Using DISC Assessments for Better Remote Teamwork with Guy Harris

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Wayne Turmel
Hello, everybody. Welcome once again to the Long Distance Worklife Podcast, the podcast where we help you thrive, survive, and generally keep the weasels at bay in the evolving world of remote and hybrid work. My name is Wayne Turmel. Marissa is not here today. That's the bad news. The good news is that we have a really excellent interview with a good friend of mine and all around good Egg, and we are going to be talking about assessments in remote work and disk assessment in particular.

00;00;47;14 - 00;00;57;12
Wayne Turmel
And so for that, I am going to welcome my buddy and coworker and very, very smart guy, guy Harris guy, how are you?

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Guy Harris
I'm doing great. Wayne, how are you?

00;00;59;19 - 00;01;09;28
Wayne Turmel
I am ridiculously well glad I have an excuse to talk to you. This is one of the things about remote work is there are people you don't talk to nearly often enough.

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Guy Harris
That is fair. Yep.

00;01;11;05 - 00;01;35;06
Wayne Turmel
Now, Guy, besides being the coauthor with Kevin, but the boss is also the brains behind discpersonalitytesting.com. This is a Kevin Eikenberry company. Full disclosure, but Guy, can you tell us a little bit about what is the disc assessment and why the heck do we care.

00;01;35;06 - 00;01;58;26
Guy Harris
So the disc assessment is, behavior based assessment. We use words interchangeably like behavior style, communication style. But in our line of work comment, leadership and conflict resolution and team building those kind of things, it's an assessment to help identify what a person's personal blend of traits would be, using the Disc model of human behavior as the language to describe those those traits.

00;01;58;26 - 00;02;16;23
Guy Harris
So it's attempting to find an objective way to describe human behavior that can be sort of subjective in and of itself or or attempting to objectify human behavior so that we can better identify differences between us so that we can communicate better.

00;02;16;23 - 00;02;39;19
Wayne Turmel
And we're going to talk about what Disc is and isn't and what it should be, and what it often gets used for and for. Dear listener, your information, and yes, we use Disc in our organization. There are plenty out there. By last count. I am a Idi enfj blue green otter, I believe.

00;02;39;19 - 00;02;51;14
Guy Harris
Well, and there's exactly the issue was behavioral health assessments. There are, I don't know how many. There are more than I can keep track of. And I think the value of it is just having a common language. So like pick something and use it in your team.

00;02;51;16 - 00;03;07;07
Wayne Turmel
Yeah. Let's talk about that. What is the value of this kind of assessment in a really down and dirty. Why do I care that guy is an ass and somebody else is something else. Why does that matter?

00;03;07;09 - 00;03;29;18
Guy Harris
It comes down to better understanding the differences between us. Here's a rough correlation. It's kind of like knowing before you engage with someone that they speak only Spanish as opposed to you speaking English, so that you're prepared to make the translation in a similar way. We have different ways we engage and interact and focus and preference, all that kind of stuff.

00;03;29;18 - 00;03;58;25
Guy Harris
Even though we're all using English, at least we are. we're going to speak it and interpret it and perceive it slightly differently. And, the Disc model or any behavior based model helps us get closer and closer to understanding how another person might interpret what we say and do, and also help us better interpret what they say and do, so that we're basically trying to read other people's behaviors through their filters, not through our own personal filters.

00;03;58;28 - 00;04;19;12
Wayne Turmel
Yeah. And I think one of the ways I always think about it is it's not analysis, but it gives you a pretty good idea. For example, if you and I work together in the office exactly together, I would very quickly learn that I don't go to guy without numbers data. The statistics you.

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Guy Harris
Would pick up quickly because you would see that they did they.

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Wayne Turmel
Quickly. Yes. Yeah. The look of horror and borderline disgust on your face as I ramble on would tell me that I need to work with Guy in a certain way, right? If we work apart from each other and we don't have that social exposure to each other, it's kind of helpful for me to know. And it's going to perhaps prevent some drama.

