Sadness

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• The C Style – An Everything DiSC® Podcast
  • They’re losing control—the one thing you can have control over there, creating a whole window into their flaws and shortcomings. When you get emotional like that, there’s no telling what will pour out. And it’s not just anger. It’s really any sort of strong emotional display, maybe too much enthusiasm or too much sadness. And not to say that people with a C style don’t experience strong emotions. They do, but they just have a very strong instinct to control the display of those emotions.
    So there’s a danger of an emotional outburst when it comes to feeling anger or being offended or hurt. But there’s another class of emotions that can be equally uncomfortable for the C style. And those are what you might call, kind of, the more tender emotions, particularly open displays of emotional intimacy. The stuff that gets labeled as touchy-feely. I think the standard C reaction to this kind of stuff is best described as squeamish, maybe even a little repulsed. But there’s this intense reaction that if you step back a little and look at it objectively, the intensity of the emotional reaction, honestly, it seems a little disproportionate to the actual event. In other words, why is a display of tenderness so off-putting?
    Well, let me throw out some idea, some hypotheses. So I think one potential reason is because touchy-feely stuff can feel basically manipulative. When someone’s putting out all this squishy stuff out there. It’s almost as if they’re implicitly demanding a reaction out of me, a reaction of empathy, or they’re trying to make me feel that gushy stuff, too. It’s just like, no, don’t try dragging me into that emotion. Don’t try playing on my sympathies. Don’t try to shame me into having those same feelings. We’ve already talked about the C style and their aversion to being controlled. I think that sometimes listening to someone tell a sappy story can feel like that control or manipulation—indirectly, but it’s still there.
    There’s also often this allergic reaction to melodrama, the sense that people are exaggerating or overplaying the emotion in a situation. Maybe a sense that they’re faking it a little, but also that it’s a tool for them to get attention. It’s kind of another form of manipulation. You’re using this trumped-up reaction to get everyone to pay attention to you and to pull attention away from other more legitimate concerns. So there are those potential reactions. But I think there’s often also something else as well, more beneath the surface.
    When you start to see this strong disgust reaction that people with this C and also the D style have to sappy, sentimental stuff, I think some of it ties back to this aversion to vulnerability. And disgust is an interesting emotion. And the reason it’s basically there is to protect us from stuff that could poison us, hurt us, disgust is. Our ancestors were disgusted by rancid, fetid food, so they didn’t eat it. They had an overpowering emotional experience that protected them. So, if you follow that logic, what is it that’s poisonous about sentimentality, about touchy-feely stuff? Why would, for some people, their brain be telling them that you need to stay away from this stuff at all costs, it is going to hurt you?
    And one hypothesis is that there’s such a strong emotional aversion to tender emotions like this because it represents vulnerability. How does it represent it? Well, it represents unabashed intimacy. Being completely unskeptical, surrendering the normal cynicism that protects us against things like manipulation or lying people, but also against looking foolish or overexposing ourselves. And then a little further, that cynicism can protect us from looking weak or soft or actually from being weak or soft. So simply put, someone comes at me with this tender stuff. They’re basically asking me to completely abandon my critical eye, my layer of protection. And my brain is telling me that this is an absolute no-go. And to make sure I stay clear, the reaction is disgust, sometimes even anger.
    Okay, so admittedly, there is a lot of speculation there and in linking all this stuff together. And that brings me back to the whole purpose of this podcast, is to throw some ideas out there. And if you have a C style, consider how much they might explain some of the patterns that you see in yourself. Some pieces probably fit more than others. But I think regardless of why the C style shies away from this overly intimate stuff, there is still that tendency to be reluctant, to be too openly tender. And so one of the consequences is that this style typically doesn’t show empathy in a way that’s traditionally associated with the word. Now, the C style is hyper-concerned about justice and respecting people’s rights, even if it means that they personally have to sacrifice. And this can be one of the upsides of pulling back and distancing myself from my personal needs. Because for the average person, emotions and egos often lead them to rationalize what’s in their best interest, to rationalize their ability to act selfishly and for their own passions and interests.
    But if we’re able to look at this situation logically and dispassionately, we recognize that everyone has the same rights as we do. And this is a huge benefit of being dispassionate and something a lot of people really respect about the C style. And so the compassion is there for other people, but it’s probably more often based in dispassionate logic than it is in traditional empathy. And when I say traditional empathy, one of the big differentiators is being outwardly warm, outwardly heartfelt. Like we just talked about, this stuff just feels icky to a lot of people with a C style. It also often feels insincere. Forcing myself to do it can almost feel dishonest.
    The problem, of course, though, is, you know, we live in a world where a meaningful number of people look for those cues to tell them what the other person is thinking and feeling—that another person cares. So there can be a miscommunication issue. But there’s also the issue that for many people, there’s an expectation that if you and I have a close relationship, I should be able to count on you to give me, you know, warm emotional support when I’m in need. And so if I do have that unspoken assumption toward you and I’m in a bad place, let’s say, it makes sense that I might feel a little let down or hurt or angry when my expectations aren’t met, when I’m not getting that traditional empathy. And of course, this is probably most obvious in personal relationships, a romantic relationship or a parenting relationship.
    But I do think, even in the workplace, this is something that often catches the C style off guard when they move from being an individual contributor role to having more of a management role or a leadership role, that now there is actually a legitimate expectation that I will have to provide some emotional support. People need praise. People need encouragement. People need support when they’re feeling demoralized. And more and more in the workplace the idea that I can just be completely task-oriented and ignore the human side of the equation, that’s becoming more and more outdated. It comes with the recognition that you do, in fact, get better performance out of people, better teamwork, the more attentive you are to those expectations, even at work.
    All right, so there is a lot of information here, a lot of different dimensions we talked about. And so how do you make sense of it? Or rather, how do you put it to use? Well, I’ll just make one broad suggestion here. It’s about these driving assumptions I’ve talked about. And I think a practice that’s actually really powerful in terms of our growth as people is to simply monitor our behavior and our thoughts and to start to notice when these assumptions are being played out in the background. And so let me just give you a reminder of the assumptions. Here they are: I must always maintain credibility. It is awful to be blamed for something. I must maintain my dignity at all times.
    The whole exercise is about becoming more aware of when these assumptions or assumptions like them are driving our behavior, our thoughts, our emotions. Sometimes they’re realistic. Sometimes they’re not. But the first step is just about becoming consciously aware of them so I can make decisions and choices in a more deliberate fashion. If the assumption is realistic—great run with it. But if it’s not—then I learned to challenge it, replace it with a statement that’s more accurate and more fitting for the circumstance. And it definitely takes some time and deliberate effort. But ultimately I end up having more control over how I see the world and really how I interact with it.
    All right. Well, thank you, everyone, for your time.
    Narrator: This podcast is a copyrighted production of John Wiley and Sons.
• The CD Style – An Everything DiSC® Podcast
  • © by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. 1The CD Style – An Everything DiSC® PodcastNarrator: The following podcast by Dr. Mark Scullard describes the CD style. It is anEverything DiSC® production brought to you by Wiley.Dr. Mark Scullard: All right, so we’re going to spend some time talking about the C Dstyle, which is a blend of conscientiousness and dominance, and if you have a C D style,I think probably what you’re going to find is that, you know, maybe, you know, roughly70, 80 percent of what we’re going to be talking here will probably fit for you. And, youknow, some of it would be spot on. There’ll be some of it that feels like, yeah, that’s notreally me or maybe even, yeah, well, that sounds like me when I was younger. But Ithink the value here is more about listening for those insights that really help you makesense of your past experience or really help you see your thought processes or yourhabits in a new light. So we’re going to take a look at all of these different characteristicsassociated with this CD style, things like being strong critical thinkers, like being toughminded, you know, being determined, and there’s one underlying theme that really tiesthem all together.It’s probably the most pronounced characteristic that separates people with this stylefrom the average person. And it’s this fundamental sense of skepticism. It’s aperspective that says: the world isn’t necessarily always the most friendly place. Youknow, it’s not always well meaning. There are a lot of people out there who justshouldn’t be trusted, you know, some because they’re not honest, but, you know, somebecause they’re just not capable or because they’re lazy or because they’re selfish. So,generally speaking, the C D style tends to be a little bit more wary of the world. And thisoutlook, which I’ll talk about throughout this podcast, this outlook is the source of someof the C D’s greatest strengths and greatest assets, but it’s also the source of some of itsgreatest challenges.
