Unlocking Workplace Harmony: Exploring Personality Profiling with Lucy Smith

Julie South: 0:03

Welcome to the Vetstaff podcast, the place where veterinary professionals can join me, julie South, in discovering how we can all get our heads screwed on straight, get excited about going to work on Monday mornings and lead more fulfilling lives at home and at work. Today, in episode 155, tanya Bruce, one of Vetstaff's specialist recruiters and our resident coach, and me, julie South, catch up with Lucy Smith, an extended disc certified practitioner who works with teams throughout New Zealand. Lucy asks questions like what if you could open a window into yourself, your behaviours and those on your team members, and uncover behaviours and motivations you didn't even realise you had? What if you could use that information to improve everyone's performance, understand each other better and reduce workplace conflict? What about what if you could get a full picture of everyone's interpersonal role in a team and spot areas for development? Or what about what if all those awkward conversations became easier? Lucy believes in being led by your values. She also doesn't believe in glorifying stress or hustle. She lives in Hamilton, new Zealand, with her husband, their daughter, a snuggly white collie and a talkative tabby cat. For Lucy, life's all about the simple things A really good coffee, a quiet evening by the fire with a peppermint tea, the smell of the garden walking at the dog somewhere with trees. In 2011, she started business as a copywriter. Why? Because it was the GFC and she couldn't find a job that fitted into the narrow band of what she thought she should, in air quotes, she should do. Basically, she did what everyone said she should do, assuming that it was what she wanted, and left on what she describes as the comfortable blinkers. But she then ended up spending her life constantly chasing a set of instructions, feeling like she was in actor mode in her own life, going to corporate meetings in a nice but uncomfortable shirt and worrying if she was playing the right part. In hindsight, she said she didn't really know what her values were, but they were definitely misaligned with what she was doing. But she didn't know herself well enough to realise that or to dig any deeper. It wasn't even that she hated what she was doing. She had great clients she considered a privilege to work with. Stay tuned, because today we pick up on the conversation where I asked Lucy when she knew that disc personality profiling and coaching was what she wanted to do. The Vet Staff podcast is proudly powered by vetclinicjobscom, the new and innovative global job board. Reimagining veterinary recruitment, connecting veterinary professionals with clinics that shine online. Vetclinicjobscom is your go-to resource for finding the perfect career opportunities and helping vetclinics power up their employer branding game. Visit vetclinicjobscom today to find vet clinics that shine online, so veterinary professionals can find them. Vetclinicjobscom Lucy what got you into personality profiling and disc? Was there one moment, one pivotal event or cluster of events where you said this is what I want to do?

Lucy Smith: 4:24

Wow okay. So when I decided I was finished with copywriting I'd had quite a bit of interest in the start point of the project. So what I'd really enjoyed was that, the back and forth that you do at the beginning of a project to kind of figure out where people's issues are and what needs to happen with the project before you know all the writing stuff, basically the briefing and I realised that I enjoyed that part more than the writing and so I discovered coaching became something that became essentially I can do that part just for a job like that. So it sounded great to me and I suppose as I moved forward through it a bit more, I discovered how things like personality profiling can basically fast track the coaching process. And I was lucky enough to meet somebody who essentially talked me into doing a disk certification. So I'm an extended disk certified practitioner, which means that I am basically licensed to go into workplaces and do the that particular psychometric testing so I can provide the questionnaire that people do. I can then debrief with the client about it and I find it so interesting because it can throw up things that would take probably three, four, five, six, however many coaching sessions to do normally, so you're never coming in cold to somebody.

Julie South: 6:05

Prior to doing the certification, you, I'm sure, would have had thoughts in your head, preconceived ideas about what it was and what it wasn't. What was your biggest surprise in all of that?

Lucy Smith: 6:21

I think, when I discovered just how well validated it actually is. So you will often hear psychometric testing there are so many of them, so so many and you will often hear people will be quite rude about them call them corporate astrology, things like that, and I'm sure that there are some that are not as good. What I was surprised about when I learned about Extended Disc was just how well validated it is. They do surveys every two years of something like 500,000 people, so they know that the results that they're getting are correct and valid, which I thought was really interesting, and just how useful it is, because I, as part of my training, I had one done on myself and, yeah, a lot of it was really quite surprisingly spot on. It answered a lot of questions about why I do things the way I do and also it, I guess, showed me that some of the things I thought were maybe some slightly more negative personality traits were actually normal behavior as a stress response, which was very interesting.