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Guy Harris
Oh, absolutely. Because you're not going to have those day to day real life clues on, hey, here's how I adjust to work with Wayne, or here's how I talk to Marissa. Here are things that she cares about or he cares about, and assessments going to help you get there faster and with less stress and frustration. Hopefully because you have a frame of reference to engage with people.

00;05;04;12 - 00;05;35;09
Wayne Turmel
Now, it's funny because one of the things that seems counterintuitive since this personality testing.com sells not only individual assessments, but also team reports. So if you've got, you know, five people on your team and they each take the assessment, the report will tell you, here's what the impact of that is. Yes. All of that being said, I'm going to do something counterintuitive, which is ask you, how do people use these things wrong?

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Wayne Turmel
Well, what do we know?

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Guy Harris
I think it's excellent because, well, I mean, a quote and, the quote that resonates with me is all models are flawed. Some of them are useful. So, the disc model is a model of behavior. It's not a perfect predictor. It has flaws and limitations and all that kind of stuff. I acknowledge it openly. So in order to use it well, you got to know how you shouldn't use it.

00;05;58;17 - 00;06;20;25
Guy Harris
Well, one of the ways you don't want to use it is to get what I would say, overly prescriptive with it. So as we were just talking about it does give me a general idea how to better interpret and understand another person. And it's actually really good in retrospect to like, hear what somebody said or observe what somebody did and go, oh, I think I better understand that because I understand their behavior style.

00;06;20;27 - 00;06;46;21
Guy Harris
It's really not good to like, try to constrain somebody and predict with certainty how they're going to respond. So a good example is I can know for a fact. I can know from the disc model looking at that, Wayne's results go, probably wouldn't be ideal if the first thing I do is dump a bunch of data on his plate and ask him to interpret it, or try to persuade him with data, it's probably going to be a different approach.

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Guy Harris
It's probably more of an interactive thing, probably. Let's talk about this rather than, hey, here's all my 17 levels of research, and I could run into a situation where I share something with Wayne and he says, do you have some data to support that? So I don't want to get prescriptive, like Wayne is capable or not capable of doing a job because of the style.

00;07;06;26 - 00;07;14;24
Wayne Turmel
that's a little things. A lot of people, you know, a lot of people come to us and they want to use whatever the assessment is, whatever.

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Guy Harris
The assessment is.

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Wayne Turmel
Whatever, you know, whether you're a lion or an otter or whatever it is.

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Guy Harris
Whatever language you use to describe it. Yes.

00;07;20;23 - 00;07;34;20
Wayne Turmel
But they want to use that in hiring to say particularly around remote work. So and so is a good candidate for remote work, or so-and-so is not a good candidate for remote work.

00;07;34;24 - 00;07;56;14
Guy Harris
I think it's overly prescriptive. It does it help to kind of understand fit in a team and maybe the kind of things people might gravitate to or might not gravitate to. Does it give you a good framework for asking questions to see what people's preferences are? Yeah, absolutely. Do I want to use it to decide in advance this person's capable or not capable of doing something?

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Guy Harris
I don't think it says that it it doesn't talk about work ethic. It doesn't talk about preference. It doesn't talk about the necessarily the kind of work people like. There are inferences not conclusions. You can draw from the well.

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Wayne Turmel
And whenever I hear somebody say fit for a team, I get a little shiver down my question.

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Guy Harris
And yeah, you got to be really careful how far you go with that.

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Wayne Turmel
You know? For example, even on the most analytical team, I think you need a jeopardy expert on your team. And by that I mean you need somebody who is not laser focused but knows a whole bunch of stuff about.

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Guy Harris
Oh, I think you're right. Yeah. Because there's a risk of getting too much groupthink.

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Wayne Turmel
Exactly. Right. That's that's a concern. Now, how do you let's say we all take there are six members of our team, and we all take the disk. But just assessment as a leader, how do I use that in a way that is useful and constructive and not like saying, oh, everybody be nice to guy because he's a C.

