Aside from the Wall Street Journal coining this phrase back in 1986 to describe the issues surrounding women trying to climb the corporate ladder(1), the “glass ceiling” has been used in business to describe not only the struggles of women during the late 1980s and beyond, but the struggles of many other business people who are seeking to climb or grow without a clear pathway. Small to medium sized businesses are owned by people who have also found that, at some point, they are unable to move past their current state. Another term for that state is ‘plateau’, ‘reaching a level’ or ‘holding a position’ and when these occur it can lead to the beginnings of what may be the decline of the business altogether.

Mind over perceived matter

Some Business Owners focus on the underperformance of their business and feel the frustrations of “not getting anywhere” usually put that down to an external influence. The market has changed. Their staff rotate too quickly. They can’t afford upgraded machinery. The customer only trusts them to do that job or provide that service. It’s certainly less confronting when the reason why a problem exists is because it’s due to something out of their control.

There is a way to navigating external factors, to move forward, and break through the ceiling that the Business Owner has put up for themselves. Growth in a business starts with addressing something that is much closer to home - the inside of the business. The area that the Business Owner and Leader has complete control over. This shift in focus completely dissolves the glass ceiling because changing the business will automatically change how outside influences interacts with it.

There are many sayings out there to help people realise that “we are the change that we want to see in the world”, but there is one particular that resonates very strongly in the business coaching world, and that is, you only grow to the extent of your weakest link.

Looking at the business - inside the business - finding where it needs strengthening is a powerful weapon a Business Leader can use to forge their way forward.

Regrouping your four spheres

Way back in at the beginning of One Week At A Time you may recall that we talked about the Four Spheres of a small to medium sized business. Those were Leadership, Finance, Operations and Marketing. They all interrelate and work together to make the business happen day to day. Review each of these in some detail to identify which needs the most developing. It’s very commonplace that a Business Owner does not have the expertise in all four areas, but what is important is that they are aware of the gap in knowledge in the area that is needing attention.

For example, Finance may be the area of the business where you know that there are ways to make profit in this area but haven’t discovered those strategies to use. Making the activity of investigating strategies to increase profits in your accounting or at the very least provide significant cost savings in this area is a way to regroup and redefine that part of the business. When we talked about Tethers previously in One Week At A Time, we were asking the Business Leader to examine the business across every area, seeing what isn’t performing as well as it could and take action to make those adjustments. And it does take courage to do that.

Action equals Confidence

Confidence equals Decisions

It’s the lack of confidence that can stop decisions being made in life and in a business. When a person isn’t sure they tend to do nothing until they are sure. In business and especially in Business Leadership, a lack of certainty is debilitating to both the Leader and the business.

It’s true that a lack of confidence can be a due to not having enough knowledge in an area, but in business those people leading aren’t the experts themselves - they don’t have the time to become a Certified Accountant before they can take on improving their financial situation. The knowledge that a person needs to feel confident often comes back to gaining the knowledge to know how to lead experts, by perhaps asking the Accountant to investigate a better software system that can create greater efficiencies.

What is interesting about this topic of breaking through the glass ceiling is that for many people finding a new way leads to acknowledging “you don’t know what you don’t know” - being okay with that - and then doing something about it. It’s those Business Leaders who can identify this who end up surviving market changes and are able to reinvigorate their business to face more challenges far better than many other businesses.

The glass ceiling altogether disappears when a business is improving itself, forging new ground and placing itself in positions where it can thrive.

References

(1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_ceiling

(2) https://hbr.org/1987/07/crafting-strategy

(3) https://leadershipfreak.blog/2012/05/02/10-strategies-for-building-confidence-in-others/

When people talk about what’s holding them back in a business what tops that list is cash flow. Lack of it. Speed of it. Amount of it. And that could all be very true. However there are many areas outside of cashflow that is holding a business back. It could be a lack of team motivation, the inability to act fast enough to changes in the market, high turnover of staff, debtors staying on the books for too long, clunky systems. The list can be longer and more complicated than simply focussing on the business’ cash position.

Where to start

Even the most entrepreneurial people on the planet (cue Steve Jobs, Richard Branson, Oprah Winfrey, Andrew Carnegie) start at the same place - themselves. Understanding where in a person’s internal makeup are the positives and where the blind spots could potentially be lying. These are often found by the help of an external body, business coach or trusted mentor and ally.