Tania Bruce: 7:31

I think that leads into one of the questions I had for you, lucy. Based around that, you know I'm interested in learning a little bit more about the process of the psychometric tests. So you have what I've seen is ability tests and behavioral assessments. From a life coaching perspective, I would be listening to what is true to them in the moment With these tests. I guess it would be more based on their personality type as to why they may have unseen challenges.

Lucy Smith: 8:03

What Extended Disc is. And so Extended Disc is essentially a product that comes from Disc Theory. So Disc Theory, it's sprung from Jungian psychology and it wasn't created, of course, by Jung, but people who have used his theories. What Extended Disc does is it gives you two profiles. So it gives you your natural profile, your natural tendencies, but it also gives you an adjusted one. So, essentially, how you are adjusting your behavior to fit with the current situation you're in when you do the assessment, which is very, very interesting to see, because you will often find that somebody would be naturally one way, but they're trying to make themselves appear another, and so that is where it fast tracks, the coaching. What's going on for you here? Often it can be because, say, they're a new manager and so they're feeling like they need to behave one way, or something's going on perhaps in their personal life that's making them act in a different way to how they would naturally be behaving. It's very, very, very interesting, can?

Julie South: 9:11

I just ask you to, because there may be listeners that have absolutely no idea what on earth we are talking about. We're talking about a four, if I understand it correctly, a four type personality profiling tool that is like Myers-Briggs, which is a 16 type. What other competitor analysis tools might people be used to hearing about Lucy?

Lucy Smith: 9:46

So a lot of people will be very familiar with Myers-Briggs. So if somebody is telling you that they're INFJ or ENTP, that will be Myers-Briggs. So the way that disk works is yes, there are four different types, styles, we call them, and it's visual so I'm going to have to do some describing here. So if you can imagine a two axes, that creates four quadrants On your vertical axis you've got people who are task oriented at the top and people who are people oriented at the bottom. And then on your horizontal axis, on your on the right, you've got people who are more extroverted and people who are more introverted. All four types are arranged around this quadrant. So in your top right are your D styles. D means direct. I can hear Julie raising her hand.

Julie South: 10:48

I'm just acknowledging that I am so far off the. D that it can't fall any further.

Lucy Smith: 10:55

I would probably have called you as a D Task oriented extroverts. For D we say you'll often hear it referred to as dominant. I don't like that. I think that that's got fairly negative connotations. So I like to say direct. So these people are quite competitive, they are the ones who get stuff done. They don't always take other people into account, however, so they will be very focused on the task and they like to be in control of it. And it's not to say that they are unpleasant. None of this presupposes whether a person is nice or enjoyable to be around or not, but D styles can often be very to the point in blunt, which makes people of other styles, especially the ones who are more introverted and people oriented, not always understand them and get along with them particularly well. So your eyes Eyes are still people oriented, but they are still extroverted, but they're more the people oriented extroverts. So these are the ones who are very, very influential. They're friendly, lovely to be around, they're usually a lot of fun. They're not that task focused, though, because they're more interested in the people, so they can really struggle to get stuff done. They're very open, they are happy to share their feelings, their feedback, but they want to be liked. So they often will stay away from anything that could cause conflict, which of course sometimes means that they don't say things that maybe they should. So, moving, I guess, along backwards, we're getting more to your introverts. So your S's are in your bottom left. S's are people oriented introverts, which can sound, I suppose, a little bit counterintuitive, but bearing in mind that extroverts, introverts, it's really more just where they get their energy from. Introverts get their energy from being by themselves. Extroverts get their energy from being with other people, but it doesn't mean that they can't do it. None of it means that they can't do something. It just is what takes them to most energy. So S's are secure. So they like their traditionalists. They don't like change very much and they tend to go along with things because they like the eyes, don't really like conflict, because they like being around. They like people to like them, but they like to think. They're the thinkers, so usually they'll be the ones who say I need to think about this and what they're thinking about is how it's going to affect others and if there's a change that needs to happen. They want to be very, very considered and they're good because they can be the voice of reason for your deeds and your eyes, who want to get the stuff done quickly, and they're the ones that can pull them back and say, well, hold on, we need to think about this a little bit harder. Have you considered? And then you have your C's. Bless them. That is me. So they're introverted, task focused, so very analytical, they like communicating and writing more than in words. Very detail focused, they want all their information before they make a decision. They ask a lot of questions and they can be very, very slow to make decisions. So you can kind of see how some of these will balance each other and some of them will really rub each other up the wrong way. If you don't understand how it works, what I should say is that most people are going to be a combination of styles. There are about 160 different combinations that you can have out of these four styles. It's very rare for anyone to just be all of one. I think it's something like less than 1% of people will be just one single style. So that's a very, very short explanation of quite a complicated topic. What I think is important for people to know is that nothing is better than the other. It's where we get our energy from, it's the paviers that come most easily to us. So it doesn't mean that if you are usually a C, if you're the compliance person, you can't be an I an influencer. It just means that it may take you a lot more energy and it's probably not that sustainable long term, or it does need to be balanced out with a lot more things that are more in your comfort area.

