by Stephanie Ordonez | April 6, 2023
Having a passionate, focused team is every business owner’s dream. Whether you’re looking to motivate your crew, hire new personnel, or evaluate existing employees, learning how to understand your staff is a critical part of each process. Connecting with your team by using the appropriate communication styles and understanding their driving forces is important for the success of your business as it is directly affected by the success of your employees.
What is DISC/Turbo-Charge?
A DISC assessment is a behavioral analysis that was developed by Target Training International (TTI) and researchers in the 1980s to help businesses thrive with research-backed assessments. This method of analysis is used to, “Turbo-Charge Any Team,” by evaluating the areas where there are opportunities for growth and improvement within an organization. The DISC assessment analyzes behavior in a way that helps you better understand your employees both professionally and personally. By Turbo-Charging your team, you will gain a roadmap on how to motivate and improve work morale for your employees.
How does the assessment work?
The 20–30-minute DISC assessment looks at a couple behavioral variables including the communication styles and driving forces of each team member taking the assessment. Analyzing those variables helps us understand the best way to interact with other individuals based on their communication styles as well as the best way to identify strengths and weaknesses based on their driving forces. The following four behaviors determine the communication style that each team member uses:
Dominance – determined by the demands the environment puts on an individual.
Influence – determined by the way an individual influences people to their way of thinking.
Steadiness – determined by the pace of the individual’s environment.
Compliance – determined by an individual’s responds to rules and regulations.
Each behavior is approached with a different communication style since each behavior requires certain needs. For example, if you were to interact with an employee or co-worker that is characterized as having dominance behavior, then it would be best not to approach them with a topic that is irrelevant to the issue that is being discussed, as this may disengage them from the conversation altogether. The assessment also looks at 12 driving forces, which originate from the following six motivators:
- Knowledge
- Utility
- Surroundings
- Others
- Power
- Methodologies
Based on these motivators, the assessment subjects will score high or low on the correlating driving forces which can then be used to take a more internal view on why your employees, teammates, and/or future hires make the decisions that they make.
Case Study
The owner of a business that sells and rents large equipment to government agencies found itself wanting to improve employee performance as they expanded in mid-2021. This company, operating since the early 2000s, was a long-term client of the SBDC aware of the DISC Turbo-Charge service.
Over the course of the service, the business utilized 27 DISC/Turbo-Charge assessments. Initially, they focused on having their current staff evaluated – from office assistants to sales managers. This allowed them to learn what drove each of their employees in terms of satisfaction. It also gave them insight into how best to interact with each of their employees. For instance, the assessments found that some employees thrived on personal interaction and conversations, while others wanted to solely focus on data-driven conversations. This allowed the management team to tailor their communication with each of their employees, potentially leading to less frustration.
After the initial assessments were completed, the owner had each of their new hires evaluated. This allowed them to see how they were going to fit into the existing team and where in the company they would be best suited. In some cases, this gave the management team insight into what would make the new hire more successful, such as “XX will do well in this role as long as he has the opportunity to grow with the company and take on more of a leadership position.”
Regarding the DISC/Turbo-Charge service, the client recently shared, “The DISC [information/results] we continue to use. It’s such valuable tool. 15% of our team are risk takers, all others are risk averse. This opened our eyes on how to hire and who to hire and most of us know how to manage them.”
Why is this assessment beneficial for my business?
By connecting with your team on a personal level, business owners tend to create a work environment that retains employees instead of creating a workplace with high turnover. This assessment can be used to evaluate your management team, new hires, and current employees. With the knowledge that is gained through the assessment, business owners can recognize what engages and motivates their team thus creating better dialogue and making better decisions to keep their team happy and focused.
Not only does this organizational development tool help uplift and encourage a team, but it also gives businesses great insight into what makes a team work well and efficiently. Gain business success by keeping your personnel happy with great communication and meaningful work based on their behavior and driving forces. Turbo-Charge your team today to get behind your organization and find out how to come back better than ever.
Simplice Essou, CPA
Certification Consultants, Consultants, Essou, TampaFlorida SBDC at USF
Specialty: Accounting, Business Planning, Financial Management, Startup
Simplice Essou joined the Florida SBDC at University of South Florida in March 2020 as a business consultant, bringing almost two decades of experience in accounting, finance and entrepreneurship. Essou started and managed an international consulting firm in 2008, specializing in advising African government on issues related to small-to-medium-enterprise development. Previously, he has worked for large corporations, including Bank of America, BP-Amoco, General Electric, and Lehman Brothers. These roles gave him a wide breadth of experience, including the ability to handle forecasting, analyze revenue entries, actively communicate account receivable risks, and lead day-to-day analysis and reporting for credit losses. He earned an MBA in finance from the Wharton School at University of Pennsylvania and a bachelor’s in accounting from the University of Southern Mississippi.