Webinar: Stop Playing Referee – Help Managers Handle Conflict

Jeff Plakans | Founder & President, CommPayHR

Jeff Plakans founded CommPayHR in 2006, for a better, holistic solution for SMB payroll and HR. He is passionate about improving employment practices and compliance to create the best business environment.

Dan Kaplan | Founder, Confident Communicators, LLC

Dan is driven by the belief that anything is possible if we can just learn to talk to each other. As a mountain-climbing expedition leader, Dan has guided many teams through difficult conversations and high-altitude danger. Combined with his nearly 30 years of communications leadership experience across the public, non-profit, and private sectors, Dan helps leaders and teams communicate to their audiences and each other.

Susannah Forbes | HR Business Partner, CommPayHR

Susannah brings extensive HR expertise helping our clients navigate HR compliance, workforce management and employee relations with practical, business-focused guidance.

Jeff Plakans:
Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you for joining us on what’s likely your lunch hour or just after your lunch hour or maybe depending on where you are just before your lunch hour. Today, we’re going to talk about… I think the larger the workplace gets, the more challenging this becomes, and that is helping your managers learn how to deal with sometimes the less appealing of discussions without having to always bounce it out to HR. Now, we’re lucky today that we’re joined by our old friend, Dan Kaplan, of Confident Communicators who continues to teach us new and exciting and wonderful tools and processes around communication. Dan, thank you for joining us today.

Dan Kaplan:
Thanks for having me.

Jeff Plakans:
And we’re, of course, also joined by Susannah Forbes, the leader of Commonwealth’s own HR practice, and of course an experienced, knowledgeable, and well-heeled HR leader.

Susannah Forbes:
Good afternoon, everyone.

Jeff Plakans:
Dan, What are we going to learn today?

Dan Kaplan:
I’m glad you asked. We’re going to learn that it’s not what you say, but what is heard that matters. And it is possible to empower our managers to handle conflict without throwing us in HR or under the bus or making us the bad guys or flipping over to the fence every little problem they have with their interpersonal challenges and conflicts on their teams. What happens when they throw it over the fence at us in HR? I mean, we can’t be the police of the organization. We need to empower our managers to be able to handle these conversations. So we’re going to be talking a lot about the different communication styles.

We’re going to be talking a lot about a simple process that we can use to empower them and to share our expectations about how we expect them to handle these issues. And we’re also going to learn a little bit about the four communication styles. And that’s why I have this slide here on DiSC. DiSC is a wonderful tool to help us understand, not only ourselves, but each other. It can help our managers understand the communication needs of themselves and the employees that they manage, so they can handle these conversations in a more productive way that build a culture of open communication, and I think that we’re all after.

Susanne, what’s your take on this topic? What are your thoughts just introductorily?

Susannah Forbes:
Yeah, so I think often we deal with issues in the workplace and folks’ reaction sometimes because they don’t necessarily either want to, or have the tools to handle it, come to HR. And I think it’s so important that managers and leaders of an organization have the tools to be able to communicate effectively with staff to try to mitigate some of the issues and come to a common ground with employees. So become more of that coach in these conversations versus having to always bring HR in to facilitate those conversations. I think it develops a much stronger relationship between an employee and a manager to have those two folks have those conversations versus pulling in that third-party.

Dan Kaplan:
Yeah. And I’ve read a lot of different statistics on this. But one of the main reasons why we have turnover, why people leave positions isn’t necessarily because they don’t feel valued by the company, but it’s the relationship with the manager. Right?

Susannah Forbes:
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. For sure. Yeah. They want to come work for someone that they enjoy to work with, that they feel valued by, that they feel like they get good communication from. Certainly.

Dan Kaplan:
Yeah. Okay, so we’re going to start with question. And you can answer this question anonymously by hitting the QR code with your phone. Or if you are a computer, you can go to slido.com and use the code HRpolice. But the one being 10% and 10 being 100%, I would love to know how much of your workload is related to issues the managers really can or should be handling themselves on their own. Let’s take a moment just to see. Take the temperature of the room, see where people are at.

Jeff Plakans:
Wow.