00;09;04;08 - 00;09;26;07
Guy Harris
Yeah. So, I think in terms of taking like a holistic view of the role first, and I would very seldom say a single person should make that determination, like several people, probably with different looks at the job, different types of interaction, different different behavior styles in and of themselves. We'll look okay. What what does does it take to be successful in that role.

00;09;26;07 - 00;10;00;04
Guy Harris
And once I understand that, I go, okay, probably the person who's successful in this role, I mean, the type of environment they work in demands a lot of dark traits or demands a lot of this, or it may not traits, behaviors, DNC behaviors, or CNS behaviors, whatever the combination is. And then I could probably look at like, potential candidates for the job and think, and use that as a way to guide my interview questions so that I'm investigating a person's comfort with certain things, rather than using it as a filter that says you must have the style to have the job.

00;10;00;04 - 00;10;12;04
Guy Harris
So it's more of like it guides me and how I engage with the person for the interview process. And knowing that interview processes are also flawed, because we bring our biases and stuff to the table.

00;10;12;06 - 00;10;15;24
Wayne Turmel
Basically nothing works, so nothing works. So why should we bother?

00;10;15;27 - 00;10;41;02
Guy Harris
Is like, yeah, I think it's like we should acknowledge there are some limitations for anything we do, and let's just acknowledge those limitations and then work within them so that this model can help you guide your interaction with the person so you understand where they're coming from better. I don't think you really want to use it as a filter that says they must meet this criteria to have the job so it fits in the helped me understand the person better category rather than a let me force this.

00;10;41;05 - 00;10;43;29
Guy Harris
Well, let me force this person through a filter kind of thing.

00;10;43;29 - 00;10;55;22
Wayne Turmel
Now, one of the things that I love about you is that you are a unabashed geek and you love rolling around in the numbers and seeing what I do.

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Guy Harris
I do love numbers. Yes.

00;10;57;11 - 00;11;00;29
Wayne Turmel
Yes, more than you like people, which is fine.

00;11;01;01 - 00;11;03;29
Guy Harris
significantly more. Yeah, yeah.

00;11;04;02 - 00;11;27;11
Wayne Turmel
Which is lovely. Somebody has to do a brother and it's not me, but I'm curious. There's the assessment and then there's the team report, which uses a really fascinating algorithm to say if your team has four of people who are heavy in one area, right. Maybe. Right. It's really a good report. And you can get a free sample of one of those reports.

00;11;27;12 - 00;11;46;09
Guy Harris
There's a sample report on this first night testing.com. So you can see if it provides the kind of information you like. Yeah. And actually the report is intended as a discussion guide more than as a here's the thing about your team. It's more it says okay, here are patterns we see in your team. And here are some things you probably want to get as a leader.

00;11;46;09 - 00;12;06;18
Guy Harris
You want to engage with your team about to identify. Are we having some groupthink around these issues? Are we excluding? Like for example, if my team gravitates really heavy to the DNC, traits are we tending to exclude people who have a more relational perspective and not, like, discount their input because it's not important to the five of us.

00;12;06;23 - 00;12;23;01
Guy Harris
So therefore it's not important or are we looking at taking taken apart, going, oh look, we we might inadvertently discount this perspective because it's not ours. And maybe we should listen to that input or seek that input out, because it's not natural for us to consider that.

00;12;23;03 - 00;12;51;06
Wayne Turmel
And given that one of the most corrosive behaviors on remote teams is exclusion, yes. That's very easy to have happen, right? Very easy to naturally gravitate towards people who think and act like us. Absolutely. And therefore, you know, Marissa and Guy are going to drill down on this thing because what use is Wayne going to be? He might be and Wayne might be feeling left out of this.

00;12;51;08 - 00;13;11;05
Guy Harris
And Wayne might see something that never even occurred to Guy Marissa because it's like, oh, but this is obvious to us. Surely don't have a question about that. And yet Wayne or Barb or Kevin looks at and goes, hey, what about oh, I guess we didn't answer that question because it's so obvious to us, right? And like, ignore that input or discount it rather than value it.