    © by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. 3self-sufficiency. This gives me the freedom to pursue my goals without theinconvenience of having to rely on another person. My success is entirely within mycontrol; at least, it feels that way. And then second, it creates a safeguard against acentral fear and that central fear is being incompetent. If competence is central to thevalue of a person, then being incompetent is completely unacceptable. It’s humiliating tobe a failure. It’s humiliating to be helpless.Now, I—I made a pretty bold claim right there. The claim was: competence is central tothe value of a person. And actually, let’s make this more personal and state it like this:I’m valuable if I’m competent. That’s pretty drastic. And this is where I want to introducethis concept of driving assumptions. These are unspoken belief systems that that eachof us has, beliefs that are usually well outside of our awareness. But they’reassumptions that we have about how the world works and because they’re assumptionsand because they’re unconscious, we really don’t have the opportunity to questionthem. We just assume they’re true. So, for instance, for the C D style, a commonassumption is: I should always be self-sufficient.And I call these driving assumptions because this little belief that we probably came upwith when we were seven or eight years old and which is well buried by the time wereach adolescence, it drives a huge amount of our behavior and it drives a lot of how weinterpret the events in our lives. So for the rest of this talk, I want to discuss some ofthese assumptions. And if you have a C D style, you might find yourself torn. You mightfind yourself saying, you know, on the one hand, this assumption is just plain stupid. I’dbe embarrassed to admit that I believe something like that. And at the same time,though, there might also be some part of you that actually kind of does believe that, youknow, you don’t really want to admit it, but you kind of know it’s there.And the thing you should know, though, is this is true for everyone. We all have theseunspoken beliefs about the world that on the surface, they they look ridiculous or evenembarrassing. You know, if you examine them in the light of day, it’s like, this is how a
    © by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. 4child sees the world, not an adult. But to the degree that these assumptions arelegitimately there, going on in the backgrounds of our brain, and we go on not owningthem or refusing to acknowledge them, they actually have that much more power toshape our lives and to guide us towards decisions that aren’t necessarily always in ourbest long term interest. All right. So that brings us back to the driving assumption westarted with.And if you have a C D style, try it on—maybe it fits for you, maybe it doesn’t—and askyourself if there’s some part of you that believes this even in a small way. Again, here itis: I’m valuable if I’m competent. It’s a very simple statement and the rational part of uscan easily reject it. But to the degree that it’s incorporated in our understanding of theworld, at a less conscious level, it can have a really powerful influence on our behavior.OK, so think about all of the ways this assumption would affect someone’s behavior ifthey had really, really incorporated into their worldview. So, one implication is that, I’mgoing to do whatever it takes to be competent, to master the challenge in front of me,because if my self-worth is at stake here, really, what could possibly be more important?And so I will push through all manner of discomfort to gain mastery.When other people encounter something too tough, their mind is often telling them, youknow what? Isn’t there something more comfortable we could be doing with our time?But the C D style becomes accustomed to that lack of comfort. They becomeaccustomed to that negative emotion. Unlike other people, negative emotion isn’tnecessarily a sign that I should be running away, that I’m doing the wrong thing. My—my internal assumption is that I need to push through it. And so I’ll persist with anunpleasant task or in a negative atmosphere much longer. I’ll wrestle with the problem.I’m determined to understand and to do things right.Basically, because I expect resistance in the world, it’s not going to scare me off. I don’tautomatically take it as a sign that I’m headed in the wrong direction. And I think what’sinteresting with this style is that, while achievement is important, personal mastery is
    © by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. 5actually even more important. Mastery reflects an internal competency that I can carrywith me and I can use to control the world in the future. I’ve added a tool to my toolbox,basically.And so in the same way that I evaluate myself based on competence, it makes sensethat I’d evaluate other people based on that same criterion. So one of the things that weoften see with the C D style is that they have very little tolerance for people they regardas incompetent. And in fact, if you took the Everything DiSC® assessment and youcame up with a C D profile, you probably endorsed statements like “I quickly get irritatedwith illogical people” and “It really bothers me when people waste my time” or “I getimpatient with incompetent people”.So if someone’s incompetent, or at least I perceive them that way, and I—I can’t get ridof them, I’ll work around them. I’ll give them minimal responsibility, maybe not includethem in updates, not deliberately, but because I’ve kind of written them off. Very muchrelated to this is a very strong emphasis on accuracy in the C D style. You know, italmost reflects this kind of core belief: thou shalt not be wrong. Almost as if it’s, youknow, sinful or unethical to be wrong.If I produce something and I put my good name on it, it absolutely must be of highquality. If I make a statement, it must be true, preferably with information to back it up.Anything else is almost morally wrong. And so it’s not that everything needs to beperfect, but the things that I can commit myself to, the things that I put effort into, mustbe unassailable and refined. Maybe I’ll allow some flaws in things that I haven’t pouredmyself into. But if I identify with a project or an accomplishment, it must be flawless.But I do want to make sure that I’m not painting a picture of the C D’s accuracy as beingpurely a defense mechanism. That the only reason this style wants accuracy is becauseit doesn’t want to be blamed for mistakes. It’s broader than that. People with the C Dstyle also—they take a lot of pride, a subtle kind of joy, in producing something of great
    © by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. 6quality. They like knowing that they’ve done a truly excellent job and like having controlover all aspects of it. There’s a satisfaction that comes with stepping back and looking atthe work that I did and admiring how well it matches up to some standard. There’s asense of completeness and closure and purpose that comes with getting things justright. It’s a little like slipping that last piece of the puzzle in place.When things fit just perfectly after a bunch of hard work, there’s wholeness and stability.And I think most people can appreciate that, but particularly for the C D style. But thereis still that other more defensive motivation for precision, which is to avoid mistakes, andif someone wants to avoid mistakes, one of the best tools humans have available to usis logic. It’s knowable and predictable. It’s also incredibly stable, like math. If you putcertain variables in, you’re going to get certain variables out. Each time it’s the same. Sothe C D style learns to rely on this tool. And, as we’ll talk about a little later on,sometimes they over-rely on it.A similar tool that someone can use to avoid being wrong is skepticism. Being skepticalmeans that I’m not going to be taken in. I’m not going to think something’s better than itreally is. I’m not going to put my stamp of approval on something that’s inferior, that’sflawed. It protects me from making a mistake. It limits the number of false positives Iget, even if, as a natural consequence, it means I’m also going to increase the numberof false negatives that I get. And this is another area that can be a great asset, but it canalso be overused, which we’ll talk about later. And then another practice that helpspeople avoid mistakes is information gathering. The C D style typically wants a lot ofinformation before making a decision and sometimes wants an unrealistic level ofcertainty before making a decision.So this can translate into being very slow to act or being very risk adverse or frankly, noteven recognizing opportunities where it might be worth taking a moderate risk. Youknow, it’s just not on the radar. And of course, we all want some certainty before we’retaking a chance. It’s just that the threshold is particularly high for the C D style. And so
    © by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. 7they might not even see the opportunity or if the opportunity is brought up by someoneelse, their go to reaction is just going to be one of cynicism, especially if they haven’thad the chance to work out all the logic and all the contingencies and all the rippleeffects for themselves. They’re not going to be really comfortable just putting their faithand fate in someone else’s judgment.The D C and the C D styles in particular often have very high and very specificstandards. And one of the offshoots of that is what I’ll call a “should mindset”: very firmbeliefs about how people should behave, how a situation should be resolved. And”should”—this is a deceptively powerful word. Counseling psychologists, you know,really pay attention when they hear one of their clients using the word should. It’sbecause should implies a moral judgment. So if you take it in the context of “I should berespectful of other people” or “I should be a good parent” or “I shouldn’t take advantageof other people”, these are pretty reasonable statements.It’s kind of hard to argue with these because if you’re not living up to these sorts ofshoulds, well, you know, maybe, just maybe, you’re not doing life right, alright? Maybeyou really do need to take a step back and reevaluate the kind of person you’vebecome. But I don’t think that’s too judgmental, right? That’s a pretty low bar. All right.Now, the problem happens, though, when we take this word “should” and, mostlyunconsciously, we start applying it to situations that really are not moral imperatives.And as a consequence, we make those situations start to feel like moral imperatives. Ishould give her a call. I should be more productive. I should be exercising. And, youknow, make no mistake, these are all good things to do. But not doing these thingsdoesn’t make me a bad person. But because of my should mindset here, the level ofguilt or even shame I feel for these things is not in any way equivalent to the actualtransgression.And this, I think, just as an aside, is one of the leading causes of procrastination. Not atall to suggest that the C D style is particularly prone to procrastination—they’re not—but,
    © by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. 8you know, all of us do this from time to time and our shoulds are a big part of that. Youknow, if I’m telling myself “I should start that project” and I also know simultaneouslythat I haven’t started it—well, whenever I think about that project, it’s coated, you know,it’s saturated in this guilt and anxiety. And so mentally, what am I tempted to do? I pushit out of my mind as quickly as possible. I find something less painful to think about. Andso next time, thinking about the topic becomes even more painful, and that’s—youknow, the cycle goes on with procrastination.All right, but back to the C D style in particular, and I’ve been talking about this wordshould as with regard to my personal shoulds, alright, the shoulds I have concerning myobligations. But with a C D style, when my standards are so high and often very specific,there’s also a lot of shoulds that I assign to other peoples’ behavior. She should get tothis meeting on time. He shouldn’t be browsing the Internet when he hasn’t finished thatproject yet. She shouldn’t have used that tone. He should have called me back by now.And again, in those situation, all those should might very well have an element oflegitimacy, a very big element of it.But the should mindset makes the stakes disproportionately high. The stakes are now ofa moral nature. It can feel like the stakes are this is either a good person or a badperson. Again, this isn’t necessarily conscious as far as the thought patterns go, butwhat I am conscious of is the resulting emotion. And so what we can find is a level ofanger or disgust or frustration, I feel, is not really proportionate to the person’s actualtransgression. You know, objectively speaking, I’m much more irritated than mostpeople would say the actual situation calls for.Now, I do want to point out that this is a broad human tendency. We are all susceptibleto it. The reason I bring it up in a C D’s podcast, though, is that I think it’s a particularlystrong pattern within this style. You know, the guilt that’s associated with the shoulds Ihave about myself and then the irritation, right, that’s associated with the shoulds that Ihave about other people. And I mentioned procrastination as a potential side effect of
    © by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. 9should, but if we’re looking for a positive side, the should can also spur us to action. Itcan get us to take responsibility to be accountable. Likewise, I mentioned earlier thatone of the central needs of the C D style is control. And for many people with this style,this leads to this intense drive to understand their world, because I can control the worldaround me if I understand it better. So in particular, people with the D C or CD or Cstyles, they tend to be analytical. They keep digging for answers or understanding, evenwhen those answers don’t come quickly or easily.There’s this, uh, there’s this psychological principle called cognitive ease. It refers tohow easy it is for our brains to process information. The more cognitive ease associatedwith the task, the more likely we are to stick with it. That’s just human nature. But whenthat ease diminishes, the urge that our brain, you know, sends up is to switch to anothertopic, something less painful, so less difficult. It’s one of the reasons why advertiserswant to keep getting their brand in front of you again and again and again, because themore familiar something is, the easier it is for—to process, the more likely we are toengage with it, to think about it again.It’s also the reason people prefer to get information that validates their preexistingbeliefs. We’d much rather hear a fact that confirms what we already believe comparedto a fact that contradicts what we believe. It’s easier to process the confirmatoryinformation. It feels better. Basically—you know, our—basically our brains are lazy. Andso being someone who frequently engages in analytical, critical thinking, someone whokeeps at things even when they’re difficult, well, it may not necessarily always be themost pleasant way to exist, but it’s crucial for developing expertise on complex topics,sticking with it through all the unpleasantness, and so this is really one of the strengthsof this style.Whereas the average person is more likely to succumb to that temptation towardscognitive ease, you know, the—the path of least resistance, the C D style, they’re morelikely to keep at it, to keep digging, even though it’s hard. And so, again, we can call this
    © by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. 10an instinct towards mastery. And I think this can also reinforce the belief that, my worldis controllable if I just focus enough, or at least, it should be controllable. And because Ihave built my understanding of the world on logical, objective standards, it can also feellike I’m in a unique place to be an unbiased or fair in my decision making.After all, I’ve used systematic reasoning to build my case and as a consequence, myreasoning, it feels airtight. I can envision how every piece fits together, you know. Andas a side effect of that, though, it’s much easier for me to justify being stubborn, tojustify digging my heels in. Again, I’ve got an airtight case. In my mind, it’s alsocompletely unbiased. Now, of course, what’s really easy for me to forget, easy for allhumans to forget, is that the conclusions we come to, even rationally and logically, arecompletely dependent on which facts we choose to prioritize and which we choose tode-emphasize. My values impact my logic and the direction that my logic takes me. Andthey influence whether or not an argument seems strong or weak to me. So usually myposition seems unassailable to me, and it’s frustrating that other people can’t see it asclearly.And so given that, even compromising is particularly irritating because it meanslowering my standards and accepting an objectively inferior solution, all because otherpeople, you know, they’re not bright enough to see the situation clearly, you know, andit’s frustrating. And with the C D style, there’s a—definitely a tendency to express thatdisagreement. So, maybe I’m not necessarily expressing my emotion directly, althoughthat’s probably coming across as well, but if you have a C D style, there’s a good chancethat you’re known for being direct, you know, straightforward.And there’s a lot to be said for the power of candor because there’s a lot ofmiscommunication and inefficiency that goes on when people have to guess what otherpeople are thinking. You know, you might see me as rude, but I’m telling it as it is, I’mbeing honest, I’m making it clear what I think, and it’s so much more efficient to do. Idon’t want to have to guess what you’re thinking either. I want you to be frank, too. Also,
    © by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. 11I don’t want to have to waste all this mental energy trying to figure out the exact rightwords that aren’t going to hurt your feelings. That’s exhausting, and it slows me down,and it’s controlling. Really, wouldn’t it just be a better world if everyone could justtoughen up a little bit? You know, people, grown ups, they should be strong enough tohear the truth.I do want to take some time, though, to talk about how this argument—the argument Ijust made—can be taken and maybe twisted, maybe just a little bit, in a way that allowsme to rationalize or justify some unhealthy behaviors in the name of truth or in the nameof honesty. For instance, uh, is there a difference between being blunt and beinghonest? Because there are many times when a person can choose two different waysto communicate the truth, one that’s blunt and one that’s diplomatic, both of which areequally honest, both of which communicate the message. But the blunt option has thedanger of triggering someone’s defenses and actually closing them off to the message.So the question I want to ask is: in those circumstances where the blunt and diplomaticcommunications are both equally clear and equally honest, why would someone choosethe blunt option?All right. So, let me throw out a few options—through—a few—a few hypotheses. Allright, one is that I just don’t want to take the time and the mental energy to choose mywords, because what does diplomacy involve? It involves putting myself in the otherperson’s shoes and imagining how they’re going to react. Then it involves choosing thewords that will simultaneously communicate what I want to say without putting the otherperson off more than—than is absolutely necessary. This is work. It’s no wonder peoplesay, you know, to hell with it, I’m just going to blurt it out, it’s their problem if they can’ttake it. Another reason why some people might choose the blunt option, although I thinkmost of us wouldn’t be too quick to admit that this is the reason, but it’s because beingblunt actually feels more powerful. It’s a way to kind of indulge my irritation or frustrationor anger or disgust at someone that bothers me.
