Balancing Task and People Orientation with DiSC

Early and mid –managers hold the steering wheel for most businesses today since their performances directly impact the bottom line. Though behavioural assessment tools like DiSC profile managers into different categories, the final word is to each his own. DiSC classifies managerial behavior into two broad types – Task centric and people centric. While the former is detail oriented and works for productivity, the latter believes in inspiring and motivating individuals to reach common outcomes .

Today’s managers work on stringent deadlines and difficult goals , which may not be attainable if they cannot builds and sustain relationships across the organization for optimal collaboration. Tasks and relationships; have to go hand in hand, you can’t have one without the other. As a manager finding the right balance is what will help you optimise outcomes and DiSC is what will take you there.

From the DiSC perspective, the trick is to getting the balance right is to attune oneself to flex their current style to the other. To put it in simple terms, if you are a D or a C in DiSC profile, you are task oriented and you should be able to increase your people orientation. It is important to acknowledge that work cannot be done by individuals and does not happen in silos. What is critical is to create an environment of collaboration that will foster team spirit and build trust.

If you are an I or an S in DiSC, then your focus is on people but too much of people centrism can take away attention from the task. People centric professionals may need to be reminded about project deadlines and may not be in a position to work with vague or unclear guidelines. Their extreme focus on others makes them forget about themselves, and hence it would be good to remind them that performance would be rated on independent effort as well.

Task oriented managers would need to focus on improving their openness to ideas, interpersonal interaction, and group cohesion. They need to realize the need for others. They need to be taught that while exercising autonomy it may also be advantageous if they can look at different perspectives. They would buy into ideas which are presented with confidence and prefer interacting with people who have a no-nonsense , serious attitude so make sure to hone that attitude if your boss is task oriented.

Conflict is business as usual in most organisations. Task oriented managers need to realise that they cannot always win arguments or create win- lose situations in their unwillingness to compromise. The “softies” should realise that avoiding confrontations or readily wielding into objections is not the way conflict needs to be handled at workplace.

If you look around you, there would be just a handful of people who are good at the balancing act. In fact research proves that the human brain itself is not designed to balance orientation towards task and people. So it is obvious that the ones who have mastered the art of balancing the two have probably designed their own strategies and practiced on focused behaviours. Read more about how you can be balanced.