Taking Flight With DISC Training

This is a Full-Day or Half-Day program designed to introduce people to the DISC system for understanding personal style and behavior. It is geared toward any of the following audiences:

Medical device project team members
Managers/supervisors of direct reports
Support staff, i.e. accounting, reimbursement, etc.
New employees undergoing onboarding
Companies/organizations looking to understand/improve culture

The objectives are:

Introduce people to the DISC System of personality styles
Change behavior by teaching the DISC system on a cognitive, emotional, and physical level
Enhance or improve team dynamics at the company

This training can lead to:

Improved interpersonal relations
A more productive culture
More appropriate use of personal style to gain results

DISC is one of the major "personality tests" (aka behavioral style assessments) that quantifies how strong you are in four different behavioral areas. The four areas have names corresponding to the DISC acronym: Dominant, Interactive, Supportive, Conscientious, and that is where the problems starts.

Each letter has qualities associated with it, but with names like those who is going to remember any of that?

Training programs are booked at companies every day and at most of those companies the training material is forgotten the next day.

The major hangup is how the training is related to what people already know. It is a bit like having file folders in your brain. Creating a brand new file folder takes work, and new folders tend to get lost. On the other hand, it is relatively easy to stick something into an existing folder, especially if that folder is used all the time and will never get lost. Scientifically speaking, if you use a neural pathway a lot, it becomes easier to fire it and less likely to degrade. By taking these DISC styles and tying them to things we already know very well, we can internalize the information, not just memorize it for a few minutes until the training is over. That is because we are not creating a new folder. We are sticking this information into a used one.

The major revelation of how to create a DISC Training Program with lasting effects falls out of this diagram:

Remembering if someone is "Dominant" or "Interactive" is difficult to retain. However, thinking of the qualities of one of four birds is much easier: Eagle, Parrot, Dove, Owl.

From childhood, everyone knows the qualities of an Eagle: proud, decisive strong-willed.

A child could also say much about a Parrot's personality: fun, social, talkative.

For a Dove, one might list without thinking: calm, peaceful, soft-spoken.

Finally, Owls have always been known in stories as: reserved, orderly, methodical

By taking these birds and equating their qualities with four of the major styles from DISC, people get a basis to remember them, and that lets them use "the birds" to identify their own strengths and weaknesses and create plans of action for how they will deal with their styles and the styles of others.

Training The Whole Person

Clever mnemonics are not the end. To retain the training, it has to penetrate to the core of the person and change behavior. Power Point presentations, lectures, and general drudgery are not going to achieve that.

Deeply integrating a training involves imparting the information via three pathways:

Cognitive - understanding the information intellectually
Emotional - feeling the impact of the information on the Self
Physical - trying out new behaviors that become habitual

The Taking Flight with DISC program uses minimal presentation and lecture time. Instead, the participants are shown how to work through the methods and given time to sort out their thoughts before discussing everything together. Everything is put together to convey information through three pathways:

Cognitive understanding through short 5-minute presentations to introduce each concept
Exchange of stories and information through memorable exercises that show the impact of style
Production and rehearsal of action plans to carry the training forward

Taking Flight with DISC Programs At Your Facility

Booking a training is easy. Contact Josh Simon at Spiral Medical Development and ask for a proposal.

The training has two options: Full-Day and Half-Day.

A Full-Day training runs from approximately 9am to 4:30pm and involves a deep dive into the behavior styles and how they relate to work. Half-Day programs can be just as effective. Start time is again at 9am and they run until 1pm, or they could go from 1pm to 5pm. Though there are fewer activities due to time constraints, the Half-Day program still covers all of the basic material and can act as a pre-requisite for other SMD Medical Device Training Programs.