Many business owners and professionals leverage DISC to better understand how they are wired for learning and communication. DISC is also a very effective tool in discovering one’s blind spots, which are usually easy to see in others, but harder to recognize in ourselves.
At TAB, we create peer advisory boards of business owners who act as each other’s Boards of Directors. We leverage DISC as a foundational element for board members to understand the differences among themselves in areas like communication styles, behaviors and motivators. DISC is key to enhancing interactions (and success!) within the board – and throughout each board member’s business.
So picture this. You are in a TAB Board Meeting with:
- Dion, a Distributor CEO. His DISC profile is a high D and thus he is a decisive, competitive, get-it-done kind of guy. We read about him reaching new heights in the news – and he is always striving for ways to be better and reach new goals. Dion almost always has a new objective to present to his TAB Board.
- Iris, who runs a wildly successful Internet Marketing business. She is a high I, meaning she is a natural influencer and promoter who brings a joyful, engaging element to the board meetings. Iris is very creative, quite vocal, and often the first one on the board to offer feedback on a fellow board member’s issue, albeit in a fun, safe way.
- Sam, who owns a Systems Training business. He is a high S, meaning he is supportive. Sam is steady and loves to teach the same thing over and over, but perhaps utilizes outdated tools. While prone to embrace the status quo, Sam is willing to change and evolve, with a little patience and convincing from his TAB board.
- CeCe, a Civil Engineer. Her DISC profile is a high C, meaning she is compliant, prone to be analytical, always needing more time and information to make decisions. She often wins awards as a top-notch performer, but is most comfortable sitting in front of her computer. While CeCe is perfectly pleasant and exceptionally talented, she is not necessarily what you would call a “people person.”
You get the picture. All the TAB board members are successful owners or c-levels, but each have blind spots and are striving for opportunities for growth, streamlined processes, better strategies, and in addressing other business challenges. They leverage DISC to better understand and communicate with each other.
Back to the meeting. Iris, the creative one, always has lots of energy, but lacks structure (her blind spot). She often cannot say no, so she often shows up not having done much – because she was trying to do everything! The other board members help Iris by modeling accountability, supporting her in not taking on more than she can chew, and holding her to doing what she said she would do.
CeCe (the compliant, more complacent one) gets encouragement from her fellow board members to take small steps towards more action. CeCe will never be as decisive as Dion, but is learning to not let perfection be the enemy of good. She adds tremendous value to the other board members, because she takes the time to understand the logistics of things before the board makes decisions that may prove troublesome later on.
At the board meeting, CeCe says she wants to survey why people are leaving her company, and Iris suggests, “CeCe, maybe come out from behind your computer and talk with your employees. You’ll learn far more than sitting in your office!”
Were Dion, the decisive action-taker, posed with this same employee attrition issue and left to his own devices, he would leave a wake behind himself as he whizzed with breakneck speed from one objective to the next, never considering why his people don’t follow him.
Sam strongly supports his fellow board members, as well as his employees. He helps the board see how to be more effective business leaders and better understand why people won’t follow them. He benefits from the others encouraging him to try something new and is warmed by the recognition the group gives him for his ideas on the topic.
Each of these TAB board members are smart business owners with formidable professional strengths. Nobody on that board would dare attempt to tell CeCe how to be a better engineer or Iris to be a better advertising expert. That is not what sitting on the TAB board is about. What they and other TAB board members have found is that, as business owners and c-levels, they share common issues and challenges in running their companies – involving matters like people, time, money, growth strategies, and balancing their personal and business demands. And the collective knowledge of their board, which meets monthly, elevates each of them and their businesses.
Dion, Iris, Sam and CeCe have found that by regularly attending their TAB board meetings, they are learning and growing as leaders – and are no longer alone at the top of their business. They appreciate how they, along with their board facilitator, are all different but somehow the same. And together they will lift and make each other better.
It is pretty powerful stuff.
Joining a TAB board is a proven approach for business owners and CEOs to enhance virtually every aspect of their businesses. By sitting on a board with a small yet powerful group of similarly situated but diverse business owners, TAB members leverage DISC, develop the acumen to work on their business rather than in their business – and become much better leaders along the way.
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