Dan Kaplan:
Three people already answered 50%. Half your workload is being sucked dry, sucked up, consumed by something other people should be handling. And feel free to put in the chat how that makes you feel because it’s not easy. We have our own jobs to do, right?

Jeff Plakans:
There’s a lot of people here versus those that are responding. So my guess is they’re still just getting Instagram off their phones.

Dan Kaplan:
Okay. Oh, yes. A reminder that the chat is disabled, but the questions box, the questions tool in GoTo Webinar is enabled.

Jeff Plakans:
Yeah, we are going to be hitting up questions towards the end, guys. So please use the questions box for those. And yes, we’ll be sending a recording as well, so you can share this with whomever needs to hear it.

Dan Kaplan:
Yeah. Okay. So it looks like about 43% of the people that responded at least, that’s a considerable amount of time. When you say, Susanne, I mean, you’re an HR leader. If you knew that your HR teams are spending 43% of their time managing being police in the organization, what would your response to that be?

Susannah Forbes:
Yeah, I’d want my managers to either get more training or more confidence, more tools to be able to handle some of those issues themselves.

Dan Kaplan:
Okay. That’s why we’re here. All right.

Jeff Plakans:
It strikes me, Dan, that maybe there’s a lot of managers that are not necessarily taking the ownership over the conversations that they probably should, right?

Dan Kaplan:
Yeah. Well, that leads to our discussion. Right? So what do you both think about these two questions? What are the kinds of issues you see people throwing over the fence, and why? To your question, Jeff, why aren’t they able to handle these challenging conversations themselves?

Jeff Plakans:
I think that inexperienced managers, not exclusively, but I think inexperienced managers, meaning those who’ve not necessarily been trained to be managers, mix up wanting to be a good manager with wanting to be a good friend.

Dan Kaplan:
Be liked.

Jeff Plakans:
And part of being a good friend means not delivering bad news or avoiding the delivery of bad news. Right?

Susannah Forbes:
Mm-hmm.

Dan Kaplan:
Right.

Jeff Plakans:
So I think there’s an avoidance factor here that exists very significantly.

Dan Kaplan:
Yeah, we see that all the time. I want to be liked by my team. That’s how I believe I’m going to be more effective if they like me. Part of being liked is clear is kind, right? As Brené Brown says.

Susannah Forbes:
Yeah. Certainly, I think a lot of issues that come across the fence to human resources has to do with sort of performance-based issues. So a manager not really knowing how to attack. I have an employee that’s not performing the roles and responsibilities as described in their job description. Or there’s other issues, and they’re really not sure how to address those issues. Often it goes back to managers setting clear expectations upfront, so it’s really easy to measure performance. An employee knows very clearly where they are.

Dan Kaplan:
Yeah.

Susannah Forbes:
So I think helping managers do that upfront will keep them from throwing those issues to us later on.

Dan Kaplan:
Yeah. And you also used the word coaching earlier too. Not only setting expectations, but also helping them, coaching them through the process rather than being the one to step in and take care of it for them, right?

Susannah Forbes:
Exactly.

Dan Kaplan:
Because I see this all the time. If somebody’s going to do your job for you, why should I bother to do my job? I can still come and have an easy day and collect my paycheck.

Susannah Forbes:
Mm-hmm.

Dan Kaplan:
You get what’s tolerated.

Susannah Forbes:
Right.

Dan Kaplan:
Right?

Susannah Forbes:
Mm-hmm. Yep.

Dan Kaplan:
Right? I compiled a list from my own experience of some of the reasons why I, as a communications coach and trainer, I’m seeing managers escalate to HR without trying to solve the issues themselves. Here’s a couple of my responses, but anything to add to this list?

Susannah Forbes:
No. That’s comprehensive.

Dan Kaplan:
How about that question of this belief? How prevalent is that belief that dealing with conflict, that’s HR’s job?

Susannah Forbes:
Mm-hmm.

Dan Kaplan:
See that a lot?

Susannah Forbes:
I think you do. I think it’s old school HR, that it was HR’s job to handle all that. And now, we’re more where we’ve really tried to empower managers to really manage their people. And so, HR is doing less people management and more coaching. And so, I think that’s the way we used to be looked at. I think there’s a definite change in direction.

Dan Kaplan:
Yeah. And there’s consequences to this, right?

