In today’s competitive business landscape, building high-performing teams is more crucial than ever. But what makes a team truly effective? According to Stephanie Windsor, CEO of Cloud Benefits, the answer lies not in gathering like-minded individuals but in understanding and leveraging the diverse strengths each person brings to the table. On a recent episode of Get Amplified podcast ‘Building High Performance Teams Through DiSC’, Steph shared invaluable insights on how DiSC® profiling transformed their start-up during a critical growth phase.
Cloud Benefits was founded in 2021 – at a time when businesses were emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic – offering a digital employee benefits platform with unique features like free financial, mortgage, and tax advice for employees and their partners. What sets them apart is their innovative approach to explaining benefits through animated videos instead of text-heavy documents. This fresh perspective has allowed them to grow rapidly, but not without challenges along the way.
Knowing Your Team’s Communication Styles Can Transform Your Business
Steph described a pivotal moment in mid-2023 when her business partner considered closing the company due to concerns about meeting targets. Despite receiving positive market feedback on their product, the team – which had never physically met in person – was struggling to collaborate effectively. Instead of giving up, Steph made a bold decision to personally fund DiSC assessments for the team with Amplified Group, confident that understanding team dynamics would turn things around.
Spreadsheets vs. People: Finding Joy in Your Work Role
The results were transformative. DiSC assessments helped identify each team member’s communication style, working preferences, and strengths. Rather than forcing everyone to adapt to a single working method, Steph used these insights to align roles with natural inclinations. She explained,
If you put me on reports and spreadsheets all day, I won’t want to come back to work”
It highlights how misalignment between personal strengths and job responsibilities leads to disengagement. The goal became ensuring team members spend approximately 95% of their time doing what they genuinely enjoy.
Beyond individual performance, DiSC profiling revolutionised team interactions. Understanding that quieter, detail-oriented team members might not volunteer opinions in meetings led to intentional efforts to draw them into conversations. Even seating arrangements were adjusted, placing less vocal contributors next to meeting chairs to ensure their voices weren’t drowned out by more dominant personalities.
These seemingly small adjustments created an environment where diverse perspectives could thrive.
Understanding Communication Preferences
Perhaps most importantly, the process established a common language around communication preferences and stress responses. Team members became more understanding of differences, embracing them as complementary strengths rather than sources of friction. This foundation of mutual understanding fostered a culture of kindness – core to Cloud Benefits’ ethos – where people feel valued for their unique contributions.
Kindness and Self-Awareness Create Unstoppable Teams
The business impact was undeniable. Steph’s team not only met but exceeded their targets following the DiSC profiling sessions. Employee retention improved significantly, which Steph credits directly to ensuring people spend most of their time on tasks they find engaging and fulfilling. The success of this approach has prompted Cloud Benefits to schedule regular check-ins and reassessments, recognising that team dynamics require ongoing attention, particularly in a fast-growing business.
For leaders looking to implement similar practices, Steph emphasises that while the concepts behind DiSC profiling aren’t “rocket science,” making them explicit and actionable is transformative. The key is moving from intuitive understanding to conscious application – creating a shared vocabulary and framework that teams can reference daily. This approach doesn’t just improve current performance but helps identify gaps in collective capabilities, guiding future hiring decisions and team development strategies.
Steph’s final advice resonates beyond team building:
“There’s a very old-fashioned view that work is work and perhaps you shouldn’t really enjoy it . . . but I don’t think it has to be like that.”
By understanding what motivates each person and aligning responsibilities accordingly, leaders can create environments where work doesn’t feel like work—where people thrive because they’re doing what energises them rather than depletes them. When this happens, retention improves, innovation flourishes, and businesses grow sustainably.
This was such a feel good conversation and to hear first-hand how understanding something as simple as team dynamics can transform a business.
Want to discover the secret to building unstoppable teams? Don’t leave teamwork to chance!
Check out our newsletter, Don’t leave teamwork to chance, where we’ll introduce a simple yet powerful DiSC methodology exercise designed to unlock collaboration, boost morale, and help your team thrive.
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✅ DiSC assessments to build self-awareness and team understanding
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Let’s work together to transform your team dynamics and drive lasting results.
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Want to explore more? Don’t miss this insightful blog from Customer Success Leader Andy Bryars: Scaling high performance teams – a practical guide to building and sustaining team success at scale.
