A good first step is to understand your preferred working style. The Everything DiSC®Workplace® Assessment tool helps you (or members of your organization) identify your workplace preferences for getting work done.

The assessment takes about 10 minutes to complete. Based on his or her responses, each person receives a primary style: Dominance, Influence, Steadiness or Conscientious, i.e., DiSC.  If an individual has significant attributes of more than one trait, he or she might also receive a secondary style. There are no “right” answers, and nearly everyone has some mix of traits. The styles simply reveal what behaviors are more natural and comfortable to a person when he or she is solving problems or interacting with others. The Assessment Report outlines how other people perceive and react to each style and provides suggestions for strategies that recipients of each particular style can use for more effective communication.

It can be tempting to use the DiSC assessment to analyze others and determine how to “fix” them. But the real power of the assessment is in increasing self-awareness and options for expanding your own leadership style beyond your natural preferences. Are you motivated by action? Do people criticize you for moving too fast and leaving others behind? Then you might have a Dominance style. Do you interact well with others? Are you sometimes accused of having rose-colored glasses and not being realistic enough? You might have an Influence style. Armed with the knowledge of your preferences and strengths, and where your style can sometimes get you into trouble, you can much more easily expand and tap into your own natural ability in those other styles.

There are many assessment tools out there, so why do we use the DiSC profile?   First, it is a simple and elegant tool. The assessment is short, so a busy leader can easily fit it into his or her schedule. The assessment takes the complexity of workplace behaviors and molds them into a straightforward, memorable model.  Second, it has strong research behind it and is a valid and reliable instrument.  While all assessments have some margin for error, the DiSC consistently produces results that provide a foundation for individual insight and meaningful team discussions. All leaders, from first-time managers to directors on the board, can find the assessment valuable.

Besides the Everything DiSC®Workplace® Assessment DiSC, Strategy Arts offers a Comparison Report (between two people) and a Team Culture Report. After participants take their Everything DiSC®Workplace® assessment, one of our Strategy Arts consultants will facilitate a discussion to help contextualize the assessment report and build group understanding around its findings.

If you are one of the many who have  already done a DiSC assessment, we encourage you to reread the report and see where you might find new insights within your current leadership context.  If you haven’t and are interested in using DiSC for your leadership development journey, let us know!

• First, the most successful and unique plans combine careful analysis with thoughtful creativity.

• Second, successful change combines planned and unplanned activities aligned by clearly defined and communicated goals.

As we thought about these facts, we considered many words to capture an approach to strategy that combined these analytical and less formal, creative, aspects of business planning and execution.

What we decided on was art. Art is a simple word with a complex and varied meaning.  Most important to us is that art combines analytical and creative processes; analysis alone rarely creates good art and good art rarely arises without detailed planning, careful thought, and logical analysis. We believe that good business also requires the skillful combination of analysis and creativity. In essence, art.

In all of our services, we stay true to these fundamental concepts, making sure that we combine the creative and analytic aspects of planning and business to create outstanding results for our customers. While most consulting businesses don’t combine both of these aspects across all clients and projects, we consider it essential. By combining specific expertise with the human elements of business, the planning artists at Strategy Arts help our clients achieve outstanding results.

Our name is what we do.

The term “Emerging Leaders” has recently gained popularity in the leadership development field. What exactly does this expression imply? The World English Dictionary’s definition of “emerging” is “to come into view, as from concealment or obscurity.” This is interesting because it implies that the people who are emerging as leaders direct the action. They are evolving in their careers, as it were, and as they do so, they are revealing their leadership qualities.

And while it is fair to say that emerging leaders do need to engage in their own self development, this definition may also suggest that the organization does not have to do anything at all – the true leaders will just show up – they will just “come into view.” Sometimes it happens that way. However, if organizations just sit back and wait for leaders to emerge, they will miss some potentially great leaders who need their support to realize their full leadership potential.

Organizations, large and small, need to seek out emerging leaders from within and encourage their development. They need a systematic method that should have three vital steps:

• Develop an explicit list of what defines an “emerging leader” for the organization. Document it.
• Charge the current leadership structure with the task of identifying people who work for them as emerging leaders. Make it a priority.
• Identify options for how to nurture these emerging leaders, which can include informal or formal mentoring, internal or external leadership development programs and coaching programs, to name a few. Follow up on it.

The payoff is tremendous both for the organizations and for their communities. So take your first step, and put identifying the characteristics your organization values in a leader on your leadership agenda.

The Strategy Arts team is passionate about helping your business work more efficiently and effectively by working with you to create a vision, achieve alignment, and put your plans into action.  This blog will offer advice and information related to our many service offerings.

We’ll touch on topics like:

•  Strategic Planning
•  Leadership Development
•  Organizational Transformation
•  Meeting Management
•  Market Driven Innovation

We appreciate your thoughts and comments, so feel free to leave them.