    © by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. 12You know, I might tell myself that I’m just being fair or honest, but emotionally, does it inany way actually feel good to be blunt with someone? Does it feel empowering? For, forinstance, uh, which of the following statements feels more empowering to say? All right,here’s the first one: “I think that sometimes you’re not putting in as much effort as therest of the people on this team.” Compare that to saying: “You’re being lazy.” Right, thesecond one is much more gratifying to say if I’m a little bit irritated. And I can tell myselfthat I said it that way because I wanted to be direct and honest, but the first option isjust as clear without having the potential negative side effects, it just doesn’t feel asgood to say.The hint of aggression in there also has a sense of power and control to that. And, and,and that feels good, too. So the key here is to be honest with myself about why I’mbeing direct and blunt, especially if it’s a sensitive situation. How much of it is becausethe direct statement is more clear and understandable, and how much of it is becauseeven if I don’t like to admit it, it feels better for me to be blunt, or it’s easier, again, for meto be blunt. Really, this is just about understanding my real motivations so I can make amore deliberate choice in how I act.And as a counterpart to being blunt, something that’s actually usually a lot more subtle,and that’s the non-verbals that the C D style often gives off that can really influencepeople even without me knowing that I’m affecting other people’s behavior. And it’s evenmore influential if I’m in a leadership position. Leadership, that’s a—that’s a particularlypowerful position. If I’m a leader, people are going to be paying a lot more attention tomy moods and, you know, even what they perceive to be my moods, than—than I everrealize. You know, a slight eye roll or an exaggerated sigh—that’s going to get analyzedand replayed over and over again in the heads of the people who follow me. You know,moreover, expressions of anger or irritation like a raised voice, they have an even moredrastic impact.
    © by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. 13And what it can do is it can create a pretty stressful environment for people where theyaren’t really secure about their standing with me. So if you do have a C D style andyou’re in a role of authority, it is really worth considering the emotional vibe that you’regiving off. Really, part of having an engaged workplace is people feeling good about theplace they show up to for work every day. And more specifically, you know, theyshouldn’t want to avoid running into their leader in the hall. Their blood pressureshouldn’t raise when their leader calls them on the phone, you know? And of course,that’s a little bit of an exaggeration. But in talking with a number of people with C Dstyles, they don’t often realize the intensity of the vibe that they can give off, particularlywhen that vibe is skeptical. That can be really stressful for people, especially if there’ssomeone who really values harmony and stability in their world.Now, you know, when it comes to positions of authority, you know, we really don’t findthat the typical person with the C D style is all that power hungry, all right? They’re notnecessarily the ones who are clamoring to be in command. Um, you know, some are.But for the most part, that’s not a trait. You know, what’s—what’s a more common drivewithin this style, though, is to be an authority, right? Maybe not the authority, but anauthority in some area, you know. And—now a key word here, uh, that I don’t know if Imentioned yet, but I think it’s a useful idea to sum up a lot of this, is the word credibility:the idea that people see me as someone that can be relied on, that they can trust what Isay is true.And, you know, of course, you know, everyone wants to be seen as credible, but for theCD style, this is very much a—a preoccupation, you know, and—and maybeunconsciously, but there’s this mentality that says: I need to guard my credibility.Actually, I think probably the more common phrasing of this, you know, more internalvoice is something like: I must always maintain my credibility. You know, it’s anotherone of those driving assumptions. And if you have a C D style, try it on. Ask yourself ifthere’s some part of you that believes this, even in a small way. And this is a deceptively
    © by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. 14powerful little statement. In fact, the key words here are probably not what you wouldexpect them to be.Again, take this sentence: I must always maintain my credibility. I would argue that thekey words here are must and always. Always is powerful because it’s an absolute, itputs a tremendous amount of pressure on a person to live up to this standard at eachand every moment in time, with no exceptions, no room for screw ups. And humanbeings, you know, we just can’t do that. The other key word, must, is one that you mightnot expect at all, but here’s what must does: it elevates this statement from a merepreference or a goal or a nice to have. And it elevates it to a moral imperative. That—that this speaks to our very character, whether we’re a good person or a bad person. Imust guard my credibility at all times because this is a reflection on my worth as aperson.Now, granted, I’m using language here that’s a little grandiose and very few of us thinkin these terms consciously. But for all of us, there are times that our brain makes theseabsolute, completely irrational assumptions about life that guide our perceptions of theworld around us. Okay, so let’s say this assumption is in play, it’s operating beneath thesurface, maybe even to just do a small degree, maybe to a large degree. Maintainingself-control, then, is one of the first things a person is going to do to protect theircredibility. Even if I can’t necessarily control the situation, I can control myself. Sothere’s a certain amount of pride that I take in my ability to control my desires. Self-control also assures that I won’t make a fool out of myself by making a mistake or doingsomething inappropriate.There is therefore a strong instinct to avoid all forms of vulnerability, not to showweakness to others, especially in areas that I think matter. So I’ll go off and do researchon my own rather than letting people see me in a vulnerable position of not knowingsomething. I keep my insecurities to myself and find it frankly, almost—you know—bordering on humiliating when those insecurities might show, because “a credible
    © by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. 15person is strong”—I’m using quotation marks here, but, you know, the credible person isstrong. They’re—they’re in control. They can handle the problems that life throws atthem in a composed, disciplined manner.At least, that’s what should happen, should being another one of those very loadedwords. Now, a much more proactive way to ensure my credibility is developingexpertise. Expertise ensures my competence in whatever area we’re talking about. It’snot about getting attention or approval or power. A lot of the times, it’s aboutaccomplishment, but a meaningful amount is also about, if I develop expertise, I’ve gotthis competency in my back pocket. As long as I know I have that, I’m good.And this is core. You can take everything else away and I’ll still have my competency.Expertise helps cement my worth. It closes up the vulnerability that I could be exposed.Here, I have the chance to be on the offensive rather than the defensive. This is where Ican get my pride needs met. Pride feels good, you know, other people get their prideneeds met by being top dog or by getting a lot of attention or by having status. Being anexpert allows me to to dip into that well of pride in the same way. And like anything, itcan be taken too far. It can be tempting for a person to hide behind their expertise, tobuild their self concept around it to the point where it’s like a safe fortress to take shelterin and withdraw into, where wandering outside their areas of expertise becomes evenmore unattractive compared to the warmth and the safety of their comfort zone.But of course, there’s very much a healthy side to this instinct to build expertise as well.Once I have it, I can do things that very few other people can do. I can solve problemsthat very few other people can solve. It’s because very few other people are driventowards mastery the way I am, and they’re not willing to put in the hard, sometimesunrewarding work that’s necessary to develop that mastery.Okay, so, I definitely want to make sure the healthy side is acknowledged because theworld would be much different, a much worse place, if we didn’t have people who were
    © by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. 16driven in this specific regard. All right. The unhealthy side, I mean, a lot of the time it’s—it’s more useful to talk about the unhealthy side of our instincts because that’s theinformation that we can use to help us grow. So, to the degree that there is thisunhealthy instinct to use expertise as a shield or to avoid putting myself in a positionwhere I might fail, to maintain credibility all times, to ensure that I’m not the origin ofmistakes, there’s a deeper impulse here to make sure that flaws are not exposed.People with a C D style, if they’ve really allowed themselves to dig deep, to be reallyhonest with themselves, recognize this association between their flaws being exposed,on the one hand, and really deep sense of humiliation. And it’s almost an unspokenassociation. But to the degree that in the back of my head, I believe that the exposure ofmy flaws would be awful. People seeing those flaws would be awful. I make sure thatthose flaws stay on complete lockdown. I make sure that my output, whatever it is, if itcomes out of me, it’s very controlled and very measured.And related to this, there’s a—there’s another concept that I want to bring up here thatweaves through a number of the C D characteristics. It’s—it’s really one of the moreprized possessions of the C D style. And—and that is their dignity. And of course,everyone cares about their dignity to some degree. And this word can mean differentthings. But what I’m talking about here is dignity in terms of not looking foolish, notlosing the basic respect of others. And so this is another one of those drivingassumptions. I must maintain my dignity at all times, which isn’t such an extremestatement.But let’s unpack a little of what this actually entails. This is a mandate that usuallyentails self-control at all times. It also entails that I am at all times in control of mychoices. It entails that I do not say things that are foolish or things that can be provenwrong. It often means that I don’t expose myself to criticism, to—open to ridicule. Andthese aren’t necessarily conscious mandates, and they’re not necessarily true of all
    © by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. 17people with the C D style. But it’s common to see these, at least to some degree,operating in the back of the mind.So let’s imagine, if true, what kind of implications you might see if someone had thisvery intense need to guard their dignity. And I think one of the most obvious places is inthe social realm. You know, that’s a realm where the rules for what’s appropriate andnot appropriate, you know, are usually pretty ambiguous, if not completely arbitrary. Andso the normal strategy I might take when I know there’s going to be a stressful situationis to prepare and to analyze and to study. But with social situations, there’s no amountof preparation that I can do to ensure that I’m going to come across well.And the people who are usually regarded as the most socially engaging are in fact theones who usually do put themselves out there, they open themselves up, they throwthemselves into the situation. They’re speaking stream of consciousness a lot of thetimes, they’re not second guessing what comes out of their mouth. The filter betweenwhat they’re thinking and what they’re saying is very permeable. You can see theirpassion and they pull people into those passions.Now, these people may be very image conscious, they—they may thrive on attention,their self-worth might be wrapped up in the approval of others, but their self-worth andtheir concept of dignity is probably quite different than the typical C D’s concept ofdignity. For the average C D style, my brain simply won’t allow me to expose myself likethat. I can’t let go of those inhibitions because those inhibitions have been locked inplace over the years to protect my dignity, to protect me from saying that ridiculousthing, whatever it is. I’ve got this very intense internal monologue going on about thesocial dynamics and what’s appropriate, but on the outside, it usually just looks like I’ma quiet person.And the cruel irony, of course, is that all of that quietness is exhausting, you know? It’sall of that internal stress, analyzing the dynamics, looking for opportunities to jump into
    © by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. 18the conversation. But this can feel like—almost like merging into traffic that’s going 70miles an hour when I’m standing still. It’s exhausting. And there are some otherdimensions to this whole dignity thing, though, that aren’t just about mingling or socialevents. And another important one of them is about emotional control or emotionaldisplays. And the general strategy here is to really just avoid them.I remember a friend describing to me how he sees it when someone loses theirtemper—and the friend is actually he’s got this, uh, a lot of C style in him, maybe a littlebit of D. And surprisingly to me, what he described was being embarrassed for the otherperson. And so let’s say someone with a really strong personality loses it and startsyelling. That person, the person yelling, may feel like they’re showing power or strengththrough their aggression.But my friend’s reaction was to just see this person as losing their dignity. They’re losingcontrol of the one thing you can have control over, they’re creating a whole window intotheir flaws and shortcomings. When you get emotional like that, there’s no telling whatwill pour out and—and it’s not just anger. It’s really any sort of strong emotional display,you know, it could be too much enthusiasm or too much sadness, right? And not to saypeople with this style don’t experience strong emotions. They do. But they just have avery strong instinct to control the display of those emotions.So with the C D style, you can often see this self-sufficiency projected outward through aquiet strength. There’s a—a strong sense of emotional control, but also a little bit ofintensity beneath the surface that people can usually pick up on, a little bit of ofrestlessness. But again, definitely projecting a sense of strength.And—and part of that is keeping more tender, more vulnerable emotions internal, kindof tucked away from the outside world, you know. And by tender emotions, I meanthings like, uh, you know, sadness or hurt or emotional displays of affection or empathy,you know. For a lot of people with the C D style, certainly not all, but a number, you