Julie South: 15:28

How advantageous is it for people to actually know this?

Lucy Smith: 15:33

Well, I would say very. I mean, I have a vested interest, of course, in people thinking that it's very important, but I have been in a lot of conflict situations where I think that they could have been avoided if you just kind of understood how to deal with that other person better. So a really good example was years and years and years ago. I had somebody join at the team I was working on and I was absolutely terrified of her because she was blunt, she was, I felt, very unfriendly. She didn't really talk to you. She would let you know very clearly if she didn't want you asking something. I think I remember once, after a couple of days, she brought something really interesting for lunch, just going what have you got today? And she's like I don't want to speak about my lunch. I thought, okay, I mean, I was terrified of her and so I would write these emails to say, oh, I've been trying this and I've been. I had this idea and I thought I'd do it this way, and then she would just come back and say okay, or give you kind of say do pretty much just a bulleted point of list of things, that things to do. Honestly, I was so scared of her and then somehow, after she'd been working a while, she did warm up a bit and we were talking about, I think, our cats. And the way she was speaking about her cats I was like, okay, so there is a human in there, and she actually turned out to be quite lovely to work with once. I kind of. I mean, it must have taken me two or three months and that's very, very normal for for a change in a team that would have taken you a few months to kind of realize that okay, if I quit the waffle, I quit the personal questions, unless it's about the cats, you can't you learn acceptable conversation topics and kind of just work with that. And she was great like, we got along very, very well like, and I learned to appreciate Brevity, when you know quick feedback and quick, no nonsense instructions. She was such a D and of course I know that now. Had I probably known more about anything about that, then I would have been a lot less scared of her and I would have known A lot better about how to deal with her, because part of it, of course, is learning not just people's styles but how, how you can communicate with those styles. D's don't like waffle they, they limit their socializing. They want you to get to the point. You know they want a few options that they can then choose from that kind of thing.

Tania Bruce: 18:00

So yeah, I can already hear how amazing this would be brought into a workplace session, like going in and I'm sure you offer those workplace sessions and just on the topic of conflict, I mean, wouldn't this be amazing for addressing all these behavioral differences in the workplace and being able to gain an understanding of the different behavioral styles that lead to obviously more productive communication, teamwork and minimizes that conflict that we so often see?

Lucy Smith: 18:38

Yep, I mean absolutely. So if you know that you know Bob is a C style, you're going to need to give you you know that he's going to need a lot more information before he can make a decision. So it saves a whole lot of back and forth of him not getting stuff done because he hasn't got what he needs to do the job. And I mean, I think most conflict is caused by misunderstanding and miscommunication and I think that's actually quite important for people like vets who do client focused work as well, because clients this is important to know for clients as well as your teammates, because if you know that this one client who's really really difficult, if you step back for a minute, maybe they're just a different style to you and you know, maybe you're, maybe you're a D, but you're working with a C and that C style might not like that D style vets, how they're kind of explaining things. And I know that I am probably a good example of this, actually because I have a couple of years ago my dog had a Mies and Keimel tumor and me being a C style, I was that client that wanted the lab results and I will. I basically gave myself a crash course in Mies and Keimel tumors. Over about a week I was googling every single thing in the lab reports. I was looking for journal articles so I could decide what we were going to do about it. So I mean I wanted to know, like, what happens if we do nothing? What happened? You know what's the chances of it growing back? It didn't. It was great, very happy with that. But two years later she's fine, all these kinds of things like I and I mean my vets were fantastic about it. They know me quite well by now. They know that I Ask a lot of questions and want detailed explanations about things. But for a lot, of a lot of vets would not like that at all because they were just. I guess if you are more of a D style, that client that wants to know every single piece of information when you just want them to say, yes, remove that tumor, would get quite, I can imagine be quite challenging. I would go so far as to say that probably with most workplaces that have, you know, clients who complain, a lot of those complaints will be about differences in communication as well. You know, I thought you said one thing, I said another and it's just because you're not giving the information that the other person's expecting to hear.