Richard Branson believed that he “wouldn’t have got anywhere in the airline industry without the mentorship of Sir Freddie Laker [founder of Laker Airways]....[he urges us to] find a mentor”(1). Mr Branson has often quoted Zig Ziglar who said “A lot of people have gone further than they thought they could because someone else thought they could."

The team at One Week At A Time have countless stories of businesses who worked a business coach and mentor who believed in them, and saw them sustain ongoing growth many years after the conclusion of their mentoring. Seeking the help of an experienced person who has the wisdom in business management, and that wisdom is based on current trends and information will prove to be invaluable.

Through the looking glass

Not everyone has the funds to immediately seek out a Business Coach, or have the luck or good fortunate to have a Mentorship with a Leader in their industry through a sponsorship program. That’s why it’s also a good idea to see the business through the eyes of those that provide the greatest impact - customers. Surveying a customer doesn’t have to be tedious. There is a series of questions which regularly features in surveys, and the answers are rich in feedback and highly useful for shaping businesses.

The most popular Customer Survey Questions (using a Likert Scale)

1. Would you recommend our company to others requiring our services/product? Rate us 1 through to 10 (1 = wouldn’t recommend, and 10 = highly recommend)
   What is the number 1 reason you gave us that score?

1. What is the number 1 most important improvement we could make that would have you rate us higher?

These questions will uncover many areas of the business from the point of view of the customer/client. Showing the business how it’s perceived, if customers are likely to be raving fans (or not), how easy the business selling proposition is to understand, which areas of product or service are making the most impacts and so on and so forth.

Another survey which is useful is the 360° Survey. This internal view can reveal how each team member is working with each other. The business finds out how people on the same level, parallel peer level, higher and lower levels are perceiving and interacting with each other. This exercise is like walking into a room with mirrors facing a person on all sides. This survey is an anonymous assessment which are either answered online or with a coach. The areas that are assessed are:

• Person’s strengths
• Areas of improvement
• Communications
• Inclusiveness
• Ability to deal with problems
• Composure under pressure
• Listening skills
• Offering helpful feedback
• Readiness to ask for input, ideas, and advice
• Effectiveness in motivating others..

The  360° Survey is most commonly used at an executive or senior management level to help refine skills and formulate plans on how to better engage teams and the business.

The right way up

What was once an unknown factor which was initially contributed to one area (cashflow) may have turned out to be a very different outcome after undertaking these external assessments. When a Business Owner is continually working on their business alongside a coach/mentor and has the information gathered from the market and their team, they will easily be able to see the business the right way up again.

Resources

If you would like to discuss your particular business situation and find out areas could be holding you back, please contact Brett Burden, Senior Business Coach on 1300 971 763.

References

(1) https://www.virgin.com/entrepreneur/richard-branson-the-importance-of-a-business-mentor

(2) https://www.td.org/Publications/Blogs/Management-Blog/2014/07/What-We-Can-Gain-from-a-360-Leadership-Assessment

Businesses which run without its owner have two distinctive qualities. The first one is that there are proper systems and structures in place and the second is that it’s people are also provided with those same structures, with the added bonus of being the business’ greatest asset. A terrific example is from the Virgin empire, whose very foundations have always been its people.

The Virgin Pulse CEO Chris Boyce said of its greatest assets ...“Success in business is all about people, people, people. Whatever industry a company is in, its employees are its biggest competitive advantage. They’re the ones making the magic happen - so long as their needs are being met.” (1)

Richard Branson himself said “Put your staff first, customers second, shareholders third.” (2) He was a big advocate of looking after his staff first and the business will be taken care of as a result.

A business owner in any market who grows and nurtures their people will find the business itself will skyrocket. How to get to this point through the process of a review, is the topic of today’s paper. We attempt to answer the tricky question - how do we review a person?

Definition to a role is like oxygen to the lungs.
People need it.

Each role within a business is occupied by a real person. Someone with feelings, thoughts and more critically - needs. And people need to know the what, why, how, where and when’s of their specific area within a business. In previous One Week At A Time papers we talked about the need of matching specific roles to DiSC personality profiles. We take this notion further by arming the person who we now know has the correct DiSC profile for role, with the information for them to perform their role. Once a person knows what is required of them, then they have the parameters to work on how to best service the business. Without role definition, each person will fall back on their skills and become reactive to the urgent needs of the business (refer to our other papers on Time Target and Delusions for more information on reactive business management).