    © by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. 19know, even seeing other people be too open with this kind of stuff can feel—I don’tknow—squeamish, you know. Particularly gushy, sentimental stuff, it’s going to get adisgust reaction, revulsion almost. It feels manipulative. When someone’s putting all thissquishy stuff out there, it’s almost as if they’re implicitly demanding a reaction out of me,a reaction of empathy, or they’re trying to make me feel that gushy stuff too. It’s like, no,no, you know, don’t try to drag me into this emotion. Don’t try to play on my sympathies.You know, don’t try to shame me into having those same feelings.The C D style definitely has an aversion to being controlled and I think that sometimeslistening to someone tell a sappy story can feel like that, being manipulated—indirectly,but it’s still there. And there’s also kind of this allergic reaction to melodrama. You know,the sense that people are exaggerating or overplaying their emotion in a situation, youknow, maybe even a sense that they’re faking it a little bit, but also, you know, that it’s atool for them to get attention. It’s—it’s another form of manipulation. You’re using thistrumped up reaction to get everyone to pay attention to you and pull attention away fromother, more legitimate concerns. It’s like a politician kissing a baby, trying to make usthink he’s trustworthy. I actually heard someone else describe why they found this sooff-putting. They—I love the way they put it—they described it as “an appeal to shallow,uncomplicated emotions at the expense of reason.”Alright, so there are those potential reactions, but I think there’s also often somethingelse, more beneath the surface. You know, when you see that strong disgust reactionthat people with the D C or C D style have to that sappy, sentimental stuff, I think a lot ofthat potentially ties back to the aversion to vulnerability. And disgust is an interestingemotion. The reason it’s basically there is to protect us from stuff that can poison us orto hurt us. You know, our ancestors were disgusted by rancid, fetid food so that theywouldn’t eat it, you know? They had that emotional reaction, it’s an overpowering,emotional experience that protected them. So if you follow that logic, what is it that’spoisonous about sentimentality, about touchy feely stuff? Why would, for some people,why would their brains be telling them that you need to stay away from this stuff, that it’s
    © by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. 20going to hurt you, that it’s going to poison you? And one hypothesis is that there’s sucha strong aversion to tender emotion like this because those emotions representvulnerability.How do they represent that they represent that? They represent unabashed intimacy orbeing completely un-skeptical, surrendering that normal cynicism that protects usagainst things like manipulation or lying people, but also against looking foolish oroverexposing ourselves.And then, a little further, that cynicism can protect us from looking weak or soft oractually being weak or soft. Simply put, someone comes at me with this tender stuff,they’re basically asking me to completely abandon my critical eye, my layer ofprotection. It’s the opposite of control. It’s the opposite of mastery. And so my brain istelling me that this is an absolute no go, you know, to make sure I stay clear. And thethe way that it gets me to stay clear is it creates this reaction of disgust, sometimeseven anger. And so even complimenting someone or praising them or reassuring themor encouraging them, particularly at work, can feel uncomfortable. A little too kind oftouchy feely, maybe even cringe inducing, maybe even unprofessional. And what’sinteresting is, you know, more negative emotions don’t necessarily have that stigma ofbeing unprofessional, like, for instance, getting frustrated or angry, because at leastthey reflect a more hard nose down to business approach.I mean, that’s what you’re getting paid for, right? Is to be down to business. But—but Ihave seen a number of cases where this mindset has gotten people in trouble,specifically when they find themselves in a leadership position. And the problem stemsfrom being very problem focused. If, for instance, you know, mentally I’m on the hunt forproblematic issues and I always have an eye open for them, this can be a really goodthing. It helps me excel as a critical thinker. It helps me spot things that are goingwrong.
    © by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. 21Unfortunately, the opposite tendency might not come easily. That is, I’m much moreattentive to problems and obstacles at the expense of being attentive to victories andhopes. I consider myself a realist and I keep my expectations for the future muted.That’s what a good skeptic does. I don’t show too much overt enthusiasm for the futurebecause after all, this is a form of vulnerability. If things don’t pan out, I’m going to lookfoolish for being on the record as an optimist. And further, when we do have a victory, Imay show a surge of happiness in the moment, but I’m also really quick to refocus onthe next objective. It’s part of my, kind of my “should” list.Unfortunately, this can really leave other people feeling like there’s, you know, there’s—there’s never a moment of real achievement or real celebration. It’s just always on to thenext challenge. What can be draining for a lot of people. And so for many people withthe C D style, when they find themselves moved into a leadership position, one of thedeterminants of whether or not they’re successful is their ability to make that transition,that they’re going to have to put themselves out there sometimes with—with someoptimism. They’re going to need to balance out that cynicism. Maybe even morechallenging, though, is the one to one stuff: showing appreciation or giving reassurancewhen people need it. You know, the first challenge is getting over the allergicness to it.Then there’s even, you know, kind of the more practical challenge of reminding myselfto do that kind of stuff on a regular basis.But even outside of the realm of leadership, if we step back from that, it’s notuncommon that the skepticism of the C D style is pretty noticeable, sometimes actually alot more noticeable than they even realize. For instance, they might be less likely topolitely laugh at someone’s unfunny joke.You know, basically they’re giving fewer nonverbal and verbal cues that they’re trying toplease or comfort the other person, like little smiles or nods. Instead, sometimes there’san unspoken vibe that says, you know, prove it to me, or, you know, prove yourself tome. And they’re not necessarily meaning to give that off. But sometimes other people
    © by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. 22are picking up on that. And if you consider that basically we all have social needs andfor a lot of people, one of those core needs is approval or belonging or admiration, butfor the C D style, oftentimes the larger social need is respect. And so, for this reason,they’re not usually giving off those cues that say “like me!”, right? That feels kind ofundignified, right? There’s not much self-sufficiency in that.But there are some consequences of this social need for dignity, both positive andnegative. And one of the positive is that perception of strength in the C D style. It says,I’m not easy to please, and because of that, many people will work harder to earn myacceptance. And there’s certainly a lot of benefits to that. I have more influence. It’seasier to get my way. People pay attention to me. I have a seat at the table as adiscerning person. People look to me for my approval because it doesn’t come easily.The downside, though, is that it might take longer before people feel comfortable beingopen with me, uh, being vulnerable with me, because they don’t want to be judged.When you know someone has really high standards, it’s a natural thing to say toyourself, I don’t want to be judged unfavorably by those standards. So as aconsequence, I protect the kind of information that I share with someone who I fearmight judge me. There’s less openness in that relationship, or at least it can take longerto build that sort of trust. There was an article that I read recently. It was, um—it was bya Harvard psychologist who studies first impressions. And she was making the pointthat when we meet someone new, people judge us immediately on two dimensions.One of them is, can I respect this person? Basically, are they competent or are theystrong? And then the second question people judge us on is, can I trust this person,which is largely evaluated based on how warm the person comes across.And I—and I bring up this theory here because I think at times the C D style scores veryhighly on the respect dimension, but it can come at the expense of the warmthdimension, which can be crucial for trust. Now, when it comes to the C D style judging
    © by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. 23other people, there’s a lot of weight put on this competence piece. As I mentionedearlier, this style really has a much lower tolerance for incompetence.And, you know, I mean, no one’s crazy about incompetence, but the C D style finds it tobe particularly grating. And if you have this style, this is probably something you canrelate to. And, you know, and we just talked about how other people, they pick up onthat, even if we’re not intentionally giving that off, they pick up on that.But what I wanted to get to here is the underlying emotion that you often see in thesesituations and what’s going on there. And there’s this fascinating study that I think doesa great job of illustrating the issue that I want to get into. So here’s what they did. Theresearchers, they took a group of very strong political conservatives and a group of verystrong political liberals, and they put them in an MRI scanner, a machine that lets us seewhat’s going on inside the brain.Now, the people inside the MRI, they had two tasks. The first task is, they were asked tocome up with arguments that were against their own political party. And then the secondtask is, they were asked to come up with arguments against the other political party.And no matter which group, liberals and conservatives, they got the same results. Onthe first task—criticizing my own party—the parts of the brain that showed activity werein the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain most associated with logical reasoning.Basically, people were rational.Where it gets interesting, though, is when people were asked to criticize theiropponents, there was substantially less activity in the logical, critical thinking parts of thebrain. Instead, there were two other parts that were highly active. One of them was thepart of the brain associated with disgust. And that’s not surprising. You can imagine howsour a number of people might be towards their opposition, especially politically. Thesecond part of the brain, though, was the one that I found most fascinating. It was thepleasure center of the brain, which seems kind of weird, right? I mean, why would
    © by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. 24talking about your political enemies be associated with pleasure? And isn’t pleasurekind of the opposite of disgust?What was happening was that people were enjoying, probably subtly, they probablyweren’t aware of it, but they were enjoying the contempt they felt for their opponent. It’sactually an emotion that we have a name for. We call it self-righteousness. It’s theenjoyment of getting angry or disgusted with someone and if you think about it, this ideaof of negative emotion being paired with pleasure, as bizarre as it seems, it’s notuncommon. You know, we have phrases like wallowing in sadness or—or stewing inanger. It’s an acknowledgment that, as unpleasant as these emotions are, sometimesthere actually is a pleasurable, reinforcing component to them.Now, I would guess if you asked any people in this study if they were taking pleasure inbeing disgusted, most of them would say no, you know, one, because it’s not somethingwe really want to admit, but to because the experience of disgust is what we’re mostaware of. And that’s what can make this sort of experience so dangerous, potentiallyaddictive, because we’re not aware of the reinforcement that we’re getting by engagingin disgust.OK, so what does this have to do with the C D style?Well, while this mental trap is one that all humans are susceptible to, for the C D style,this kind of disgust, pleasure pairing, I think is particularly tempting, again, preciselybecause of those high standards and high expectations that we talked about earlier.And so finding fault with someone, whether it’s for not having common sense or forbeing too lazy or too slow or whatever, it’s tempting to dwell on these flaws exactlybecause there sometimes can be that subtle reinforcement going on behind thescenes—to dwell on a logical argument during a fight and to enjoy building thatargument about why the other person’s behavior or their position is so unacceptable.And I can keep indulging in this rumination because it feels like I have no choice, that I
    © by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. 25have to get irritated as a matter of principle, you know. I just can’t let this thing slide.You know, why would I choose to get irritated about this if I didn’t have to be?Well, here’s one potential reason why. And again, I want to be clear that this is a humanpattern. It’s not isolated to one DiSC® style. It’s just that this particular mental trap canbe especially tempting for the C D style. And so if you do have this style, I think it’s justworth considering, you know, the next time you find yourself irritated with someone, andparticularly when, you know, you’re dwelling on that irritation, to what degree is thereactually a hint of enjoyment that comes along with that? And if there is that enjoyment, ifthe behavior is being reinforced in some way, is that something you actually want tocontinue to indulge?Now, I think this is related to the inherent skepticism we talked about at the verybeginning, but it really is only one way that the skepticism can manifest itself. I know anumber of people with D C or C D styles that notice that even when they’re not feelingfrustrated or irritated or impatient in a situation, other people can sometimes still thinkthey are. A large part of this is the non-verbals that are being given off, and for non-skeptical people, less skeptical people, throughout their lives, they’ve often developedcertain very welcoming or encouraging non-verbals that have become so routine forthem that they’re unconscious. Again, things like smiling or nodding or saying, youknow, yeah, or ha without even knowing it.So if the other person subconsciously is expecting those cues and not getting them, avoice in the back of their head might start asking, is something wrong? You know, doesthis person not like me. For a more skeptical person, on the other hand, the morenatural posture is to not have immediate acceptance, to not give off that vibe, you know.Instead, the vibe is more likely to be kind of a wait and see position or posture that says,you know, prove it to me. That says, you know, I’m not easily impressed or that I’m adiscerning person, I’m a critical thinker. I don’t immediately put my trust out there beforeI have reason to believe that I can trust you. You know, that’s just the reasonable thing
    © by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. 26to do. But to that other person, depending on where they come from, this neutral stancecan mistakenly come across as disinterested or even defensive or perhaps guarded.But again, if I have this underlying perspective that says, hey, the world’s not always atrustworthy place, well, in that case, openness is the last thing you want to do.Vulnerability is the enemy. That’s just common sense. And in fact, a lot of times peoplewith the C D style can become very good at reading between the lines in an interactionand picking up on the message beneath the surface, particularly if that message is acritical one or a threatening one. You know, the potential manipulation or potentiallyulterior motives, the subtle ways that people are trying to influence me.And you can see this particular form of attentiveness as it relates to an underlyingskepticism and to a higher need for control. And it’s neither good nor bad thing, orrather, it can be either. It’s good when I pick up on a motivation or manipulation thatreally is there. On the other hand, this heightened attentiveness is a drag on me if I’mpicking up on problems that aren’t really there, if I’m reading an insult or a power grabinto a conversation when there actually is nothing of the sort going on in the person’shead. Really one way of looking at this is: what type of error would I rather make?Would I rather incorrectly think that there’s a problem or would I rather incorrectly thinkthere’s no problem? Would I rather be overly critical or would I rather be overly naive?For most people with the C D style, they’re much more comfortable erring on the side ofbeing overly critical.All right, and—and so before wrapping up, the one final area that I want to touch onbriefly is conflict. And, you know, there—there’s a lot to be said in this area. You know,we could probably go on for a whole nother podcast on this topic. So, you know, we’recertainly not going to get into everything. But I wanted to kind of pull in some of thoseneeds that we talked about at the very beginning, particularly that need for competenceand that need for control.