Tania Bruce: 20:56

Would you suggest in listening to all this, would you suggest assessments for job seekers so they may have a better understanding of the working environment they need to be in?

Lucy Smith: 21:08

Yeah, absolutely, and it's I mean it's useful in both ends of a recruitment process. I would very much caution people against using it as A deciding factor. I don't think that it's not designed to be used as that. It's designed to be used to give an idea of what a person needs, and if you know that your workplace actually can't provide what they need, well then that's good to know before they've been in the job for three months. But certainly what's very useful to know On a on for a recruiter and for a person, for a candidate, is things like their stress behaviors. So I had no idea that some of the things that I do are actually just stress behaviors, for I went through this and think, especially when it comes to things that motivate you and demotivate you. So if somebody Knows that they need a working environment that is more likely to give them more information, or they need a working environment where people talk all the time and have lots of team building activities outside of work, this is really good stuff for them to know when they come to look for a job, because they can ask those questions what so? What do? What team building stuff do you do outside of work? And the answer to that might. It might be that you need none of that. You want none of that. That's good to know. Or it might be that you need you know pizza evenings once a week to feel connected to your team, team bowling nights and pub quizzes and and all that kind of stuff. So it's really, it's really really good for both, both sides of it to have that awareness of you know what's what's, I guess, necessary for someone to feel good in their work, to feel connected to it and to feel like they're part of a team.

Julie South: 22:57

Lucy does each personality style have trademark communication methods? I mean, I know that my as a D, that my default I'm a Reform D. My default is, when I am stressed and it could be stress of any kind, it could be I'm racing the clock, that I've got to get things done, then I'm just get on and do it. You know, just don't faff around, don't give me the fluffy stuff, Just get on and do it, and then we can talk about it later when we've got to where we need to get to. By the time we've got to where we are, where we're going, what type of personality or what type of communication styles do these four, four personality types use so that we can, without psychoanalyzing people, at least recognize that this person's a D? So therefore, I need to respond this way or I'm an I and I'm talking with a D, whatever yeah, okay, so what you'll?

Lucy Smith: 24:06

so I guess starting with D is like what you'll notice is that they don't faff around. So they, they really like. They like their control. In some cases they can be quite controlling. They will move very, very quickly and they kind of just expect everyone. I guess they can really expect everyone to go along with them. I guess we, if you know that you're dealing with a D, what, and I'm? I suppose I'm thinking in terms of workplace conversations, possibly those awkward ones you want to kind of limit that social talk. You just kind of want to get to the point. So a lot of time. What I find interesting in when we talk about working with teams, a lot of the advice is really generic. So this is how you deal with people, but of course we are all so different and we like to be talked to differently. The really standard one of course you hear about, is the feedback sandwich. If you've got to talk to someone, give someone feedback, you should always start with a compliment. Then you should give the feedback, especially if it's, if it's a bit negative, and then you should give them a compliment to end on a, on a, on, you know, a positive note. Deals will not like that. If you have, if you have a D just give it to me. Exactly. Just give it to me, just tell me what you want, you know. Just just say it. Get to the point, for goodness sake, because, yeah, they, they don't need that. I mean, a D will be very, very happy to get the positive feedback, undoubtedly, but they want, if that's not the point of your conversation, don't do it. You know, have a different conversation for that, whereas I's, if you've got to, you know, having one of those conversations, do that. If you know that somebody's an I, you know that they're not task focused. They're the ones that will spend ages talking to you in the morning. You know, how was your weekend? Oh, I did this. So what? You know, what did? What did you do with the kids? How was your kids? Saturday sport, who won the game? All of that kind of stuff. Ds and I's are interesting because they're, while they're both extroverts, they approach it very, very, very differently. They're the ones you know they'll talk about their feelings. So you know, you know that you're dealing with an I because they will be very, very open about things, but they really, really want you to like them and you can always tell when somebody wants to be liked, because they'll be always be looking for that common ground and the things that that you can, that you can talk about. So with these ones you really need to make time to chat with them. So these are the ones that probably will love that kind of those a nice one on one meeting just to have a little bit of chit chat before you get into the work talk. They're very focused on the big picture. They are not detail oriented at all. I'm seeing Tanya nodding.

Tania Bruce: 26:47

I'm actually Lucy. I'm actually sitting here in my mind categorising everyone around me. Yeah, putting them into these categories.