Susannah Forbes:
Mm-hmm.

Dan Kaplan:
What are some of those consequences? Right? Slow resolution to issues because we got to involve the third party. You know? As you said earlier, reduce manager efficiency and effectiveness. HR becomes the bad guy. They’re the police, the referee. Right? And that’s not good for culture. I don’t think any of us got into HR because we wanted to be the bad guy.

Susannah Forbes:
Mm-mm.

Dan Kaplan:
No. We’re generally very upbeat positive people. We see the best in people. We want the best for people. It’s a hard position for us to be in. You know?

Susannah Forbes:
Yeah.

Dan Kaplan:
In a lot of ways, it’s not fair to us as HR.

Susannah Forbes:
Well, and I also think you could add to this list, the issue is you develop from an HR perspective, the rapport with the employee around their performance where we want that rapport to be between the manager of the employee. And so this third party comes in, and then the employee identifies with getting feedback from two different people. And we want that line of communication to be from a manager.

Dan Kaplan:
Yeah. Yes. We want to avoid triangulation. And we’re going to talk about them right now, right now. So as you said earlier, the managers, they want to be liked. Right? We all fall into this. Kim Scott wrote a great book, Radical Candor, talks about the competence likeability trap. And we don’t have these hard conversations as humans because we want to be seen as competence and we want to be liked. And I contend every time you open your mouth at work, you’re putting your credibility on the line, you’re putting your social standing in the organization on the line. And depending on the severity of it, you might even be putting your job on the line.
This is not easy for managers, so let’s give them some grace here, and just see things from their perspective. But there’s a lot that we can do to prevent this concept of triangulation. Right? We see this all the time. We want to avoid it. The question is how? Question is how? Okay, what can we do about it? All right, so first thing is mindset. You’ve already used this word, Susanne. Most people as managers, and sometimes those of us in HR, we have the dictator, victim, or rescuer mindset. And managers have this as well. What’s the dictator mindset? Do it this way.

Jeff Plakans:
Do as I say.

Dan Kaplan:
My way or the highway. Right?

Susannah Forbes:
Yep.

Dan Kaplan:
The victim mindset, what’s that one? Oh, there’s nothing I can do about it. It’s out of my control. Right? I’m the victim here. Or the rescuer mindset, you know?

Susannah Forbes:
Mm-hmm.

Dan Kaplan:
An employee’s not pulling their weight, they’re not doing the job. What does the manager do? They just step in, and they do the job for them. Why? Because they don’t want their boss to think the team is dropping the ball, puts a lot of extra pressure on the manager to be the rescuer. And we don’t want that either. Instead, we want the coach mindset. We want the HR to coach the manager, and we want the manager to coach the employee. That’s the mindset that we’re after, the coaching mindset.
I like to think about this as high expectations and high support. It’s both. If we don’t give the high expectations, we’re not seeing the motivation or the activities, the performance that we want. If we give people high expectations without that high support, we’re setting them up for failure. Have you seen this?

Susannah Forbes:
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. For sure. Yep.

Dan Kaplan:
Okay. So we have a little process that you can follow. It’s very basic, very simple. First of all, clarify what’s really happening. What’s the behavior that’s causing the problem? We focus on behavior. Start and stop behaviors. If you were to say this to a child, “I want you to respect your grandparents.” Well, what does respect mean? The child doesn’t know. What do you mean? I don’t know what you mean by that. Right?

Susannah Forbes:
Mm-hmm.

Dan Kaplan:
But if you were to say, “I want you to ask permission before getting up from grandma’s table.” Okay, I can do that because I know what you need, and I’ve just asked for a start or stop behavior. Right?

Susannah Forbes:
Mm-hmm.

Dan Kaplan:
Step two is identify who owns this. Is this really a manager issue? Is this an HR? Has it escalated to the level where it’s an HR issue? You know your culture, you know your policies, you know your procedures. Step three, prepare for that conversation. This is the coaching part. You might need to help your manager through this conversation.
We’re going to give you a lot of tools to do that on this webinar. But what really needs to be said? How does it need to be said? Let’s get clear on the outcome you want in terms of start or stop behaviors before you go into this conversation. And that’s a great space for HR to coach the managers. And then, there has to be follow-up. Right?