    © by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. 27And, you know, if you consider someone with strong needs in both of these areas, itreally makes a lot of sense that this person is really not going to want to be beat in anargument. I mean, no one wants to be beat, but I think particularly in this case. And it’skind of a mentality there that says, if I let someone out-argue me, that reflects reallypoorly on my competence and it also threatens my sense of control, you know? Andthat’s a lot of internal pressure to make absolutely certain that I don’t lose. You know,there’s there’s a lot more at stake in this conflict than whatever issue it is that we’reactually arguing about on the surface.And one of the things that people with the C D style readily admit is being stubborn whenthey get in a fight. And one of the things that really helps them be stubborn are thosefinely honed critical thinking abilities. I come up with this airtight, perfectly logical casethat run through the arguments in my head, playing out all of the different points andcounter points that I make. And as a result, my position feels rock solid. And hopefully,you know, because of my critical thinking, my position actually is more accurate. Butregardless of how good it is in reality, it’s going to feel much more defensible becauseI’ve used logic to build it, and as a strong critical thinker, I’m going to be good atdefending even a bad argument to protect my preexisting beliefs. I feel more validatedthan in not changing and sticking to my guns.And—and it’s uniquely important to me to not lose because of all those things I justtalked about, the control, the competence, the non-vulnerability. And with that incentivepushing me, there’s that temptation to just bury the other person in logic and my quickthinking. Now, on the positive side of conflict, a real strength of the C D style is aboutsticking up for my rights and also about not letting problems get swept under the rug.Particularly in an organization, that’s incredibly valuable because there are just so manyincentives out there in the typical organization for people just to ignore problems, maybegrumble about them in the break room, but never actually address the issues, all right?there’s a lot to be said about candor.
    © by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. 28All right. So there definitely is a lot of information here, a lot of different dimensions thatwe talked about, and so: how do you make sense of it all, or rather, how do you put it touse? Well, I just want to make one broad suggestion. It’s about these drivingassumptions. And I think a practice that’s actually really powerful in terms of our growthas people is to simply monitor our behavior and our thoughts and start to notice whenthese assumptions are being played out in the background.And so let me give you kind of a reminder of the assumptions and maybe add a fewnew ones and think about—to what degree can I see these playing in my head? They’rethings like: I’m valuable if I’m competent. I should always be self-sufficient. If I’m not incontrol, I open myself up to disaster. I should have complete mastery in all areas of mylife that are under my responsibility. It is undignified to show intimate emotions. I mustmaintain my dignity at all times.Now, the whole exercise here is about becoming more aware of when these type ofassumptions are driving our behaviors, our thoughts, our emotions. Some of themprobably resonate with you more than others, right? And sometimes these things aregoing to be realistic. Sometimes they’re not going to be realistic. But the first step isreally just about becoming more consciously aware of them, alright? So that I can makedecisions and choices in a deliberate fashion. And if the assumption is realistic in thatsituation, great. You know, I run with it. But if it’s not, then I learn to challenge it andreplace it with a statement that’s more accurate, more fitting for the circumstances. Andit absolutely takes some time and deliberate effort. But ultimately, I end up having morecontrol over how I see the world and really, how I interact with it.All right, well, thank you, everyone, for your time.Narrator: This podcast is a copyrighted production of John Wiley and Sons.
• The Si Style – An Everything DiSC® Podcast
  • © by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. 1
    Narrator: The following podcast by Dr. Mark Scullard describes the Si style. It is an
    Everything DiSC® production brought to you by Wiley.
    Dr. Mark Scullard: All right, so we’re going to spend some time talking about the Si
    style, and if you do have this style, I think what you’ll find is that, you know, roughly 70,
    80 percent of what we’re going to talk about will—will fit for you. You know, you know,
    some of it will be spot on and, you know, then there’s going to be parts that are like,
    yeah, that’s not really me. Um, you know, there might be some parts are like, well, that
    was me when I was younger.
    But I think the value here is more about listening for those insights that really help you
    make sense of your past experiences or really help you see your thought processes and
    your habits in a new light. So we’re going to take a look at all these differen t
    characteristics that are associated with the Si style, uh, things like being welcoming and
    trusting, easygoing, patient. And as we talk about these things, one of the things that
    we’re going to find is that there are some underlying themes that really tie them
    together. You know, actually what I would kind of call core psychological needs, like, for
    instance, you know, some people have a really strong need to be in charge or a really
    strong need to get attention or, you know, a really strong need to demonstrate their
    competence, you know. Some people have a, you know, a really strong need to avoid
    making mistakes.
    For the Si style, it’s a different set of needs and, you know, and one of the major ones is
    this strong need for harmony, where I can feel that, you know, everybody’s happy with
    one another, you know, we’re all on good terms, no one’s mad at me, you know, I
    haven’t upset anyone or disappointed anyone, all right. And then, you know, a second
    core need, which, you know, it’s not completely unrelated, is this need for connection.
    © by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. 2
    And, you know, most people, most human beings, we’re—we’re often called social
    creatures, right, we all have this need to be connected to other people.
    But for the Si or the iS style, this need is particularly pronounced, you know, this is one
    of the kind of the core things that gives their lives meaning. And because it’s so
    valuable, threats to this sense of connection are going to feel particularly gut-wrenching,
    you know, or even scary. And, you know, when things feel scary, it really does—it
    affects our behaviors in a particularly powerful way. And then there’s this final need,
    which is the need for acceptance, you know. And again, this is something that everyone
    needs. But I think it’s particularly important for the Si or iS styles.
    And sometimes, this takes the form of kind of an underlying assumption that, you know,
    my value, at least in part, it really comes from belonging to a community, you know,
    whatever that community is, even if this is a more unconscious belief, which it really
    does tend to be. And so, as a result, being accepted feels really important to me, and,
    you know, I’m going to go out of my way to make sure that my belonging isn’t
    jeopardized in any way. So, you know, those three themes, you know, we’re going to
    see them kind of pop up again and again through the discussion, you know, even if
    those things are more subtle, you know.
    There’s the need for harmony, the need for connection, and then the need for
    acceptance. And one of the thing that all of these needs converge on is this very
    positive, very accepting outlook. You know, people with this style tend to have a very
    open posture towards life. They, you know, they take things as they come and they
    accept new circumstances. They have a kind of a much more fluid relationship with the
    world than the average person, you know, just trusting that letting people in or showing
    them true—their true selves, that that’s not going to be harmful, that, you know, that’s
    not going to lead to hurt. You know, they’re—they’re much more likely to allow
    themselves to be vulnerable.
    © by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. 3
    Now, you know, I think in kind of maybe a less mature version of this style, there’s kind
    of this almost naive, you know, even if it’s pleasant, kind of a naive expectation
    sometimes that the world is such a good place that, you know, it’ll just take care of my
    needs with really little stress on my part, you know? But again, I think that’s kind of
    among maybe, uh, you know, less mature people with this style, and it’s probably not
    going to be true for the majority of people with it.
    And one of the things that I think is really illuminating, though, is if you contrast this with
    the opposite side of the Everything DiSC® circle. You know, that’s where we find people
    who are inherently more skeptical in nature, you know, and as a result of this
    skepticism, there’s often more guardedness there, you know, and there are good things
    and there are bad things about, you know, this more tough minded mentality. And on
    the positive side, they often have an easier time really being like, for instance, very firm
    with people compared to the Si style. You know, they’ll dig their heels in in the face of
    adversity and just, you know, keep pushing and, you know, pushing back. Uh, and, you
    know, because there’s this expectation that life is really tough and, you know, life is
    going to require a fight, there’s kind of this entrenched determination and resilience to
    just kind of stick with it rather than that instinct to kind of more go with the flow.
    Now, on the other hand, there’s kind of—you take a look at the kind of the downside of
    this more guarded disposition, um. And I think a lot of these examples come in the more
    interpersonal world, right. But let’s say, for instance, in a situation where someone is
    experiencing rejection or someone’s experiencing critical feedback from someone. Now,
    for most people, you know, regardless of where you fall on the DiSC® map, the reaction
    to rejection, you know, it’s going to feel hurt—you know, you’re going to feel insecure.
    For people who are more guarded—and again, I’m talking about people are—who are
    on the opposite side of the DiSC map from the Si style—uh, for those more guarded
    people, these feelings—like, you know, things like hurt and insecurity—these emotions
    just feel way too vulnerable. They feel way too soft, you know, they leave me exposed
    © by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. 4
    in this tough world. And so my mind really doesn’t let me experience them as directly.
    Instead, I’m much more likely to kind of cover them up and—and feel anger or
    resentment or disgust, you know. These are more empowering emotions, you know.
    People don’t see these emotions as weak. But what they do do is they kind of cover up
    the hurt. They, you know, they make it extremely difficult for a person to understand
    what their genuine reaction was to the situation.
    And as a result, their judgment in how to fix the problem is actually kind of clouded and
    oftentimes maladaptive. So, conversely, I think this is an area of strength for the Si
    style, you know, even though it might not necessarily always feel like a strength, right.
    They’re more likely to experience hurt as hurt rather than the covered up version, you
    know, more in touch with the insecurities that are actually being provoked in the
    situation. And as a result, there’s much more of an opportunity to—for them to be
    honest with themselves, you know. And—and that’s a more healthy reaction.