Fit for purpose

Many moons ago the nomenclature when it came to employing staff was “job fit”. The personality of the person had to “fit in” a culture and the swag of skills they possessed along with their congenial nature equalled success. Job fitness in business then moved on to include personality profiles on top of a good “cultural fit”. Again the skills plus profile plus culture fit equalled success. This was used widely in all role definitions across the country.

These terms have been repositioned and job descriptions include what is called “fit for purpose”. Fit for purpose is taking a role, defining all it’s deliverables and outcomes, culturally fitting in and  personality profiling and adding the important layer of “purpose”. Why is any of this important?

Going back to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs top of the pyramid “self enlightenment” - where a human being is doing something for the greater good. Better than the self. Fit for purpose was invented to work in with this primal need within all people because “having a purpose beyond increasing shareholder profits is key to the modern corporation’s ability to survive and thrive”(3).
Purpose is the most important element in role definition.

Cover the bases

Each staff member has a different classification under the Australian Government regulations. When a role is created these classifications and rules need to be adhered to under Australian Business laws. Therefore when providing a role definition, job description and general terms it is advisable to cover the bases of each type of role, not just the skills required for that role. For example a full-time employee will have different needs and entitlements to a fixed term employee). Please refer to https://www.business.gov.au/info/run/employ-people and  https://www.fairwork.gov.au/find-help-for/small-business. Many employers fall into a common trap of the review conversation getting bogged down by a lack of transparency in this area. Best to nib this in the bud and include this as part of the role definition criteria (e.g. clearly outline the role status - full-time, fixed term, apprentice, etc - along with the classification’s specific parameters).

It’s time for that conversation

Arriving at a place where the clarification of role, the skill set, fit for culture, fit for purpose and basic rights are covered will all set up the best possible conversation to have with an employee. Here is where it gets tricky.

For a Manager who has reviewed employees many times, the basic information will help them feel less tense. And if that Manager are like many thousands of other managers out there, they will think of all the good things the staff member did and the most recent not-so-good things they did and write all that down. It’s human nature after all right.

On the other side of the coin, the staffer lists all the projects they completed where they have contributed, and then dutifully crosses their fingers hoping no curveballs are thrown their way. There is a fundamental underestimation of how stressful this process actually is for those being “assessed”. Dressing the review up in an HR campaign of “fun” or a “two-way feedback process” and “healthy constructive criticism”, doesn’t take away from the fact that it is what it is. One person sitting in front of another person they are about to judge(4). How to reduce this stress comes down to

What the experts say

Harvard Business School have performed many studies in this area and solid business practices have come from their learnings. Here is what they have have to say about how to have an effective performance discussion(5):

1. Make it clear from the beginning of the year exactly how you will be evaluating employees with individual performance plans.
   Remember, changing goal posts mid-play won’t make your players win the game. They need to have practiced each pattern of play before you change tacts on the field (that’s an analogy for the American Football fans).
2. Give your employees a copy of their appraisal before the meeting (some suggest the day before some suggest an hour before). This means the manager fills out the forms first, lays their cards on the table, then gives that to the employee so that they can have a private emotional response, process the information and come back with a cool head.
3. For good performers deliver mainly positive messages, concentrating on their strengths during the conversation.

And these are the “don’t do”s of performance reviews:

1. Don’t Generalise. For example, “you need to be more proactive” that doesn’t mean anything. Instead say “you need to take more initiative in calling sales leads”. Being specific about what exactly in a person’s behaviour can improve gives them something tangible to work with. Sweeping generalisations get lost in a conversation.
2. Don’t talk about compensation. This one is not widely talked about. According to the experts here, it’s advisable to have the conversation about compensation separately. Remuneration is tied to company profits, its shareholders and other areas which are out of the person’s control.
3. Don’t sugar coat it for clear poor performers. If they are not performing then that’s the conversation that you have.

Pick a side. Controversial? Not really.

Another area the Harvard professionals believe that managers would be best to do is break the cycle of what they term the “feedback sandwich” (or Australian’s have referred to this as “the slap and the pat”). This is when a manager compliments, criticises then delivers more niceties. The recipient isn’t clear what is going on. Additionally, this techniques does 2 things - it undermines those who are doing well, and washes over those people who aren’t. It’s a tough ask for managers but it has to be done - decide which side the person is on and stick to it. Is the person a good performer (in which case almost exclusively concentrate on what that person did well) or is that person a poor performer (in which case be specific and share what activities are making that happen)?

