SNS 114: Saturday Night Special – DISC Overview

[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: Welcome to tonight's Saturday night, special episode 114.

[00:00:06] Annie Purdue Olsen: I'm Annie Purdue Olson from leading better together. I encourage you to find the courage to lead in ministry. And one way to be inspired to do that is by listening to this, the inspired stewardship podcast with my friend, Scott.

[00:00:20] Scott Maderer: Your strengths carry you while your blind spots concern you. But you can use this to begin to understand yourself and others. So in a simple way, disk is based on two fundamental assumptions, two observations of people. Welcome and thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcast. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to.

[00:00:48] Then you must learn to use your time, your talent and your treasures for your true calling in the inspired stewardship podcast to learn, to invest in yourself, invest in others [00:01:00] and develop your influence so that you can impact the world.

[00:01:05] And tonight Saturday night special. I share with you an overview of the disc system. I explained how this system is powerful. If you recognize that it allows you to change your behavior, not the behavior of others. And I also talk about why really understanding this is important. One reason I like to bring you great interviews.

[00:01:26] Like the one you're going to hear today is because of the power in learning from. Another great way to learn from others is through reading books. But if you're like most people today, you find it hard to find the time to sit down and read. And that's why today's podcast is brought to you by audible. Go to inspired stewardship.com/audible to sign up and you can get a 30 day free trial.

[00:01:53] There's over 180,000 titles to choose from. And instead of reading, you can listen your [00:02:00] way to learn from some of the greatest minds. That's inspired stewardship.com/audible to get your free trial and listen to great books the same way you're listening to this podcast. One of those things that you've heard me talk about on the show before is the disc.

[00:02:19] Now, you'll see this listed as a personality system or understanding the way people communicate or their temperament and all of those are accurate descriptions. But one of the things I like about this is it's one of many tools out there that help us recognize that other people are not the same as us.

[00:02:42] They don't communicate the same way. They aren't motivated by the same things. They don't. The way that we act, they don't think the way that we think, I think we've all had that experience of running into somebody and having them make a decision. And we're like, wait a minute. Why did they do that? What were they [00:03:00] thinking?

[00:03:00] How can they act in that way? It's so foreign to anything that I would ever do. And it lets us disk lets us recognize that everyone is not like the. And don't get me wrong. I'm not saying it's the perfect system. I'm not saying it's the only system. I'm not saying that it's the one true system or anything like that, but it is a system that I can carry around in my head and use to help me recognize that other people are not the same as me.

[00:03:34] They aren't acting the same. They aren't motivated the same way and they aren't going to do the same things that I do for the same reasons that I do them and different doesn't mean bad. It doesn't mean wrong. It simply means different. Because we can understand ourselves and we can understand others. [00:04:00] It can help relieve that tension, that disappointment, that set of hurt feelings and unmet expectations and can help improve poor communication so that we begin to understand a little better, what perhaps motivates other people.

[00:04:18] So the disc model goes back a long time. It was actually invented about. In the 1920s, like 1928 in a book by Dr. William Marston called the emotions of normal people. He was a psychologist. He had a doctorate from Harvard university, and he theorized that people are motivated by four intrinsic drives and that these direct behavioral patterns and he called the.

[00:04:48] Disc D I S C, he labeled the four with those four letters and it was a wellness model. Instead of studying people that had [00:05:00] disorders or abnormal psychology, he was working to study quote, normal people, how they thought he was trying to come up with an objective and descriptive model that would work to describe those people in normal settings of every day.

[00:05:17] So the disc wellness model became a framework for understanding people. It's not intended to be a way of labeling people. It's not encouraging or saying that this is different, or this is that way. Instead it's about understanding yourself and others. And encouraging and highlighting the positive APOE approaches that they have, the strengths that, that particular personality or temperament type might have and might bring to something.

[00:05:51] We also can identify in a positive way, blind spots that folks have not necessarily weaknesses per se, but [00:06:00] blind spots areas that they might easily overlook. And it also highlights that people are actually a blend of all of the traits. It's very few people that are purely one of those four types.

[00:06:14] Instead they're a blend and that this blend might react in different ways based on the people that are around it and the environment that you find yourself. In. In other words, you can behave differently in different settings. Your strengths carry you while your blind spots concern you. But you can use this to begin to understand yourself and others.

[00:06:41] So in a simple way, disk is based on two fundamental assumptions, two observations of. The first is that some people are more outgoing while others are more reserved. This isn't about introvert and extrovert. It's about their internal motor, [00:07:00] their pace. Some people are always ready to go dive in quickly and just get going.

[00:07:06] Others tend to engage their motor a little more slowly or cautiously and take some time before they get up. The second observation or the second assumption is that some people are more task oriented while others are more people oriented. Again, this isn't a value. This isn't a good or bad. This is simply.

[00:07:27] That some people are Mo more externally focused and on the priority based around the task. And some people are focused on getting things done based around people and their feelings. They're tuned in to how people feel and think, and that sort of what they think of first. And if you think about those two different assumptions and you put them on a grid, you end up with four different quadri.

[00:07:55] In those quadrants, you have outgoing, reserved task oriented and [00:08:00] people oriented on the X, Y plane on the axis. Then you end up with task oriented in outgoing, and people oriented. People oriented and reserved and task oriented as the four kind of quadrants and outgoing and task oriented people is what in disk are called DS outgoing and people oriented people are what disk calls, eyes reserved and people oriented is what dis would call S and reserved and task oriented is.

[00:08:33] Disc would call a C and these four types dominant, inspiring, supportive, and cautious makeup, the blends that then make up the temperament of all people. So why is this matters? What's the important part about the. Here's the interesting thing. I know a lot of people that study disk and understand it, and then they'll say [00:09:00] things like you all know I'm a D so I've waited three seconds for y'all to ask you a question and no one asked it.

[00:09:06] So we're just going to move onto the next thing, which is a very DIY thing to say. The problem is that's not what understanding yourself should allow you to do. Instead. You should say. I know, not everyone in this group is a D some of you take longer to process and to formulate your questions. So even though I want to move on to the next thing, I'm going to wait 10 seconds instead of three, I want to give you all enough time and space and respect of the way you're wired to change my behavior out of respect for.

[00:09:41] See, it's not about using disc as a way of identifying your own behavior so that you can then go through life and say that's just the way I am. Instead. It's about identifying that the way you are, isn't the way everyone else is. And what is it that you need to modify or change or [00:10:00] do differently out of respect for other people and how they're wired.

[00:10:05] So that. Everyone is treated with respect. And by the way, if you're not a people oriented person, it's still about treating everyone with respect because that's what gets more done. That's actually what achieves more of those task oriented results. If you treat your people oriented. They'll work harder.

[00:10:27] They'll do more. They'll get more done and they'll do it with a better quality. So even those D and C people should be motivated and develop the task and the skill to change their own behavior in that way. By the way, if you're a people oriented person, You need to recognize that not everyone is wired like you, and that doesn't make them evil, that doesn't make them bad.

[00:10:53] That doesn't even mean that they don't care about people is just not how they're wired and you can [00:11:00] help them by changing your behavior to be respectful of how they're wired as well. See, that's the key understanding. This is about understanding how other people are wired as well as yourself. So that.

[00:11:16] You can modify your behavior back to the great status that you need to help them achieve their maximum positivity, their maximum success, and so that you can achieve that as well. That's why disk is so powerful. Thanks for listening.

[00:11:40] Thanks so much for listening to the inspired stewardship podcast as a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If you enjoy this episode please do us a [00:12:00] favor. Go over to inspired stewardship.com/.

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