00;13;11;08 - 00;13;20;06
Wayne Turmel
Now, you've been doing this a long time and rolling around in in the numbers. What have you learned that surprises you.

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Guy Harris
About the Dis model or assessments in general?

00;13;24;16 - 00;13;27;29
Wayne Turmel
whatever jumps into your dinky little brain.

00;13;28;02 - 00;13;55;13
Guy Harris
I think it's kind of like my journey in using the model is because engineer by training, really analytical by nature. I started my journey using the disk model. I was guilty of being over prescriptive and like, oh, I know this about you. I know that your style, therefore I know all this stuff about you and it's the realization or insight over time just how dynamic people are and how careful I have to be in assumptions I make about people.

00;13;55;13 - 00;14;16;28
Guy Harris
So that's one of the things that has, like the developing in my journeys, like, hey guy, slow your roll a little bit. Let me maybe you shouldn't jump to conclusions about that person so fast. Maybe you should take the assessment. Yes. Use that as a way to understand and like the phrase I use a lot is I want to remain curious, not judging.

00;14;16;28 - 00;14;36;26
Guy Harris
So the model helps me, actually heighten my curiosity when I gauge that people have a different style because now I'm like, wonder. Like, well, how do you see this? It. I think we see things differently. Help me understand that. As opposed to, oh, I know your style. Therefore I know how you see things. So it's more it helps me engage the people in a better way.

00;14;36;26 - 00;14;41;27
Guy Harris
And it's it's been really kind of cool to learn all the different ways people express their own style.

00;14;42;03 - 00;15;04;07
Wayne Turmel
Just one last question. Specifically when it comes to remote teams is there's something, a leader, one thing that a leader should consider, when it comes to the disc model that is not necessarily unique, but very specific to the remote workplace.

00;15;04;08 - 00;15;27;05
Guy Harris
I think it's something you touched on, is that tendency to either isolate from the team or to only connect with people who it's really easy and natural to interact with, because there's not the organic. I'm kind of forced to interact with people in the office that if I have to send an email or engage with them on instant messaging platform or something, I kind of have to have some initiative or intentionality to do that.

00;15;27;05 - 00;15;49;02
Guy Harris
It won't just accidentally happen. And so one thing I think unawareness for leaders is to look for places where people either isolate from or only interact with those that are like, super comfortable to interact with and start to have little clicks within the team, or only certain people that interact with each other, intentionally or unintentionally exclude certain members of the team.

00;15;49;02 - 00;16;00;04
Guy Harris
Don't invite them into the conversation. Those are the things I'd be looking for, because the remote environment sort of lends itself to reinforce that behavior. If leaders are not intentional about trying to break it down.

00;16;00;07 - 00;16;25;19
Wayne Turmel
Guy, thank you so, so much for you listeners out there. this personality test Inc.com, we will have links to that and to Guy in the show notes. show notes, of course, are at long distance work life.com. If you have questions, comments, vicious personal attacks, ideas for topics that you want us to talk about or people you want us to talk with, drop us a line.

00;16;25;19 - 00;17;04;10
Wayne Turmel
Wayne. At Kevin. I can become Marissa at Kevin. I can barricade them. And very exciting stuff. September 17th is the launch of the second edition updated version of the Long Distance Leader revised rules for remarkable remote and hybrid Leadership. we're very excited about this. Kevin. And I, wrote the original six years ago. Little has changed in the world since then, and so we urge you to check that out if you are familiar with the book, there is new content, particularly around hybrid teams.

00;17;04;17 - 00;17;29;29
Wayne Turmel
If you are unfamiliar with the book, now's a really good time to get on the stick. Anyway, thank you so, so much for joining us. We are super excited you did! If you enjoyed the show, please like and subscribe. You know how podcasts work and next week we will be back in a really fun conversation with Marissa. Meanwhile, I am Wayne Trammell.

00;17;29;29 - 00;17;35;15
Wayne Turmel
Thanks for joining us on the long distance work life. Don't let the weasels get you down. Hey.