Susannah Forbes:
Mm-hmm.

Dan Kaplan:
There has to be a follow-up. What did the employee commit to? When are you going to check back with them? Et cetera, et cetera. Anything to add about just this basic simple sort of outline?

Susannah Forbes:
No. I think clarifying the issue is just so important. It’s like the foundation for that communication to take place, so.

Dan Kaplan:
Super. Okay. So I’m going to tell you a story before I give this little process that I use with my client. The client that I’m going to tell you a story about will remain nameless, but we had this whole training on triangulation. We have one employee who would go behind the back of other employees and talk about them and become nasty rather than address the issue with the employee directly. And so, we went through this workshop and we created this process here that I’ll come up with, and I’ll share it right now.

So the manager of this group, the leader of this group said to her team, “Okay, I’m no longer going to listen when you come to me to complain about another employee. I want to help you. I’m going to support you. I’m not being unsupportive, but I’m going to ask you if you talk to them first because that’s my expectations.” So what I will say instead of listening, commiserating and all that, because what happens when we triangulate, we make the employee’s problem into our problem. I’m not a shuttle diplomat.

She said all of this to her team. “I want to support you, but I can’t be in the middle anymore. So I’m going to ask you, how can I help you have that conversation? I’m going to coach you through that. And the second thing was, it’s my expectation that you try to work this out with them directly. If that doesn’t work, then the three of us are going to sit down together.” The manager and the two employees who have the problem with each other, the three of us will sit down together. “And if that doesn’t work, then it goes to HR only if after the three of us… Again, I can’t be in the middle. HR’s not the police. This is the process.”

She announced it in advance. And guess what happened? Guess what happened? Everybody agreed to it. We had this big meeting. We had this big conversation about triangulation. We’re not going to do this anymore. She announced this policy. Everybody in the meeting agreed to it. The next week, one of the employees, one of the problem employees went and did it to the boss, and the boss stuck to her guns and she said, “Okay, I’m not going to listen. I’m going to ask you how I can help you. Have you had that conversation directly? How can I help you do that?”

And they had this whole thing and she coached her through it. And then, guess what the employee did? She went over her boss’ head to her boss’ boss and started triangulating there. And luckily what we did, because we were smart enough to make sure that the entire division and the boss’ boss were all on board with this beforehand, the boss’ boss just shoved it right back down again. And this problem employee ended up realizing, okay, this actually isn’t going to work here anymore. And she ended up leaving on her own and it resolved itself.

Susannah Forbes:
Interesting. Yeah.

Dan Kaplan:
Okay. So if that’s the process that we want to follow, and by the way, definitely want to announce this upfront. If you’re going to take this on because you don’t want anybody sort of be blindsided by it. What tools can we use to make sure that what we say and what is heard are the same things. Right? Because it’s not what you say that matters, it’s what is heard. So to that, we’re going to turn to DiSC. To DiSC, all right? It’s important to remember, we have four different communication styles. We have four different ways of saying things. We have four different ways of interpreting messages, and everybody is a blend of all four styles.

This isn’t to put somebody into a box. But it is very helpful in understanding how to frame our message, right? Because we got the message, but then we have the frame that the message is delivered in. And if they can’t get past your framing, they’re never going to hear your message. So it’s vital to understand the four styles. All right? So the first style I’m going to talk about is the direct style or the dominant style. Fast talk or fast thinker, active, sort of dynamic, bold, doesn’t need a lot of information to make a decision. And facts-oriented questioning, logic-focused, skeptical, challenging.

And by challenging, I don’t mean difficult person. I mean, no problem pushing back and challenging, disagreeing. Right? It’s the kind of person who comes into work, doesn’t say hi, and immediately starts talking about everything they got to do and get down to business. Right? Because they’re driven by results. So Jeff, I know you’re a D Style, direct style communicator. Why don’t you share with us, so how does that show up for you? What does that mean to be a direct style communicator?

Jeff Plakans:
Well, I have a tendency to leave bodies by the side of the road sometimes, so to speak, without meaning to. Just staying on task and staying on focus. And if someone hears me the wrong way, they think that either they haven’t done something properly or that I’m so short that I haven’t taken the time to explain myself. It’s the need for speed. It’s the want to get it done and see the result.

