model FAQ’s: Could I Have More Than One DISC Behavior Style?
3. DISC FAQ’s: Can I Change My Personality Style On Purpose?

When you find yourself communicating with a person who is reserved and people-oriented (primary Supportive behavioral style), remember these key communication tips:

• Slow down — they usually want you to give them time to process what you’re saying before they respond.
• Show that you care about them — if you come across as focused only on the task at hand, you run the risk of offending them.
• Use stories and experiences more than facts and figures — like people who have a strong Inspiring trait, they tend to relate to the communication of emotion over the communication of facts.
• Use gentle hand gestures and voice tones — they might perceive abrupt motions and/or loud voice tones as angry, and they generally do not respond well to anger or direct confrontation.
• Ask more indirect questions than direct questions — if you come across as very bottom-line, you might appear aggressive from their perspective.

Remember these suggestions the next time you interact with people who are slower-paced and people-oriented, and you will improve the odds that they listen to, understand, and take action on your message.

Check this post, for more insights on how to guess at a person’s DISC style.

Related posts:

1. Communication Tips: Connecting With Reserved, Task-Oriented People
2. Communication Tips: Connecting With Outgoing, People-Oriented People
3. Communication Tips: Connecting With Outgoing, Task-Oriented People

This series of articles contains specific tips, insights, and techniques for connecting with people better.

Related posts:

1. Communication Tips: Connecting With Reserved, People-Oriented People
2. Communication Tips: Connecting With Outgoing, People-Oriented People
3. Communication Tips: Connecting With Outgoing, Task-Oriented People

Related posts:

1. DISC Model FAQ’s: Is Changing Your Behavior Phoney?
2. Communication Tips: Connecting With Reserved, People-Oriented People
3. Connecting With People

Guy Answers the Question:
Can Your Personality Style Change Over Time?

People often say that they think they had one personality style as a child and a different one as an adult. While I suppose that is theoretically possible, it is not very likely.

I do not claim to be a licensed mental health professional, psychologist, psychiatrist, or neurological system expert. I have spoken with thousands of people in various environments and done lots of reading on the topic. Based on everything I know today; I believe that our primary, basic personality style is determined by about six years old.

That simple statement then begs the question: Are you born with your personality style or is it developed over time. I’ll write more about this later, but the simple answer is: both.

And, before I go much further, let’s clarify a point: the DISC model actually estimates your behavioral style rather than your personality style. The distinction can be subtle, and it is still a note worthy distinction. Still most people use the words personality style and behavioral style almost interchangeably.  In conversation, I often switch back and forth between the phrases myself — not because I see them as the same but simply due to slipping into colloquial speech rather than strictly accurate clinical speech.

Back to the topic of this post: can your personality style change over time?

Barring a major physical or psychological trauma, I don’t think so — at least not very much.

We might find ourselves in different environments (or contexts) that call for us to behave in different ways. And, changing your behavior to fit a situation does not imply that your personality style changed. In fact, I would go further to say that I don’t think that most people see major changes in their behavioral style either.

This last statement calls for some explanation.

Often when I teach or speak on the DISC model, I don not have the opportunity to delve into the subtlety of the information learned from completing a full DISC assessment that produces graphs that show the blend and intensity of the four DISC style in both the person’s environmental, or adapted, style and their basic, or natural, style.

Here’s the quick distinction between environmental and basic styles.

For most people, their basic style represents the most consistent part of who they are. It usually represents how theythe think about, feel about, or otherwise interpret and process the world around them. It reflects the type of environment that would be the most comfortable for them.

On the other hand, their environmental style represents how they behave in response to their world. It may or may not be the same as their basic style. It’s usually not terribly different, but it can be for some people. The environmental style reflects what people have done to their behaviors to function, survive, and succeed in their environment.

Environmental style can change over time as people find themselves in different environments. Basic style tends to stay pretty much the same over a person’s lifetime.

I also believe that most people can learn new ways of behaving and interacting that make them begin to look as if they have changed their personality. For example, I have learned to tell stories and jokes to entertain and engage people while I am presenting, and I still prefer to be alone. I still have a reserved personality even though I have learned some outgoing behaviors.

In keeping with the theme of this blog, the big idea is this: don’t hide behind your personality or behavioral style, get over it.

With study and practice, all of us can learn to adjust our behaviors for greater connection, relationship, and influence with others.

Related posts:

1. DISC FAQ’s: Can I Change My Personality Style On Purpose?
2. DISC Model FAQ’s: Can I Have One DISC Style at Work and Another DISC Style at Home?
3. DISC Model FAQ’s: Is Changing Your Behavior Phoney?