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 I have to admit that I had a great deal of trepidation leading up to the Effective Manager / Effective Communications Conference. As a high D/C, I would rather be marooned on a desert island for 6 months than "role play" (code name for being the center of attention) with my peers.

However, I knew that stressful situations are when I do my best, so away I went. Plus, after hearing mostly Mark and Mike via podcasts for the past year, how cool would it be to meet them (from a distance) in real life?

As a result, I was a little disappointed when I walked in and was greeted by an enthusiastic, outgoing person who was clearly not Mark.....or Mike. Luckily I was able to mask my disappointment with my High C talents.

However, within the first hour of the conference, I realized that this gal (Dani) is not only a good communicator and facilitator, she is also fully versed in the Manager Tools philosophy and therefore I'm not missing a thing by not seeing Mark / Mike. Additionally, I think I actually learned more with Dani as she brought a few nuances and viewpoints that weren't in the podcasts, allowing for a more complete picture of the tools at work.

And yeah....the role plays sucked. It was awkward, felt forced at times, and made me do and say things that I normally wouldn't. And, as a result, the lessons we learned are firmly planted in my head. I can literally remember just about every word I said because I can picture the poor unfortunate person I was role-playing with as I said them. As I expected, the stress and discomfort I felt doing role plays served to solidify the concepts I was learning.

The best part of the 2nd day was learning how to determine the DISC profile of other people we interact with. That information allows me to tailor my interactions and communications with others to take ownership of the message I'm trying to deliver.

So, for example, I know that Dani is a high D/I. That means she stopped reading this post somewhere in the first paragraph, which leaves me with the last word: HIgh D/C's are superior to High D/I's. I have the data to prove it.... ;)

T

DaniMartin's picture
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Loved reading your comments, Todd! Thank you so much. And yes, I did read the whole thing but it was hard to focus! ;-)

Cheers,
Dani

DaniMartin's picture
Licensee Badge

Loved reading your comments, Todd! Thank you so much. And yes, I did read the whole thing but it was hard to focus! ;-)

Cheers,
Dani