Dan Kaplan:
Yeah. Is it fair to say that sometimes you can be so blunt and so direct that you rub people the wrong way or they completely misinterpret your message?

Jeff Plakans:
Almost always.

Dan Kaplan:
Thanks for sharing. Good. Okay. Next style is the influence style. Also fast-paced, active, assertive, dynamic, bold, fast talker, fast thinker doesn’t need a lot of information to make a decision. But instead of being facts-oriented, these people are much more people-focused, empathetic, agreeable, or say, “Hey, however you want to do it, that’s cool.” The collaborators. They’re the cheerleaders of the group. The kind of person who comes in and spends 20 minutes of a 30-minute meeting chit-chatting the last 10 minutes. Okay, let’s get down to business. Right? Why?

Because they get things done through their relationships. Downside, sometimes these folks, maybe because they have this need for recognition and collaboration, they might brush the negative aside. They may have a much more difficult time having that hard conversation because they have this need for recognition. They want to be liked. Right? So that might prevent them, in some cases, from having these hard conversations. Susanne, I don’t remember your style. Are you an influence style?

Jeff Plakans:
You’re on mute, Susannah.

Dan Kaplan:
Yeah, you’re a little bit. Right? You have some of that.

Susannah Forbes:
Yeah, I’m a little bit. Yep, for sure.

Dan Kaplan:
Yeah. Okay.

Susannah Forbes:
Yes. Yeah.

Dan Kaplan:
All right. So if you’re online and you’re listening to this, take a look at the adjectives there in the pink. And if you think this might be you, hit us up in the questions box. Okay, next style is the supportive style. These are the folks who are people-focused, but instead of being fast-paced, like the direct and influence style, these folks are much more cautious, reflective, careful, calm, methodical. Right? So how are they? These are the folks who are like, “You know what? Have you checked in with Susanne? Is Dan on board with this? Who is Jeff thinking about this? Let’s make sure everybody’s okay before we move ahead.” Right? Always checking in with everybody sensitive to the team’s needs.

Sometimes that sensitivity can get in their way though, because you say something to them, and they might take it personally. I mean, we all take it personally.

I’m a CS style. I’m on the border between C and S. And I’ve been accused of taking it the wrong way for sure. I have driving need for harmony as an S Style. So if the D Style keyword is results, the i Style keyword is collaboration or maybe recognition. For S, it’s harmony and supports. So I want to be supportive to my team. I want to give them that support. I have this driving need for harmony. It’s really hard for me to get over that need for harmony to have that direct hard conversation. So I got to get over that. And then, we have the conscientious style, the C Style. Careful, cautious, facts, data, logic. These are the kind of people who are like, “You know what? I’m going to read that 500-page report, and then I’ll tell you what I think.” Right?

The more introverted people are really good at closing the door and focusing on that deep work, but maybe get exhausted by a networking meeting or a webinar. Right? And these kind of people, you’re bringing the emotion into it, they’re going to kind of shut down. Right? You’re not exact about the behavior that they exhibited and what you expect of them and you’re kind of vague about it, they’re going to shut down. They need accuracy. Their keyword is accuracy. Complete understanding. They’re going to need a lot more information and they’re going to need is to be logical and correct. So if you have any questions about the four styles, hit us up in the questions box. How do you know one of your employees’ styles? How do you know? Think of a manager. Everybody think of the manager that you have to coach, you want to coach. We’re going to identify their style right now.

First question is, are they fast-paced or cautious or reflective? First question. It’s a continuum. Think about them like their average, every day, normal, not under stress, not under strange situations. Yes, it’s situational. We’re different at home than we are at work. And no, we don’t want to use this to put anybody in a box. But we can get a sense of, if somebody’s more fast-paced versus cautious and reflective. Second question, are they facts, skeptical, questioning, or more people-focused? “Hey, what do you want to do? That’s cool. Your way’s cool. Yeah, let’s go get a beer. That’s great. Right.” So we take those two measurements, those two traits, behavior traits, and put them together. And we can pretty much guess somebody’s style more or less knowing somebody can be on the line. You can be on the line.