Lucy Smith: 26:55

And you, you will do that, but remembering that people are often multiple styles and quite often there'll be traits of one style that, even if it's, even if it's a style that they might be a little bit lower in, they'll be using a lot more, because a lot of this, of course, is still learn behaviour. That's what we've learned to make our unconscious behaviours. S is again they. They're the ones that don't like change and they will resist it. They like security and they like to know how things are going to be, which is why, of course, they're the voice of reason for your D's in your eyes, who just want to get the stuff done, because they want to kind of, they like to pull back on that kind of stuff and they need to know about specific details. And, of course, if you don't know that someone's an S and you're a D or an I, that can be really annoying, because all they're doing is putting the brakes on and just trying to hold you back.

Julie South: 27:43

I'm married to an I it's good in his job. He needs it in his day job. Yes, yes.

Lucy Smith: 27:49

For sure. For those who are not the ones you need to appeal to that sense of fairness and justice, because they are really interested in a good outcome for everybody, which is why they like to pull back on things changing, because they're worried about the effects that it'll have on people. And they are reflective. That's the really important thing with S's they like to be able to reflect and consider their opinions and their next steps. So again, you see, with people who like things to be just done and get it out the door and make it happen quickly, the people who on the I guess, on the other side of that, I guess that axis, it feels like they're just slow and they take ages and they just hold everything up. But in reality, if you know that all they're trying to do is kind of reflect and understand and consider all the various impacts of something, it becomes a lot less frustrating. And of course, then you can probably understand why that's a good thing, because not all changes for the sake of it are going to be good ones. Or maybe there's a better way of doing it, of implementing it that you haven't considered in your rush just to get something done and out the door and what that sees, because they are very reserved and analytical and they're detail-oriented. It's really, really frustrating because they want to know all the information before they make a decision like me with my dog and so they want facts and figures rather than opinions, so they want the hard data. And if the people who are trying to make change happen very quickly don't have that, then it's just, it's going to stall and it's going to make a seed very, very, very unhappy. So if you need to talk to them, you kind of want to make sure that they're supporting materials, give you reasoning for something, be thorough about it, listen to what they have to say. People like to be listened to because they have something that they need to say, but they won't usually bring it up because they don't like causing conflict, and it's about focusing on key issues for seeds. So what the really important things are and, I guess, explaining that rationale for why the change should happen. And so, of course, if you've got a seed saying, well, why, and this person's this D or this, I is wanting to change, that's actually that I mean that's a good thing, because, well, actually, yes, why? Why? I need hard information on this. I don't have any. I've just got this feeling about it. But see, that's, that's not enough for the season. The S is. It's all very, very interesting. And of course, you're always remembering that people are combinations. I'm CSI, which is a combination I quite like. I think that's. I find that quite amusing, but it makes it so. I like the information and I do have a tendency to procrastinate when making a decision because I want to know all of the information and I want it to be right, but then at the same time, I also enjoy talking to people. So I have no trouble doing things like this or forgetting getting up and talking to people about stuff. And you know, asking people's opinions about things and it's all. I mean, it's all, it's all learned behavior. So we have kind of at our core, we've got, I guess, the culture that we were raised in, and then it becomes. You know the way, the way we were brought up, and then our experiences all feed into these things. So you can learn. You can definitely learn to be, to bring in different styles to your natural behavior, because it becomes. You do things so often that it becomes natural to you to do that and it's all about what is less stress and requires less energy from you, and it's the pay, as all of these are the babies that we basically revert to just normally.

Julie South: 31:36

I hope you found this discussion interesting. If you'd like to know more, you can get hold of Lucy at wwwlucysmithnz. Tune in again next week where Lucy expands some more on extended discs and how you and all your team and all your clinic can benefit from that. Can I ask you a favor? If you enjoyed listening to the Vet Staff podcast, can I ask you to help spread the word so others can find it, please. One way you can do that is to leave a review wherever you're listening to this podcast now. A helpful comment would be good, but giving it a five-star thumbs up also makes a difference to the podcast algorithms. Thank you. This is Julie South signing off and inviting you to go out there and be the most fantabulous and amazing version of you. You can be Until next week. Thank you for spending the last 30 minutes or so of your life with Tanya, lucy and me. The Vet Staff podcast is proudly powered by vetclinicjobscom, the new and innovative global job board reimagining veterinary recruitment. Connect in veterinary professionals with clinics that shine online. Vetclinicjobscom is your go-to resource for finding the perfect career opportunities and helping vet clinics power up their employer branding game. Visit vetclinicjobscom today to find vet clinics that shine online, so veterinary professionals can find them. Visit vetclinicjobscom.