    Now, there is kind of a downside to that. I think a less healthy temptation is to just kind
    of because you know it’s going to hurt, is to try to avoid the negative stuff to begin with.
    And so I’m in a situation, you know, and I sense, hey, there’s a high potential for
    rejection or criticism. And if that happens, it’s really going to hurt like hell, you know, and
    because I experience hurt so directly. So my unhealthy reaction, which, it’s unhealthy
    but it makes a lot of sense, is to just keep away from all that negativity, kind of gloss it
    over and, you know, to take myself out of a situation where there’s really any potential
    for that raw hurt, because, again, I feel it more directly than the average person.
    My defense mechanisms aren’t as primed to distort the information when it happens,
    kind of to—to twist it in a way that makes it more palatable for my ego, you know.
    Instead, my defense mechanism is to really just avoid the negative to begin with. So
    let’s take that and say, you know, look at it in a work context, uh, you know, the Si style
    has this very positive, welcoming presence, but at the same time, the tasks that require
    more criticism or negativity, those are ones that kind of tend to come less naturally. For
    © by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. 5
    instance, let’s say in a meeting, when someone has a bad idea—we’ve all been in a
    meeting where someone had a bad idea—and rejecting that idea outright, for this style,
    it just feels so wrong because my instinct is to support and build up people, you know,
    and this tiny little act of rejection, it feels like a violation of a really core value that I hold,
    you know. I never want to be the person who, you know, crushes someone else’s
    passions.
    So, you know, so what do I do? You know? Well, maybe I hedge, or maybe I redirect
    the conversation to talk about something positive I see in the idea. But, you know,
    really, when you step back, I mean, that is a—a pretty inefficient way to approach this
    situation. You know, if I find a roundabout way to kind of steer the group’s direction
    away from a bad idea, I mean, that’s just kind of muddy communication. That bad idea
    the other person had, that idea gets to linger on in the background.
    And, you know, people are unclear about the status of the idea, you know, are, well, are
    we continuing in that direction? Is—are we considering that to be a good idea? Is that
    something we need to develop more or should we just forget about it? Because, you
    know, because I didn’t want to be that direct. And that’s a real danger, you know. And I
    think a slightly different danger is because I want other people to succeed so much, I
    really will hunt down the value in their idea or their work and focus on that—that—that
    good part, you know, because when someone says “I have a great idea!”, I’m really,
    really hoping that that idea is as good as they say, you know, compared to other people
    who might be, maybe, might be indifferent when someone says, “I have a great idea”, or
    might even actually be very naturally skeptical when someone says they have a good
    idea.
    So when that other person’s, you know, quote, “great idea” turns out to be problematic,
    I’m kind of faced with this kind of mini crisis. You know, I’m immediately put in a position
    that I hate being in where I have to choose between, on the one hand, letting this bad
    idea live on or potentially hurting someone’s feelings. And, you know, and part of that
    © by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. 6
    stress that I’m doing is figuring out in my head the kind of the dance that I’m going to
    have to do to achieve both of those things. You know, and it really does, it feels like
    walking a tightrope. It’s—it’s very tense.
    In fact, we have kind of a—a 360 assessment tool where leaders get feedback from
    their managers, their direct reports, and their peers, and the area where people with the
    Si and iS styles, where they get the lowest ratings is about speaking up about problems,
    telling people when some sort of course correction is needed, you know, when there’s a
    problem with their work, you know. Actually and—and just by the way, as an aside, you
    know, leaders with the Si and iS styles, they do, as leaders, kind of tend to get the
    highest overall ratings, right. So that is great, you know, and—and we’re going to look at
    some of those areas in a minute where, um, they get really high marks.
    But, you know, all of the styles really do have their challenges. And so out of, you know,
    24 different leadership behaviors, the one that they were the lowest on was speaking up
    about problems. And I think, you know, even though part of it is actually about saying
    something about problems, I think there is also another part of this, which is really about
    seeing the problem in the first place or perhaps even kind of recognizing the intensity of
    the problem. I—I think particularly younger people with this style can sometimes be
    perceived as maybe even, uh, you know, a little naive or as a little green because, you
    know, because of their ideals and their more kind of chipper attitudes and their
    inclination to kind of see the best in everyone.
    When someone has a drastically different opinion than they do, you know, this—people
    with a style, they’re usually open to saying, well, hey, you know, I mean, maybe—
    maybe it’s actually me. Maybe I’m the one who’s mistaken, you know, maybe I should
    be the one who reconsiders my opinion. In fact, the—the portion of the Everything
    DiSC® map that’s on the exact opposite side of this style, um, that’s the portion of the
    map that’s identified as being very stubborn and strong-willed. That’s the exact opposite
    © by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. 7
    of the style we’re talking about here. And, you know, and so being accepting, you know,
    it does open a person up a little bit to being manipulated or taken advantage of.
    And part of this is about a choice in values. Really, would—would I rather err on the side
    of trusting someone who I shouldn’t or would I rather err on the side of doubting
    someone that I should trust. You know, and by and large, people with the Si style would
    rather make the mistake of being taken in too easily than to assume the worst about
    people. Whereas for other people, you know, because of their pride, the choice is clear
    for them. You know, under no circumstances do I ever want to look foolish, you know.
    I’d much rather be seen as cold and uncaring than ever be seen as a sucker.
    And so, related to this, you know, the Si style, they tend to be very patient with people
    and actually, you know, even—sometimes even more patient with people than they
    should be, giving people too many chances or, you know, they learn to live with delays
    and obstacles without showing too much frustration. So as a leader, for instance, you
    know, this can earn them very high marks for being receptive and being open to input
    and being supportive of other people. But it also tends to earn them lower marks for
    creating momentum and for getting results, you know.
    And—and again, recall those core needs that we were talking about at the beginning.
    The priority is put on kind of acceptance and connectedness and harmony, all right.
    These priorities are much more about people than they are about getting results. In fact,
    oftentimes when there is a strong focus on results within this style, it’s because they
    don’t want to disappoint or anger other people. The focus is still very much on
    relationships, you know, it’s—it’s not that nagging sense of internal pressure some
    people feel to kind of just produce results because my value is based on what I
    produce, you know. In kind of a—a task oriented business world, the Si style is the one
    that can help bring perspective.
    © by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. 8
    You know, they’re able to stop and say, hey, listen, you know, we’re not necessarily
    curing cancer here. No children are going to die if this doesn’t happen on time, you
    know. No one ever died wishing they spent more time at the office, you know. They
    recognize that life is about more than kind of just meeting deadlines and making profits,
    you know. Life’s about family and friends and giving back to other people. And—and so
    in some respects, this can create a very psychologically healthy climate that helps
    people balance personal and professional obligations.
    But, you know, there is—there is a cost, right. And it’s, I think, easy for people with this
    type of mindset to fall into a more comfortable place. The idea of balance can very
    easily kind of come to equal leisure. And so, you know, if I’m a leader or a manager with
    this style, when someone makes an excuse, I’m less likely to experience it as a, you
    know, as a quote, “an excuse”. You know, I’m—I’m quick to see their perspective. I’m
    quick to recognize that there often are special circumstances in life, you know, and I
    also—I instinctively understand that, you know, the things I care about, they’re not
    necessarily going to be the things that the other person cares about. You know, I see
    the validity in their excuses, whereas other people might just look at the bottom line.
    In most situations, however, there really are an unlimited number of, quote unquote,
    “valid excuses” that could be found and justified, you know. Someone can always find a
    reason for why they were late or why their work was sloppy. You know, if people don’t
    have a mentality that some sacrifices will need to be made and really that some
    discomfort will have to be endured to get things done, there’s always going to be a
    reason that things kind of had to move slower. And, you know, for my part, as a leader,
    it’s really tough even asking people to make sacrifices, let alone expecting them to
    make sacrifices, you know.
    I want them to be comfortable and satisfied. I want them to be happy, you know. It
    reflects this really fundamental drive to understand other people’s experiences and
    needs. It’s this unspoken assumption that this is what’s important in life, not results, you
    © by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. 9
    know, not status, not even necessarily accuracy, but connecting to other people, to
    helping people. But as a leader, you know, I must also communicate that sacrifices—
    they are something that needs to be expected at times.
    And, you know, this is one of the reasons that in the 360 results that I mentioned earlier,
    that the area where Si leaders get rated the the second lowest is setting high
    expectations, you know. Pushing people—that—that feels kind of icky, you know.
    Forgiveness, on the other hand, that that feels natural. And typically in this style, people
    are really quick to forgive, you know, for a couple of reasons. One, because they trust
    other people’s intentions are generally, you know, fundamentally good. But two,
    because they’re also—they’re very anxious to repair their relationship and, you know,
    rebuild the relationship and restore harmony, you know. I want to look past people’s
    surface flaws and see the real goodness inside. So I put people’s behavior in the best
    possible light and give the most positive possible interpretation of someone’s behavior.
    Now, at this point, I do, you know, I want to pull back a little bit and introduce this idea of
    driving assumptions, and these are unspoken belief system that that really each of us
    has, you know. They’re beliefs that are usually well outside of our awaren ess, but
    they’re assumptions that we have about how the world works. And, you know, it’s
    because they’re assumptions and because they’re unconscious, we don’t usually
    question them, you know, we just kind of assume that they’re true. So, for instance, for
    the Si style, one of the assumptions might be: if my world isn’t in harmony, things are
    bad.
    And I call it a driving assumption because this little belief, you know, that we you know,
    we probably came up with it when we were three or four years old. It drives a huge
    amount of our behavior. And these assumptions drive a huge amount of how we
    interpret the events in our life. So for the rest of this talk, I want to discuss some of
    these assumptions. And if you have an Si style, you might find yourself torn. You might
    find yourself saying on the one hand, you know, well, that’s kind of just—that
    © by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. 10
    assumption is just kind of plain stupid, right? I’d be pretty embarrassed to admit I
    believed something like that. At the same time, though, there might also be some part of
    you, maybe a small part, that—that actually does believe it. You know, you don’t
    necessarily want to really admit it, but you kind of know it’s there, you know.
    But I think the thing you should know, though, is that this is true for everyone, you know.
    We all have these unspoken beliefs about the world that, on the surface, they look
    ridiculous, and, you know, they’re even embarrassing at times, you know? And, you
    know, if you examine them in the light of day, it’s like, oh my gosh, this is how a child
    sees the world. This isn’t how an adult thinks. But to the degree that these assumptions
    really are legitimately there and they’re going on in the background and we continue to
    kind of go on not owning them or refusing to acknowledge them, they have that much
    more power to kind of shape our lives and to guide us towards decisions that aren’t
    necessarily always in our best interest.
    All right, so here’s another driving assumption, and if you have this style, you know, give
    it a try, try it on. Ask yourself if there is some part of you, you know, even if it is a small
    part of you, that the kind of believes this or—or some close cousin of this. So here it is: I
    should never be the source of someone else’s unhappiness. It’s a very simple statement
    but it can also have a really powerful influence on our behavior. And the statement can
    take, you know, it can take a lot of different forms, like, um: I should never burden other
    people, or: nobody should ever think I’m selfish. If someone is displeased with me, I’ve
    done something wrong, you know. But the basic theme here is really not making other
    people unhappy, not troubling them.
    Okay, so think about all the ways that this assumption would affect someone’s behavior
    if—if they really, really had incorporated it into their worldview. So one implication is
    something that we just talked about, you know, not burdening anyone or, um, you know,
    keeping things inside, internalizing them, not asking for favors, not asking for help, you
    know, being willing to take on this, you know, immense workload by ourselves and
    © by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. 11
    dealing with the frustration internally rather than potentially upsetting a relationship, uh,
    or—or not telling people that we’re unhappy with them, um, and even to some degree
    kind of putting the blame on ourselves, you know, worrying about situations where we
    might have offended someone.
