Systems for Accuracy and Precision

Several years ago, Cindy and I led a session covering The DISC Model of Human Behavior for a local client where a friend of mine was one of the participants. He and I had served on a board together prior to that so I had a solid understanding of his day to day responsibilities and I knew that he was really good at what he did. That said, he worked in a highly regulated field and he had to provide a ton of information to several different monitoring agencies. It didn’t surprise me at all that someone with a significant amount of this final primary behavioral style would excel in a role like…

To this point, we’ve looked at tools we can each consider, whether we’re more DRIVEN, INSPIRING or SUPPORTIVE, as we build systems that help us be more productive over the long haul - at work or at home. Before we close the loop by looking at the last of the four primary styles, we have to keep in mind that none of us have just one of these! Even if one style is significantly more prevalent than the other three, like my DETERMINED (and even DEFIANT) approach tends to be under high amounts of stress, our entire behavioral style blend will impact our overall approach. My focus on each of these primary styles, and the things to consider when building systems to sustain long term productivity, is with the hope that you can apply each based on your own unique blend and achieve everything you’ve set your targets on - and more - moving forward!

Now back to my friend… As Cindy and I wrapped up our session with the group he was a part of, he made a comment about having a list that he referred to daily that helped him make sure he had completed everything else on each of his other lists. And that’s exactly the kind of system that helps folks with this CRITICAL THINKING style achieve meticulous results on a routine basis!

At around 25% of the population, this CONSCIENTIOUS group thrives accuracy and precision. Their methodical approach helps them CONTEMPLATE each step of the process they are engaged in. While they’re often very CAUTIOUS about anything they do for the first time because their desire to make sure the end result is CORRECT, they pay close attention to the instructions they’re provided with and create detailed procedures that they can follow any time they need to revisit the same task in the future.

If someone as Fast-paced as me rushes the folks in this group without providing them with enough time to CONTEMPLATE how each step they take can impact the end results, it will cause them to experience stress. Building those detailed processes, and even creating lists that help them make sure they’re completing their lists, is a prime example of how they prepare for the times they’ll have to deal with those pressures and still achieve the excellent results they thrive on. Even though they may not be able to plan out every step of every day, having these detailed systems as their foundation helps them sustain productivity on an ongoing basis even when they’re thrown a curveball!

I’ll close with one final thought… None of this has been meant to suggest that someone with any of these primary styles can’t be productive when they’re forced to operate in another approach. Nor should it be considered as permission to blow off responsibility by simply saying, “since I’m more DRIVEN, I don’t need to pay attention to the details or anyone else’s feelings…” We need to develop enough maturity to adapt to whatever we need to in order to produce the results we’re expected to - especially when we’ve accepted any level of leadership! But when we can create systems in our lives that help us maintain high levels of productivity, and when we’re able to build those systems around our unique behavioral style blend, we stand a much better chance of keeping our tanks full in the process for years and years to come!