Irrefutable Success

Ralph Waldo Emer­son once said, “Who you are speaks so loudly, I can’t hear what you are saying.”

It’s true that our behav­ior often over­shad­ows our words. But it is pos­si­ble to look beyond the words peo­ple are say­ing and read them like a book.

Under­stand­ing behav­ior is the key to effec­tive com­mu­ni­ca­tion, and that key opens the door to effec­tive rela­tion­ships in busi­ness and in life. Ulti­mately, it’s all about uncov­er­ing the truth of what is being communicated.

There is one thing that Jack Bauer and Dr. Cal Light­man always get: the truth.  The dif­fer­ence between them is, while Jack Bauer may beat the truth out of a ter­ror­ist, Dr. Cal Light­man will rec­og­nize the truth as he observes their com­mu­ni­ca­tion.  Light­man uses the study of body lan­guage and micro expres­sions to extract the truth from people.

Of course, the tele­vi­sion shows 24 and Lie to Me are Hol­ly­wood enhanced ver­sions of what is pos­si­ble. But there is truth behind the sci­ence of under­stand­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tion through behavior.

If you go deeper than the spo­ken word, you can bet­ter under­stand the depth and breadth of what some­one is try­ing to say. At Build­ing Cham­pi­ons, we use a tool called the DISC Behav­ioral Assessment.

The DISC assess­ment pro­files four dis­tinct behav­ioral styles that, when under­stood, can improve communication:

D (Dom­i­nant)
High D’s tend to be ambi­tious, force­ful, deci­sive, strong-willed, inde­pen­dent, and goal-oriented

I (Influ­en­tial)
High I’s tend to be mag­netic, enthu­si­as­tic, friendly, demon­stra­tive, and political

S (Steady)
High S’s tend to be patient, pre­dictable, reli­able, steady, relaxed, and modest

C (Com­pli­ant)
High C’s tend to be depen­dent, neat, con­ser­v­a­tive, per­fec­tion­ist, care­ful, and compliant

The DISC pro­file sug­gests how to best com­mu­ni­cate with peo­ple who exhibit the var­i­ous D-I-S-C behav­iors. Cer­tain styles of com­mu­ni­ca­tion are more effec­tive than oth­ers for peo­ple with vary­ing behav­ioral styles.

In some envi­ron­ments, peo­ple may adapt to a behav­ioral style that is not nat­ural to them. This makes the com­mu­ni­ca­tion process even more com­plex. Not only do you need to know how best to com­mu­ni­cate with each of the var­i­ous behav­ioral styles, you should also under­stand whether the behav­ior you are observ­ing is their nat­ural or adapted style.

The point here is not to make you an expert in the DISC Behav­ioral Lan­guage in under 500 words, but rather to raise the aware­ness that, since effec­tive com­mu­ni­ca­tion is so impor­tant in our pro­fes­sional and per­sonal rela­tion­ships, it is cer­tainly worth the invest­ment of your time to develop your skills.

There is more to lan­guage than words. If you want to read peo­ple like a book, you must first learn to speak their language.

Here are two great resources for you to consider:

- Every­one Com­mu­ni­cates, Few Con­nect by John Maxwell
– The Uni­ver­sal Lan­guage, DISC by Bill J. Bonnstet­ter and Judy Suiter

If you are inter­ested in tak­ing a DISC pro­file, con­tact us to find out more.

I will be lead­ing a break­out ses­sion on DISC at the Build­ing Cham­pi­ons Expe­ri­ence in Ore­gon this Sep­tem­ber. This event is sold out, but it is not too late to con­sider attend­ing the 2011 Build­ing Cham­pi­ons Expe­ri­ence!

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Tags: Building Champions Experience, Communication, DISC

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