    And so, if you have this style, you probably have a strong instinct to protect other
    people’s feelings. And in fact, it—it really may not even occur to you how much energy
    is being consumed in the background trying to understand and cater to other people.
    You may not, you know, realize just how much more efficient it really would be to just
    tell people what you’re thinking without filtering it to adjust for their emotional response.
    Oftentimes with this style, when they’re talking to someone, you know, they’re running
    through a variety of different ways to phrase things, kind of to be least offensive. But on
    the other hand, kind of the downside of this is kind of it can make them appear a little bit
    hesitant or even unassertive when they’re talking.
    And in the head of the style, there’s—there can almost be this kind of unconscious
    assumption that they should be living up to the other person’s expectations. So if, for
    example, um, the other person is showing impatience in the conversation, you know, I
    see that, and now I work extra hard to kind of speed things up or to get them the
    information they want really quickly. You know, basically, I feel this internal pressure to
    attend to the other person’s expectations of how the conversation should go. And so if
    you take this a step further, the idea of being outright aggressive is usually pretty hard
    for someone with this style. You know, after years and years of informal training, the
    brain is telling them that aggressiveness—that’s the behavior of a bad person. You
    know, it violates this core principle of do no harm.
    And so even showing forcefulness in—in smaller ways is often avoided. And so if you
    work with a lot of strong personalities and you also you find it really exhausting to use
    force, your needs and your ideas are unfortunately going to get dismissed a lot. And
    most people with the Si style actually do recognize this, and in fact, you know, they
    © by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. 12
    really can be very self-conscious about being seen as timid. On the other hand, you
    know, mustering up the energy and the force necessary to get their say really can be
    exhausting, especially in the long run. Generally speaking, though, they just, you know,
    they really don’t want to be in an environment where they constantly have to fight, they
    constantly have to push.
    Now, I—I do want to pull back again to the big picture here, because, again, all these
    tendencies I’ve been talking about, they really can be traced back to this driving
    assumption that I should never be the source of someone else’s unhappiness. And so if
    you have this style and you really have internalized this belief, it—it actually does, all
    this stuff really, really makes sense, as that, you know, you wouldn’t want to be
    aggressive and that you would want to please people in a conversation and that you
    wouldn’t want to impose on anyone. And even that, you know, I’m—I’m going to be very
    slow to kind of push back against someone. And in this light, all of these habits, they
    really make perfect sense.
    And I think there’s also another important driving assumption, one that’s very much
    related to this, which people with this style sometimes find rattling around in the back of
    their heads. And again, it’s, you know, it’s not true for everyone, but it is worth
    considering. So, it’s this: I can show my value by helping people. And one of the really
    key words in this sentence is value. You know, it doesn’t really feel like a key word, but
    it actually is crucial. You know, one of the core needs that every human being shares,
    no matter who you are, is this need to feel like we’re valuable, you know, that we have
    worth. We all have this need in common.
    But on the other hand, we can have very different ideas about what gives a person
    value. You know, sometimes we think it’s about our accomplishments, sometimes about
    getting attention or being connected with another person or about being competent. You
    know, again, these can be very, very unconscious assumptions and, you know, not
    necessarily the kind of things that we’re always proud to admit. You know, everybody
    © by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. 13
    has them. And so for this style, one of those assumptions is about my value being
    shown when I help people, or another way to phrase this is: I’m valuable because I
    make other people happy.
    And so to the degree that someone does have this assumption going on in the back of
    their heads, they’re going to be very accommodating, you know. They’re going to adjust
    to other people’s needs and perhaps minimize their own needs. They’re going to let
    other people know that they’re always there to help, that, you know, they’re going to
    have difficulty saying no, because a good person, in this framework, a good person
    helps others. It’s just part of what makes me a decent human being.
    And one of the other qualities that you often see with this style is—is a strong
    willingness to listen, you know, a willingness to really put in whatever amount of time
    that it takes helping the other person feel like they’re important and that their concerns
    matter. You know, the idea of cutting someone off, it just doesn’t feel like an option. You
    know, you’re not allowed to do that. So there’s a lot more time spent listening than
    speaking. In fact, a lot of times people with this style just kind of assume that others
    don’t maybe have as much interest in hearing about their experiences or their ideas,
    you know, worry that they might be boring people.
    And so as a consequence, they can be kind of hesitant or tentative when speaking, you
    know, always testing out the waters to make sure the other person is really still
    interested, which, uh—which actually that behavior may in turn actually cause the
    person to be less interested because the other person actually isn’t picking up on the
    passion for what’s being said. And, you know, and that inherently just isn’t as engaging.
    But the listening, right, that is something that people really, really appreciate, you know,
    although sometimes it really does take them a while to realize just how much they
    appreciate it. You know, it can be subtle.
    © by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. 14
    Being a good listener, almost by definition, that doesn’t draw attention to itself. But it
    really is so needed. I mean, really, how often do you have someone else who is, like,
    truly listening and, you know, truly showing this kind of intense interest in your world?
    And that feels good. You know, it’s validating. And for the listener, the person with the Si
    style, there really—I mean, there generally is an interest in the other person’s life. But
    there also it sometimes is kind of, I think, a secondary motivation. And some of it kind of
    ties back to this assumption that I can show my value by helping people. And listening—
    really, that earns appreciation, sometimes even affection.
    And so sometimes early on in life, people with this style realize that, hey, you know, this
    is actually a pretty effective strategy for connecting with people for for fitting in. You
    know, I ask questions. I listen, I show interest. This is a really reliable tool in a social
    setting. And so over a lifetime, people with this style, they really hone this listening skill.
    And even bigger than that, they hone this kind of natural attentiveness to other people’s
    needs and they—they learn to pick up on the happiness cues or the sadness cues or
    the anger cues. And this can really be a tremendous asset that they don’t even realize
    that they have.
    And because there is naturally a higher willingness to be vulnerable in this style, they do
    also tend to be kind of more comfortable empathizing with people, expressing
    compassion in an unselfconscious way. Whereas for other people, this kind of stuff, you
    know, it just feels a little too intimate, you know, maybe a little too touchy feely, you
    know, especially in a professional environment. But with the Si style, there’s such a
    comfortable, approachable quality to this style that this type of connection, it feels
    natural and just unforced. It’s—it’s sincere, you know, even if they’re not naturally
    interested in a topic, people with the style, though, often find their interest in an area
    because it’s a way to connect with another person and another human being in a way to
    enter into their world.
    © by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. 15
    And when I pay attention at this level, I really start to understand what’s important to
    them. And now I’m in a position to give encouragement and praise that—it’s especially
    powerful to them because I know what they care about. You know, to a lot of people,
    listening at this level, that feels like a waste of time. You know, they get impatient. But to
    the Si style, why wouldn’t I choose to spend my time like this, you know? If one of my
    core values is connecting with people, then, yeah, you know, of course I’m going to
    choose to invest my time like this. In fact, with that 360 data I was talking about earlier,
    the Si and the iS styles, one of the areas where they got their highest ratings was in
    being approachable, you know, higher ratings than any other style.
    Leaders with this style are just really good at maintaining solid, informal relationships
    with everyone, you know. It feels like a personal relationship because it is. One of their
    strongest gifts as a leader is to create that sense of cohesion. People feel personally
    connected to the leader and, you know, even personally connected to each other and
    members of the team. And as a result, it’s much more likely that the group perceives
    themselves as a team rather than just a group of individuals working together towards
    the same goal, right. Cohesion, familiarity, trust: these are a huge asset when it comes
    to a team.
    Now, let’s take kind of the—the flip side of that, which is, you know, of cohesion, which
    is conflict, and—and that’s pretty uncomfortable for this style, you know. Basically,
    conflict, that’s the exact opposite of harmony. So it—it really makes sense that even the
    vague potential for conflict can be really stressful. And the Si style will not only avoid the
    things that cause conflicts, but they can often avoid the things that cause the things that
    cause conflict, like, for instance, uh, you know, generally avoiding argumentative
    people, you know, and so when they find themselves being forced to work with a really
    aggressive person, they may be inclined to cave in in the moment, but then they’ll kind
    of go out of their way to avoid working with that person in the future because really, I
    mean, you know, frankly, having to argue for every point that you need to make or to get
    © by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. 16
    your perspective across is, you know, that’s exhausting. And I think it’s particularly
    exhausting for this style.
    And because conflict can be so uncomfortable for this style, they oftentimes find
    themselves in group situations playing the peacemaker role, really trying to make
    everyone happy or to find compromises and oftentimes putting aside their own needs
    and so they can just really focus on getting harmony restored, which, in respect—in
    some respects, you know, that is their need, right. So they’re putting some of their more
    surface needs across because their need really is to have kind of the harmony in the
    group. And it’s interesting because in many instances, this need for harmony even
    extends to kind of the ideas that are being discussed in a group, right.
    You know, let’s—let’s take, for instance, in a meeting, you know, there’s this really
    strong drive to make ideas work, you know, especially if it’s someone else’s idea. The
    emotional reward for making an idea work is that it reduces the tension in the grou p,
    you know. There’s the tension of not knowing, right, that, you know, trying to figure out
    something that you don’t know. There’s, you know, there’s also kind of the tension of
    having to push to come up with an idea, that—that mental struggle, kind of that creative
    tension. There’s also the kind of the tension of having to disagree with someone or
    having to shoot down their idea.
    And so people with this style, they usually come across as very agreeable when
    someone else pitches an idea, you know, but what they might not realize in the
    moment, though, is that actually some people are actually even more likely to respect
    the opinion of another person who is known to be challenging or skeptical. And, you
    know, on the other hand, someone who’s seen as always being agreeable, they can
    appear, for right or wrong, they can appear to be less discerning or to be less of a
    critical thinker, regardless of how sharp the person actually is.
    © by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. 17
    But actually, back to conflict. The initial instinct for this style then is to really smooth
    things over, but when things really do get heated, one of the tendencies is to just shut
    down and kind of silently wait for the tension to pass. And on—on the surface, it usually
    looks like this style is like really calm and they’re not too bothered by it. But underneath,
    there really can be a whole lot of stress going on, you know, knowing that someone is
    mad at me or it really has—even just has the potential of being mad at me that’s going
    to eat away at me. You know, it’s that lack of acceptance, you know, a lack of
    connection and, you know, a lack of harmony. In fact, in general, this style really has
    this tendency to internalize their stress—to—to—to put a lot of pressure on themselves
    mentally to figure things out, to—to not burden other people with the weight of their
    problems.
    And actually, one of the things that you do sometimes see are these kind of alternating
    or opposing strategies within this style of, you know, ruminating on the one hand and
    then on the other hand, really kind of just glossing over things in their minds, you know,
    putting things out of mind or pretending everything is just fine, you know, maybe even—
    maybe even just kind of bordering on denial in some cases. But both approaches, both
    of these approaches that I’ve talked about, they can be adaptive and helpful at times,
    but they can also really have their downsides, you know, obviously.
    Ruminating, you know, things like fretting over problems or playing them over and over
    in your head, right—in essence, this is this strategy to kind of reduce tension or to get
    harmony by replaying an incident in my head, hoping that, you know, this time when I
    replay it, I’m going to get some resolution, I’m going to get some closure, I’m going to
    figure something out. But of course, and the research backs this up, that I rarely actually
    do get that sense of closure by ruminating, you know. I just actually stress myself out.
    And you can kind of show this in a laboratory setting as well.