Nine times out of ten

Performance reviews were never meant to be a walk in the park, and they also weren’t meant to resemble a root canal at the dentist’s office either. Most businesses and their leaders want to empower the staff that they believe in and have employed, to continue to positively contribute to the business. Reviews are a way that they can keep track of the most important areas in each role, so that, like a symphony orchestra, all the instruments are coming together to produce an amazing sound. As managers, it’s easy to lose sight of this, and as employees it’s important to remember the love of music keeps you in the orchestra. Nine times out of ten, performances are good. And in business good means on track. Put another way, if everyone from the lighting crew, the conductor, the choir and the flute section know what to do, practice it regularly and enjoy making the music together, come review time, they’ll turn up for the conversation...in a good way.

Resources
If you would like a copy of the Action Centre Performance Review Form please contact Brett Burden, Senior Business Coach on 1300 971 763.

References
(1) https://www.virgin.com/entrepreneur/richard-branson-why-business-is-about-people-people-and-people
(2) https://www.virgin.com/richard-branson/people-come-first
(3)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/valerie-keller/fit-for-purpose-changing-_b_3697932.html
(4) https://hbr.org/product/how-to-be-good-at-performance-appraisals-simple-ef/an/10295-HBK-ENG
(5) https://hbr.org/2011/11/delivering-an-effective-perfor

Wallflowers. Party Animals. Party Organiser. Blenders. You probably know which one of these might be you and we’ve seen many variations of these themes in our lives, but can we really spot similar groupings in other environments? It’s harder to identify homogeneous behaviours in groups of people because people generally behave differently at parties as they would in other situations. Added to that, we have the many filters through which we see the world - work, family, money, spouse, possessions (Covey 1989, pp 119-121). There also are differences in tempo and behavioural norms when we enter businesses and deal with unfamiliar or formalised environments.

The science behind unlocking which party person may be seated at Boardroom Alliance table, interview or work site was introduced in last week’s One Week At A Time. The groups were identified as Conscientious (C), Influencers (I), Dominant (D) and the Steady (S). This week we are able to further explore those profiles and place them in the following quadrants:

From this table we can see that those who have a skew toward “D” or “I” have an outgoing nature, however those with “D” prefer activities with tasks with or without people, and those with “I” prefer activities mainly involving people. If the skew is toward “C” or “S” the person has a more reserved nature, and in the case of a “C”, may be very reserved or introverted. The main idea behind DiSC is that no matter which quadrant a person mainly prefers, knowing the team around them means they can quickly adjust their behaviour with the other types for a desired outcome.

There is Steady and there is S-t-e-a-d-y

Each person who undertakes a DiSC will be asked a series of questions, and as we touched on last week, different scores will be assigned to each of the 4 main quadrants. The score which is the highest is considered the “high” score placing a person into the category of a High D, High C, High I or High S. The number itself can be very high on the scale or mid range but still the highest of the 4. For example, a person with a very high S score (80) may be more pronounced as an “S” type than a person with a lower level of S (53). However as both have a main preference to S, you will still find both of them standing together by the water cooler exchanging stories about their 10 year Cricket Club Anniversary or the annual boating trip they went on with their friends from school.

Trainspotting DiSC Profiles

There are many traits which are associated with the main DiSC profiles. To spot one of the 4 “high” displaying types you’ll find the below traits shine through:

• High D’s They are unstoppable! A doer with drive and determination. Fly the flag and see it sail out to sea. On the other hand they can be arrogant but deep down they won’t care much about that, too busy blazing trails (or at least delegating to other people to blaze the trail for them).

• High I’s Super fun loving and entertaining. Great to have around because when the party is on, its ON. But they like to take that spotlight and point it over their own heads for a long time. Good news is that they won’t know they are doing it - they’ll be too busy enjoying the attention.

• High C’s Detail is the name of the game. Doing it right and to a high degree of accuracy and criticism. However, they prefer to look at the glass half empty, questioning why their glass has 50% less in it and could someone please explain if this an experimental glass, and if so, are they the “control” glass….bla bla bla bla and so it goes on.

• High S’s These are the steady people, your “buddy”, and they take it slower than the rest of the pack because they aren’t afraid of letting life do its thing. Around 70% of Australians are S in profile.Their nature can be confronted sometimes by those “bossy” conversations that need to happen.

