Systems We Can Each Sustain - Starting with Ones that Get Results!

We started down this path by looking at How to Be More Productive - at Work and at Home then we worked through some Personal Productivity Tools that Support Great Systems. As I mentioned before though, we’ll each need to develop our own unique approach if we want to create systems in our lives that we can stick with over the long haul to achieve our goals and avoid burning out along the way. What works for you may not work for me - and vice-versa!

A few millennia ago, a fellow named Confucius suggested the importance of knowing ourselves… If you’ve read these messages for a while or you’ve been part of almost any training session that Cindy and I have done over the last several years, you’ve likely heard me stress the importance of being able to recognize the communication style of each person we interact with on a daily basis so we can communicate with them like they need us to rather than just how we prefer to communicate. The DISC Model of Human Behavior has been the most effective tool I’ve ever used to be able to do this! But that’s not where the value of William Marston’s work ends…

Understanding how to apply The Model of Human Behavior to communicate more effectively is critical for anyone in a leadership role. But when it comes to building systems in our lives that help us be as productive as we can possibly be, working from a foundation we can get from a scientifically validated DISC assessment can provide us with insight on what we need to consider to so the systems we adopt actually fill our tank rather than leave us on empty. Moving forward here, we’ll take a look at some things that will help fuel each of the four primary behavioral styles. Keep in mind though that none of us are just one style; we all have our own unique blend of the four and being familiar with that blend can play a key role in how we create systems that we can stick with long term without running out of gas…

Let’s start by considering what keeps fuel in the tank for those of us who have a primarily Outgoing and Task-Oriented behavioral style - the more DRIVEN folks… It could be because this is my primary style, but I find this to be the easiest to build systems around (and with any luck, you’ll feel the same way about your primary style too).

These often DIRECT and DEMANDING individuals nearly always get excited about one simple thing: GETTING RESULTS! When the group with the primary style is able to see things getting done and have a reasonable degree of control of the process, sustainability is rarely a concern. While only around 10% of the population has this primary style, they are the ones who can seem to go on and on without stopping to recharge; more often than not, accomplishment is what recharges them!

For those of us who have this primary style, or even if you’re helping build a system for someone who does, we’d do well to put some checks and balances in the process to make sure the massive results we’re working to achieve are accurate but we should also take care to avoid placing painstakingly detailed steps into the system since that will tend to wear us out rather than fuel us up. We should also make sure we set specific times to stop and view our progress. Many of us with this DETERMINED approach can get caught up in the DOING and lose sight of just how much we’re getting DONE. Taking note of what we’ve accomplished will serve to boost our spirits as well!

But remember, 90% of the population does not have this primary style so we’ll take a look at another approach next time!