Introduction

Understanding more about the human dynamics within a team helps to improve the quality of your team experience by building more effective relationships. Meetings, projects, and teams are more effective when differences are not only better understood but actively encouraged and embraced.

We want to introduce you to a practice that provides a memorable way to understand not only your own personality traits but the personality types of your team to highlight how you can adapt and work together to the best of your abilities.

1. Handout – Print out or share electronically this Team Map for yourself and each team member to use during the exercise.

2.Video – The Team Manager should watch this DiSC® video explaining how to run the exercise prior to the session. (6 mins)

3. Blog – Share with your team the Rainbow Thinking utilising DiSC® Blog that goes deeper into different workstyles.  This will give them an understanding of DiSC prior to the session.

1. Play this DiSC® exercise video (6 mins) to your team before starting the exercise.

2. On a powerpoint or whiteboard, draw a dot on the disc where you think you fit and discuss with the team why you feel that this best represents your style.

3. Encourage feedback as to whether the team agree or disagree, you may find that there will be lots of nuanced positioning of your dot within a quadrant or sector – don’t get too hung up on the accuracy of the positioning as this will be completed by a formal DiSC profile, just use the positioning as a source of friendly debate and discussion.

4. Ask the team members to use either the Team Map handout to draw a dot where they think they would feature in the circle themselves and why. If you have a disc on a whiteboard, ask each member to make their dot. Don’t get involved in a detailed debate here, as some people could get very defensive about their positioning, and it can be very subjective. Some people in a team will love this activity (and they may place their dot around the ‘I’ style area of the disc), some may be more reserved and reluctant (they may place their dot around the ‘C’ style area of the disc). Respect their positioning and allow a limited amount of feedback. Keep the mood light and positive.

• Diversity of approach and style is a positive thing so it’s great to have differences in the team.
• Everyone is a blend of all the styles but our personal default preference is in one of the sectors.
• People often stretch their style to suit their audience, but we are just looking for their most natural starting point.
• There is no wrong or right place to be, each opinion is to be respected and valued. All styles are important!

The team should take onboard what others have said about their style and recognise any differences of opinion, it also reflects on the different styles of the people giving feedback

There will be some lightbulb moments as you build the Team DiSC® map and you should see a diversity of styles within the team. If you have a good spread then you have a lot of diversity of thinking within the team which is great but needs to be well managed and developed to create good team cohesion.

It will become clear why sometimes you find it easier to work with some people than others, you will pick up tips on how you can adapt your style to improve the team dynamics.

If you have enjoyed this exercise, we recommend you listen to our ‘What shadow do you cast?‘ podcast.