Posted by Paul Bortell on

Using the DiSC® Personality Test to empower people in your workplace team.
    

DiSC® Personality Test - Empowerment Zone AheadOne way to empower and engage a workplace team is to involve them in all aspects of planning and work decisions.  Involvement tends to help you retain your brightest and best employees, increases their sense of ownership and develop people styles at work.  It also fosters an environment of motivation where individuals choose to contribute.

It’s really important to develop a leadership/management philosophy where people are enabled to contribute to ongoing success of their work organization.  Employees are likely to become fully engaged when they can impact decisions and actions that have a direct effect on their job.

A strategic plan is also important!  Use methods with your workplace team and in continuous improvement meetings; include Kaizen (continuous improvement) events, suggestion systems, corrective action processes, develop reward and recognition systems where progress and gains are highlighted.  One-on-one discussions with supervisors are also helpful.

Team Building or team effectiveness training is intrinsic to most employee engagement processes.   Key skills are:  effective communication, conflict resolution and problem solving skills.

A tool for bringing out the best in people is the DiSC® Personality Test or DiSC® Workplace Profile!   The focus is:

  • Discover Your DiSC® Style
  • Understand Other Styles
  • Build More Effective Relationships
  • Develop people styles at work

After developing a clear understanding of self and others with the DiSC® Personality Test, it’s helpful to use a model for employee involvement.    One of the most recommended models is one that was developed by Tannenbaum and Schmidt (1958) and Sadler (1970).  Their continuum for leadership involvement increases the role for employees and decreases the role of supervisors in the decision process.   Here is the progression of their continuum.

  • Tell:   Here the supervisor provides direction.  The supervisor makes the decision and announces it to staff.  This would be useful for safety issues, or for government regulations that requires no employee input.
  • Sell:   The supervisor makes decisions then strives to gain commitment from staff.  This is useful where employee commitment is necessary, but the decision is not open to employee influence.
  • Consult:   Supervisor solicits input but retains authority to make final decisions.   Key point here is to keep employees informed at the outset.  Solicit input, but retain authority.   Employee dissatisfaction can occur if this is not clear to people providing input.
  • Join:  Supervisor invites employees to make a joint decision.  All have equal voice in the decision process.  The key here is for the supervisor to build consensus, while keeping his or her influence equal to others providing input.

Reference: Tannenbaum, R. and Schmidt, W. How to Choose a Leadership Pattern. Harvard Business Review, 1958, 36, 95-101.

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