One of the complaints that we often hear from our clients, when we ask them about the challenges of their role, is… having to deal with certain people. The “complicated ones”, those with “big egos”, the inflexible ones, those who are moody, who “have a short fuse”, who are opinionated, those that never seem to have an opinion about anything and… the list could go on!

But they are People and People are a world (!) and they bring with them a heavy baggage full of life experiences, journeys and stories.

We understand our clients’ confidences. Above all, what we want is to be able to standardise or broaden their range of responses and behavioural options, so that they can deal with this diversity of profiles. And the truth is that we feel that we have to break up beliefs, whenever someone denies responsibility for the good or bad relationships they have with others.

If we think about it carefully, we come to the conclusion that maybe there are no difficult people. There are just people who have a different way of doing things, their motivations are so different from ours that they cause surprise. And sometimes discomfort.

We don’t have magic wands, but we believe in versatility (which you can learn!). And in perspicacity when reading the signs that others give us. And yes, there are tools that help. One is the DiSC behavioural profile model.

I am always glad when our clients adopt the model and have a “Wow” moment. Suddenly, the reality of people and relationships takes on a new perspective. “Now I understand why I lose my temper with José” or “it looks like you’re describing my colleague Sofia!”. And it quickly ceases to be a matter of “egos”, “personalities”. It becomes a question of behaviour, with no better or worse profiles. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses that open up a whole set of new possibilities for interaction when they become clear and predictable for us. The burden of success in relationships is on our side. That is why mastering DiSC gives us the command of relationships.

DiSC expands our behavioural repertoire. We will not control how others behave towards us, but by understanding their motivations, we can react differently. Better still, we can anticipate ourselves – in team management, negotiation with customers, interaction with the boss, alignment with people from other areas or departments of the company.

We gain lenses that help us see beyond value judgements. When we understand the drivers behind other people’s actions, it is easier for us to understand that the formulas of motivation and achievement of each person are different, that enthusiasm can be expressed in different ways, that risk is experienced differently by the various profiles and that all of this is neither good nor bad. It just is.

And on the journey to acceptance, we gain more baggage, more versatility and more results.

That’s why we like DiSC. If well understood and applied in our daily lives, it helps us, if we want, to BE better.