It’s now easier to see how people can display certain DiSC profiles - we come across varying levels of these kinds of people everyday. Many Business Leaders have used the information from DiSC about their staff and were able to start to devise a plan of how to manage them better, transforming the workplace and producing a well-rounded team.

Chipping away at the iceberg

DiSC also shows us with a fair amount of accuracy, what a person is likely to do or decide when we first meet them. The iceberg (the exposed section of a personality) is the first thing that we see when we first meet people and more often and not, behaviour is all we have to go on to evaluate a person. In business we can use DiSC to find the best people to work in areas such as recruitment, sales, operations, management, marketing, administration...anywhere. When teams become unstuck it is at times when they don’t understand each other’s behaviours and can’t respond effectively to each other in times of stress or when they are in a wave of never-ending orders. As a Business Leader we need to be confident that the people around us are what they say they are, and will do what we hope they will be able to do at the moments of truth. The High D drives us, the High C checks, the High S keeps it all rolling, and the High I breaks up all that seriousness and tells us all to lighten up - you’re not saving lives (unless you are, and in that case, it’s a joke in poor taste).

References
Covey S. R. (1989) The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. The Business Library, Melbourne Australia.

When we have a job to do and we experience people who we perceive are interrupting us, slowing us down, diverting our attention or just plain getting in the way of what we set out to achieve, it can prove to be frustrating and unproductive use of our time. Finding out how to motivate and discipline ourselves so that we don’t get caught up in the cycle of interruptions is a an ongoing process. In our personal journey in business and in life, we find out that we make mistakes, we try and learn from them to resurface into a better, more authentic person. Added to this inner journey Business Owners, Entrepreneurs and Managers are placed in positions of leadership which require a simultaneous understanding of themselves as well as other people’s internal workings. Creating a positive relationship with yourself and your team often is the quality that winds up separating a good leader from a regular “boss”.

Meet and greet

Approaching a new (or entrenched) team can depend on the kind of person that you are under times of stress. We often fall back to automatic, comfort behaviours when we face the unknown or uncomfortable situations. For example you may be a person who likes to be liked, and turns a situation into a series of fun interactions while and at the same time, you can’t find it in your heart to have a conversation which may involve dismissal. On the other hand you may be a person who finds tense conversations roll out more easily however, it turns out that others feel as though they are under constant scrutiny by you. These are two examples of behavioural types which managers and staff experience all the time. Finding out who is likely to behave in a certain way, in advance of a potential conflict, will prepare both people (the giver and receiver) to approach each other differently. The tool that One Week At A Time utilises to find out likely behaviours is called the DiSC Profile(1). It was founded by William Moulton Marston(2), who incidentally invented the blood pressure component of the lie detector test. William Marston’s DiSC profile (extracted from his book The Emotions of Normal People) is now an internationally recognised psychometric assessment that both managers and their teams use to be able to understand each other. Marston’s believed people sat on two axis - passive or active - and he developed a way of approaching people’s behaviour stemming from that basic premise.

DiSC as the pre-season warm up

Before you head out into the field for a game together, DiSC can be used as a form of a team warm up session, to help everyone get used to each other’s style of play. When times are calm it’s much easier to temper our behaviour it’s when times are difficult that DiSC is critical. A recent survey found almost 46% of Australians would rather look for a new job than deal with a workplace issue (or worse still, take a sick day in the hope that the issue will “blow over”)(3). Addressing main preferences in a person and finding where people are the same as us, builds trust and confidence to address issues rather than shy away from them. Using the below 4 basic styles of DiSC profiles(3) will begin a better positioned conversation:

• “D” Dominance - (active) direct, self confident
• “I” Influence - (active) talkative, enthusiastic
• “S” Steady - (passive) cooperative, patient
• “C” Conscientiousness - (passive) accurate, structured

Each person has a combination of all 4 with higher or lesser degrees of each of the styles (which we will go into more detail about further into One Week At A Time). The style that a person will most identify with is the one that they are mainly presenting, for example a person with 30 D, 50 I, 10 S, 15 C will most likely say that they are a “High I”.