    Now, if you do have this style, as you’ve gotten older and, you know, hopefully more
    mature, maybe more mature, you may have developed, you know, more comfort with
    © by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. 18
    other strategies for dealing with conflict, you know, maybe, um—maybe more direct
    strategies. But that instinct for harmony really is kind of always pulling us back from the
    fray a little bit, telling us to just, you know, nagging us to just kind of end th is thing as
    quickly as possible with as little bloodshed as possible. And so, you know, there’s
    always a little bit of that temptation to kind of just withdraw or cave in just so we can
    have the peace again.
    But on the positive side, you know, particularly as this style matures, there’s often this
    openness and sincerity in conflict, you know, and I mean, after the initial blow up has
    happened, you know. When things are really heated, you know, we can all act in some
    pretty unpredictable ways. But after that initial intensity of the emotion has passed, this
    style is often really kind of almost quicker to kind of return to that sincere, open posture
    in—for discussing an issue, which can really feel foreign to some other people who
    might still be very guarded or cynical in those moments, you know, still defending their
    turf for their position.
    On the other hand, though, you know, I don’t want to minimize the sense of hurt that
    often comes in the midst of these situations. The sense that, you know, if you were
    willing to put me through this inner turmoil, you know, how much could you really care
    about me, you know? How could you do this to me? Because, again, the experience of
    conflict from, you know, for this style is often very raw and it kind of shakes his core
    needs, you know, for—for acceptance, for connection, for harmony.
    And so unlike some other people who can compartmentalize a fight, you know, this is
    an ordeal. And even if it’s not a rational thought, I can sometimes feel like, you know, I
    really feel like the mere act of fighting with me is a sign that, you know, you must not
    really care about my feelings, not even to mention the things that cause the fight in the
    first place. Because the connection is so important to me and because I made myself so
    vulnerable and I trusted you to handle my feelings with care, it sometimes can feel like a
    little bit of a betrayal.
    © by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. 19
    Okay, but even having said that, getting back to what I was mentioning earlier, when the
    other person does extend an olive branch, you know, and—and makes it clear that they
    don’t want to be in tension anymore, you know, people with this style, they’re—they’re
    usually very quick to jump on board, you know, maybe even forgive some people that—
    that they shouldn’t forgive, again because of these core needs: connection, harmony,
    acceptance. So, you know, well, one option is, you know, I could hold on to my anger or
    resentment or, you know, I could immediately have all of these core needs met, you
    know? Hmm. Yeah, I think I’ll take the second one, right.
    And in that sense, you know, reconciliation, that’s—it’s particularly tempting. And so this
    is one of the reasons why the Si style can be so good at focusing on the win-win in a
    conflict situation, really showing a willingness to give up some of their position and also
    showing a willingness to—to shift perspectives and see things from another person’s
    point of view. And that is so, so difficult to do when you’re really mad at someone. You
    know, if I’m mad at you, it feels like I shouldn’t have to take your perspective because
    you’re just wrong, you know, and—or we’re tempted to create a straw man argument,
    you know, a really weak description of the other person’s side.
    But to genuinely swallow my pride and empathize with how someone else might be
    thinking, that’s—that’s extremely difficult to do in the midst of a fight. And I—I’m not
    saying that the Si style can always do this, but they’re often quicker to do it than the
    other styles. And when it comes to hashing things out, you know, taking the first turn at
    listening and sitting while the other person says all of these things that to me feel
    misleading or a distortion of what really happened—you know, that takes a lot of
    discipline and this style tends to be really good at it.
    So that’s a bit about interpersonal conflict, you know, the good and the bad things.
    There’s a related area that I wanted to get into briefly, which is about the reaction that
    this style can sometimes have to resistance. At the very beginning of the podcast, we
    talked about one of the defining characteristics of this style is positivity, acceptance.
    © by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. 20
    And within the Everything DiSC® model, you know, that circular model, there’s often a—
    a classic distinction that’s made between people who fall on the left side of the circle
    and people who fall on the right, right, the right side being the Si and iS styles.
    So on the right side, people over here, they’re naturally inclined to see the world as a
    much friendlier place. It’s a place where people are, you know, generally good. They
    generally can be trusted to do the right thing. Compare that to the other side of the circle
    where people are inherently more skeptical, you know, are—are much more likely to
    assume that life’s going to be tough and you got to be tough to get through it. If you
    have this mentality and you run across a messy problem, well, you’re not surprised. You
    know, you expect things to be difficult. You know, this is one of the reasons that the left
    side of the circle is so associated with being kind of very determined and very strong
    willed.
    But on the other hand, you know, if I expect that the world is a very kind of friendly,
    enjoyable place, when I run across that kind of same messy problem, well, you know
    what’s going on in my brain? Well, one of the potential reactions is, you know, part of
    my brain is just saying, hey, you know, this isn’t—this isn’t how my day is supposed to
    be going. There’s got to be something more pleasant I could be doing, you know,
    there’s got to be a smoother path, you know, this is this is the opposite of harmony. And
    so perhaps even unconsciously, you know, I might steer myself away from those kind of
    more stubborn, complicated tasks and more towards the ones that—that come naturally
    to me.
    Now, you know, there’s a related psychological principle here called cognitive ease.
    Basically it says that people—and this is pretty much all of us, no matter who you are—
    that people will generally take the path that requires the least cognitive effort. So, for
    instance, we’re much more willing to pay attention to information if it confirms what we
    already believe compared to contradicting information, because it’s easier to kind of go
    © by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. 21
    on having the same opinion than it is to challenge that opinion. Our brain really does
    this thing where it just automatically does that. The brain wants to conserve energy.
    And again, we all do this. And all I’m suggesting here is that there can kind of be this
    heightened tendency to take the path of least resistance within this Si style, you know,
    precisely because there is more of a positive expectation about the world and a positive
    expectation about what life should be like. So what might be an implication of this? Well,
    one good example, I think is—really is in-depth analysis, which isn’t necessarily always
    kind of the favorite pastime of this style, you know, particularly those analytical tasks
    that require someone to really kind of continue to push and push to understand
    something when the insight is coming very, very slowly or when things feel really
    confusing at those initial stages and the only way for me to really gain mastery over this
    topic is to just keep doing this kind of thankless work, you know, the drudgery and the—
    the frustration.
    And, you know, and again, my brain is telling me over and over again, you know, hey,
    hey, listen, you know, who’s in charge here? Isn’t there something more pleasant we
    could be doing with our time? I mean, you know, come on, this thing clearly doesn’t
    even want to be understood, right. And so, you know, as we talked about before, that—
    that—there’s also that kind of little voice that says, you know, if things don’t feel
    harmonious, something is wrong, you know? And here is a time where the path of least
    resistance is really tempting for this style, is to just kind of to walk away from this—this
    analytical, really stubborn thing and find something that’s much more comfortable to do,
    something that’s going to come much more naturally.
    In fact, um, you know, when I look at the kind of people who are often most committed
    to sticking with these unpleasant analytical tasks, it’s often the people whose selfesteem is—is very much tied to their sense of mastery of the world or to their sense of
    expertise. And, you know, from that mindset, it’s a necessity to master this topic and the
    eventual reward of understanding it makes the pain of going through it all worthwhile.
    © by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. 22
    And, you know, and they become experts. And—and that’s really nice to have in their
    back pockets. And so, you know, there’s that inclination to stick with it until everything
    clicks like that.
    But on the other hand, there—there can also be that temptation to say, well, this is just
    good enough, right, you know, and just to find the shortcut that will decrease the pain
    and means I can stop doing this—this—this painful task. And if you have this iS style or
    Si style, you know, and to the degree that my brain is begging for harmony and
    positivity, you know, that good enough path, that path of least resistance, that might be
    tempting enough that it’s the path that I take. Basically what I’m describing here is
    acquiring skills or knowledge on those occasions when they feel, you know, really, really
    complicated or inaccessible or just, you know, impenetrable. For instance, for me
    personally, um, it’s about understanding how my computer works, you know, much
    beyond the superficial stuff, right. That just doesn’t come naturally to me, you know, so
    how much time do I really want to spend figuring it out, you know, is the question.
    And—and if I have this more go with the flow mindset, maybe it’s not a whole bunch of
    time that I’m going to spend doing this. And—and that has the potential to impact a
    variety of other choices in my life. Basically, those times when I’m faced with a choice
    between one thing that’s more harmonious and then one thing that’s less harmonious,
    you know, particularly in the short term. For instance, I can think of many times in my
    own life when, you know, I’ve just—I’ve lived with a problem for quite a while because at
    any given point in the moment, you know, the prospect of tackling it was just really
    unharmonious, you know?
    And in hindsight, I—what I was doing is I was just kind of enabling this really drawn out
    period of discomfort so I wouldn’t have to endure kind of a sharp, immediate pang of
    discomfort. So, you know, maybe it was things like, um, giving someone feedback that I
    really needed to give them, but I kept putting it off. Or maybe it was, you know,
    disciplining someone or bringing up a problem on my team, you know, that’s going to
    © by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. 23
    disrupt the harmony that’s, you know, really so important to me. And, you know,
    connected to that is that—this voice just below the surface of me that’s saying, you
    know, I should never be the source of someone else’s unhappiness.
    So now I do want to kind of be clear about a few things as I’m wrapping up here. You
    know, this this description, it certainly isn’t true of everyone with this style. You know, I
    really am just describing broad trends. And so if you have this style, it may not describe
    you, but I think it is worth taking some time to kind of reflect on your patterns and
    wonder, you know: is there something to this for me? And then a second point I want to
    reiterate is that there is very much a positive side to this, you know. Even if I do have
    this tendency to go with the path of least resistance, this is a big part of what allows me
    to be flexible, to—to bend, you know, to be open to another person’s point of view. Like
    pretty much all psychological traits, there are both kind of strengths and challenges that
    come with it.
    All right, so, really, you know, there’s a lot of information here, uh, a lot of different
    dimensions that we talked about. And so, you know, how do you make sense of all of it
    or rather how do you put it to use? Well, I’ll just make one broad suggestion and it’s
    about these driving assumptions. I think a practice that’s really powerful in terms of our
    growth as people is to simply monitor not only our behavior, but also our thoughts and
    start to notice when these assumptions are being played out in the background.
    And so let me just kind of give you a reminder of what the assumptions were that we
    talked about, maybe add a few new ones. There are certainly going to be some of these
    that don’t fit for you. You know, the question is more about if there are any of them
    that—that—that do fit or maybe there’s kind of a close cousin of one of these that fits.
    Okay, so here are some of them: If my world isn’t in harmony, things are bad. Or,
    related to that: if things don’t feel harmonious, something is wrong. Or: I can show my
    value by helping people. When I see others in need, I must help them. I am responsible
    © by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. 24
    for people’s happiness. I must be accepted. It is intolerable to have someone mad at
    me.
    Again, this whole exercise is about becoming more aware of when these assumptions
    are driving our behavior or our thoughts or emotions. And sometimes these
    assumptions are realistic. But, you know, sometimes they’re not. Really, though, the first
    step is about becoming more consciously aware of them so that I can make my
    decisions and my choices in a—in a deliberate fashion. And if an assumption is realistic,
    then, you know, that’s great. I run with it. But if the assumptions are not realistic, then
    what I do is I learn to challenge it and replace it with a statement that’s more accurate,
    that’s more fitting for the circumstances. And absolutely this—this takes a lot of time and
    deliberate effort. But ultimately, what I end up with is having more control over how I see
    the world and really how I interact with it.
    All right, well, thank you, everyone, for your time.
    Narrator: This podcast is a copyrighted production of John Wiley and Sons.
• crying
  • emotional