Viva La Difference
As a child growing up, I would often hear my father’s favorite saying: “Viva La Difference”. He always pointed to the advantages of having multiple ideas and perspectives available whenever solving a tough problem.
A pilot with the Royal Canadian Air Force, my father flew around the world and so came to appreciate the many different cultures and customs that were different from his own.
Today, as I coach and train leaders to become more masterful communicators, I often conduct assessments of my clients’ communication preferences.
The principal benefit of administering these types of assessments (DiSC, Myers-Briggs, etc.) is the increased self-awareness that comes from understanding one’s own “go-to” styles and preferences for relating to colleagues, customers and even friends and family members.
Even more importantly, one can come to appreciate the choices available to “show up differently”, by tempering or adjusting a natural or preferred style to accommodate the needs of others.
Occasionally, we hear of leaders who instead utilize their assessed styles to justify their preferred interactions with colleagues by asserting the need for others to simply “accept them for who they are” and to “deal with it”.
Let me give you an example. When administering the DiSC Classic 2.0 (an assessment of communication style), some leaders are assessed as being a D which stands for Dominance. Leaders that score higher on the D dimension of DiSC are strong-willed, strong-minded individuals who like taking quick action and getting immediate results.
Leaders that are high on the D dimension of DiSC like communication to be brief and to the point. They don’t tend to suffer fools gladly and need others to show up with competence and a willingness to move quickly. They can be perceived by others as demanding and overbearing.
The challenge that can emerge is when a strong D asserts the supremacy of his or her position, shows no interest in considering the ideas of others, and says something like “Look, you know I’m a D, and you just need to understand that and support me on this”.
When this happens, I advise my clients that are stronger in one of the other dimensions of DiSC to simply say something like this: “Yes, I know you are a D, and I can also see you have a lot of energy around your preferred approach or solution to this problem, and [not “but”] you probably know I am a C. As such, I have some questions that I need addressed before I can support your approach”.
By acknowledging someone’s D style, and taking the time to validate their position and the passion around it, the individual with a C style can then go on to “stand up” for their own unique position.
Ironically, strong D’s often respect this pushback since it is somewhat unusual for them. While D’s are used to having others “fall in place”, when someone has the courage to listen to them and then proceeds to offer their own view, D’s tend to listen back and therefore benefit from the different thoughts and viewpoints of their colleague.
Rather than using one’s own style as an excuse for pushing too hard, or to dismiss the value of someone else’s contributions, leaders can instead be respectful of the fact that each of us brings our own perspective and way of solving problems in the organization. As my father used to say: Viva La Difference.