Tip of the iceberg

DiSC will show whether a team has a skew or a manager has a preference which is complementary or counter to a team. These preferences are pointing to behaviours which influence what kind of actions and decisions that group or person is likely to make (especially under pressure). When we first meet people, knowing this information is important because we won’t really learn about that person on a deeper level until we have spent a great deal of time and many years with them. Below is an example of the human “iceberg”:

The iceberg shows us that the initial information about behaviour, above the water, is crucial in quickly establishing connections. In business, we don’t have the luxury of time to get to know people, which is where DiSC comes into its own. It will reveal the tip of the iceberg of a person, and give us enough information to couple with people’s skills and demeanour so we can make grounded decisions and positive interactions.

Online references

1 http://www.mybusiness.com.au/culture/772-australian-workers-taking-drastic-steps-to-avoid-workplace-issues#

2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Moulton_Marston

3 http://www.mybusiness.com.au/culture/772-australian-workers-taking-drastic-steps-to-avoid-workplace-issues#

When there is a role vacancy in business we often go on autopilot. We write a short outline of what’s involved and start advertising it across various job seeking outlets, receive resumes (sometimes over a hundred!) and then try and sift through all the paperwork to invite the lucky few for a face-to-face interview. The quality of the applicant depends on how well they have matched their skills to the advertisement through their cover letter and resume. When we follow this path we are on track for a 57% success rate. This can be improved marginally (to an approximate 63% success rate) when we use reference checks. This ultimately leaves over one third of roles advertised to end in an epic fail.

What would happen if the regular recruitment process was turned completely upside down? Could we still find the best candidate to join the team? Of course we can. And we can achieve a higher success rate, faster.

Working back from the middle

Let’s look at the type person who will be interviewed. Often this is the middle of the process, but in this new method it’s the first port of call. The question we want to answer is - what kind of person are they? How we do this, is through the DiSC personality profile tool. In One Week At A Time, the recommendation is to also profile the role before it is advertised to candidates.

The right seats on the bus

Finding the right people to sit in their designated seats within a business is an art form. Each role within a business displays different sets of behaviours and extracting what those are takes some science and investigative work.  Following is a small subset of questions to start the search:

Does the job call for….

• Analysing data and facts before acting?
• Tactfulness?
• Quick and forceful decisions?
• Logical thinking before making decisions?

Each of the above questions starts to formulate the picture of the kind of person that would be attracted to the role. Rank the need of each dot point from 1 to 4 (1 being the most important). There are over 10 sets of the above questions that are applied for a role fit. It’s interesting to learn that from just the above set, “quick and forceful decisions” is indicative of a D personality type, whereas “tactfulness” is aligned to an S personality style. If the ranking is given a 1 for “tactfulness” that will mean a social personality type may work in the role.

Each assessment that DiSC applies to, results in varying levels of all of the 4 styles. The four styles are: Dominant, Compliant, Steady and Influencer. The main preference (the style that is the most used) is the one that is most likely to be “leaned on” when the pressure is on.

Glass Slipper that fits

Each of the main preferential DiSC styles - Dominant, Influencing, Social and Conscientious are associated with fitting best with different kinds of roles. Below is a list of roles that may suit each style when there is a clear single style preference:

• High D personalities are typically found in roles that are managerial, political, executive, entrepreneurial and they can even be found in the military.
• A dominant C personalities suit roles that are highly analytical and critical such as a film critics, engineers, scientists, architects and skilled craftspeople.
• A person on the high S scale would excel in roles that involve support and understanding e.g. customer service, medicine, insurance, advisory positions and psychology.
• And the party going I is an entertainer, salesperson, coach, and wonderful host/hostess.

Once the role has been DiSC assessed, there are keywords which will invariably strike a chord with qualified candidates who have the same dominant preferences. For example a role may turn out to be a high combination of I and S therefore the advertisement must include trigger words such as ‘positive energy’, ‘cooperation’, ‘warmth’ and ‘team spirit’. Candidates will read the recruitment advertisement and immediately ask themselves “is this me?” and only those who answer “yes this sounds like me” will be contacting the organisation. The quality of resumes will be sent through on the strength of the subtle, but powerful word associations.

Whether a role is a high D or a combination of D and S, DiSC will extract the core preferences required to get the job done well. The highest levels of success has come from this methodology, achieving a staggering 88% success rate. Using DiSC on each role means the right people really will become your greatest asset.

DiSC Assessment Requests

Please contact Action Centre BusinessCoach, Brett Burden on telephone 1300 971 763 or email brettburden@theactioncentre.com.au to start your new wave of recruitment using DiSC.

Online references

https://www.discprofile.com/what-is-disc/overview/

http://changingminds.org/explanations/preferences/disc.htm