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Activities for Everything DiSC®

Work of Leaders

| vision |

| ALIGNMNENT |

| execution |

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Source modelWork of Leaders (Everything DiSC profile and book)

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Alignment

“Building alignment is the

act of gaining buy-in for

your vision and it’s

absolutely critical in moving

from imagination to reality.”

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Alignment

Building alignment

means ensuring

that each and

every person

understands his or

her role in making

the vision a reality.

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How would you score?

Our leader …

gives enough detail to clarify what’s

expected.

makes sure we all understand a difficult

topic/procedure.

fully forms his/her thoughts before

communicating.

stays focused; doesn’t go off on tangents.

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Photo source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/demibrooke/2336528544/

“The less

people know,

the more they

yell.”—Seth Godin

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Alignment tip: Provide clarity

www.DiSCProfile.comSource: The Work of Leaders

“The key to inspiring the organization

is to do internally what marketing does

best externally: create irresistible

messages and programs that get

everyone on board.”

– Marc de Swaan Aron, Frank van den Driest,

and Keith Weed

The Ultimate Marketing Machine, Harvard Business Review

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“What we have here is a failure to communicate.” Cool Hand Luke

It’s not easy.

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“I can be incredibly focused, and I can

appear impatient. So I’ve learned to

slow down, get to know people and

provide more context. There’s nothing

wrong with getting to the point pretty

quickly, but it’s also helpful to give

people an opportunity to talk about

their work.”

– Lynn Good

CEO and President, Duke Energyhttp://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/24/business/lynn-good-of-duke-energy-on-effective-leaders.html

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“… one thing drove my success:

the effort I put into synthesizing all the

messages coming out of a company

into one strong story line. … Today,

companies can no longer assume that

inconsistencies in their stories will go

unnoticed.”

– Steve Girsky

GM Vice Chairman

Many Stakeholders, One Story, Harvard Business Review

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Do you need help

explaining your rationale?

Offer Explain

intuition rationale

For the purpose of creating alignment, you’ll be more successful

moving towards the behavior on the right.

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Explaining your rationale

• Discuss ways to get beyond “because I

said so” and “isn’t it obvious.”

• How can you make your decision process

more transparent?

• How can you tell when you’ve explained

enough?

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How do you structure your

messages?

Impromptu Structured

For the purpose of creating alignment, you’ll be more successful

moving towards the behavior on the right.

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Try it: Structuring your messages

• What’s your headline?

• What are your talking points?

• Do you have a story to illustrate your

message?

• Are there images, photos, charts that could

amplify your message?

• How do your actions reinforce your

message?

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Evaluate your messages

• What messages are circulating now?

(yours or others)

• You might be sick of repeating your

message, but are others tired of hearing it?

• Do they need to hear it again another way?

• Can they repeat it in their own way?

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Exchanging perspectives

“The factor that had the highest

correlation with job satisfaction

was “a chance to have my

opinions heard and considered.’”

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Present Exchange

Information Perspectives

Challenging Receptive

Dialogue

Where do you generally fall?

For the purpose of creating alignment, you’ll be more successful

moving towards the behavior on the right.

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Being receptive

“But results-oriented leaders are often those

who struggle the most with the receptivity

needed to gain alignment. It’s really hard to

be challenging and receptive at the same

time.”

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Dialogue questions

• How do you prove your receptivity, your

willingness to listen to other ideas?

• Is your door really open?

• Are you easy to find or schedule a meeting

with?

• Do you check in with only a few people?

• How do you prove that you’re listening or

have heard and understood?

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Strategies

• Hold open forums or create other safe

spaces.

• Give people enough time to gather their

thoughts.

• Go face-to-face, enter another’s space.

• Management by walking around (MBWA)

• Watch your body language.

• Use active listening signals.

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Inverse Q & A

Audience not engaging in your Q&As? Questions

not relevant? People tuning out? Try these tactics.

• Pose a question to your audience and allow

them to discuss it with their neighbors.

• Ask people come up with questions in

groups. Give them the opportunity to choose

their best and then share those with you.

Adapted from “ 4 Ways to Fix the Q&A Session” by Thomas Wedell-

Wedellsborg.

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Align across silos

“The strongest design work is done by

integrated teams. … In order to create great

products and build brands with a unique

point of view, that point of view needed to

come from strategy…but it also needed to

be fused across multiple disciplines.”

—— Yves Béhar, Fuseproject“Better Business by Design,” Entrepreneur

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Matter-of-fact Encouraging

Reserved Expressive

Inspiration

Where do you generally fall?

For the purpose of creating alignment, you’ll be more successful

moving towards the behavior on the right.

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“People often say that motivation

doesn’t last. Well, neither does

bathing. That’s why we recommend

it daily.”

— Zig Ziglarauthor of Born to Win

motivational speaker

Image by United States Army.

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Show me, tell me.

• Why are you excited about this vision or

change?

• How will it make my life better, the world

better?

• What can go right?

• What might the future look like?

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Being expressive

“Being expressive isn’t grandstanding

or hollow charm.”

Image source: http://stormsketch.deviantart.com/art/Expressive-276702460

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Encourage me

• Are you proactive in giving positive

feedback, showing your belief in the

abilities of your staff?

• What’s your team’s rallying cry?

Remember your lessons from

DiSC: what motivates you might

not encourage me.

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“It’s one thing to come up with an

innovative idea, but it’s another thing to

make that idea seem less terrifying,

burdensome, or impossible to achieve.”

- Whitney Johnsonco-founder of Rose Park Advisors

Image by .Martin.

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“CEOs have to provide

leadership in various ways.

Like architects, they must lay

out a vision. Like engineers,

they worry about making things run

efficiently. But above all, they must

recognize their people’s desire to build

great things, and work with that creative

energy.”

– Edward E. NusbaumCEO of Grant Thornton

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Try it: Create the message

A. Your own message or vision.

B. Staff cuts will be made in the next quarter

in your unit/company.

C. We’re a company that puts the customer

first.

D. Innovation is our top priority for this year.

E. We’ll now be using a new metric for

determining success.

1. Choose a message.

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Share how you will

communicate…• Formally (annual report, media interview)

• Informally (humor, elevator encounter)

• Face-to-face (body language, stories,

questions)

• Virtually (email, advertising, images)

How does your message change

to fit each medium?

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Share how you will

communicate …

• Up to senior leadership/investors/board

• Across to colleagues

• Down to subordinates

• Out to consumers, investors, talent pool

How well do you know your audiences’

expectations, needs, interests?

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“In an aligned

organization, every

employee—from the

executive suite to

the loading dock—understands not

only the strategy and goals of the

business, but also how his or her

work contributes to them.”

– George LabovitzFounder and CEO of ODI

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Additional materials

• Work of Leaders: VISION slides

• Work of Leaders: EXECUTION slides

• Everything DiSC Work of Leaders Facilitation Kit

• Work of Leaders Supplemental Readings

• The Work of Leaders: How Vision, Alignment,

and Execution Will Change the Way You Lead

• Visit us at www.DiscProfile.com.