All right, so you got that person in mind. And have you identified their style? Okay, good. So let’s take a pause here and think about their human needs because human needs drive behaviors. Okay? Remember Maslow? Hierarchy of needs from college. So a D Style person who’s got these needs of preservation, dignity, autonomy, challenge, avoiding weakness, control, authority, influence. Right? Results. Achievement. Right? You’re not going to go, “Jeff, this is you, right?” These are some of your driving more pronounced needs. Yes, you have all these needs, of course, but some of the more pronounced ones are D Style, right? What’s listed there. So if I come to you, Jeff, and I say, “You can’t do that. You can’t do it that way.” What’s your response going to be?

Jeff Plakans:
Well, my response is going to be, watch me. The autonomy’s going to kick in, the authority’s going to kick in, and the control, of course, is going to kick in.

Dan Kaplan:
So if I want to convince you and I’m coaching you, and I want to convince you of why it’s important that you have this conversation with your employee, I’m going to frame it in terms of how this is going to help you get better, faster results, and help you advance your team, your career, your team’s achievements. I’m going to focus on your needs when I’m framing this issue for you. But then, if we’ve got an i style manager who’s much more focused on recognition and relationships and collaboration and has a set of human needs that looks very different, being in the in group, expressing themselves to be heard, a little bit of play, fun, social contact, optimism, that strategy is probably not going to work. I’m going to need to frame it very differently.

I’m going to need to frame it like… You know, when you don’t address these issues with your team, think about the impact that it has on the rest of the team. And by framing it in terms of their relationships and how people view them and how the team gets along and works well together and if they address this issue, it’s going to help improve those things. That message is going to resonate a little bit more. With the S Style person who’s got that need for support, stability, harm avoidance, familiarity, reassurance, it’s to slow down and to say, “I know this might be difficult for you, but let’s walk through it step by step, so you have the support you need. And I’ll be here for you the whole way. You can do this. And I know this is uncomfortable, but it’s going to help everybody regain that sense of a harmonious work environment that is so important to you.”

And with the C style folks, accuracy, logic, data. They need to be seen as competent, incredible. We can leverage that. Standards, very important. Policy, very important. Understanding. They have to get their head around the whole thing. Personal space, precision, blamelessness, that’s a big one for C Styles, particularly for me because I’m on the border of C and S. If something goes wrong, it ain’t going to be on me. Let me tell you that. Right? And that idea of predictability. So the more that you can keep it to the… You know? When you don’t do this, this is the behavior you’ll see. Please do it this way next time. Keep the emotionality of it. Use very specific examples, concrete. It’ll help them see things your way. Okay. We got any questions in the questions box yet? Okay.

Susannah Forbes:
No questions yet.

Jeff Plakans:
Nope.

Dan Kaplan:
All right. So let’s talk about listening because we know people don’t listen. Right? They sort of translate. So the four styles, they listen for very different things. When you’re having these accountability conversations with your managers, the D Style employee manager is probably thinking about their needs. Right? They’re seeing everything through the lens of their own projection bias. Can I handle this? Can I solve this quickly? Will this improve performance? Do I have the authority? Sometimes they don’t know that they have the authority to handle this. What’s the direct path? And you may have to coach them on some of the other styles too to help them understand different people have different needs than you do. They may hear things differently.

The i Style manager, could be, I’m not saying always. We don’t want to use this to put somebody in a box. Do you believe in me? It’s a little bit of recognition. Right? They’re looking for that recognition, “Hey, you’re so great at this X, Y, and Z. Would love to see you improve in this area. It’s going to make you more effective. I know it’s hard, but that’s your stretch area.” Really concerned with how the relationships. They don’t want to be the bad guy. Right? Got to help them understand how there’s a way to do this. They’re concerned with disappointing people. S Style, they’re looking for the supports. Is this going to damage the relationship? What if the employee gets upset at me? Am I going to have support from you and HR if this goes sideways?

And with a C Style, what’s the correct right way to handle this? And you know, we’re dealing with people, so there may not be an exact correct way to do it. They’re going to need a lot more information. They might need a script. They’re going to want to know what to say or how to say it and what to do if they make a mistake. These are going to be the things that are going on in their minds when you’re asking them to have these hard conversations. So just as a summary, when we’re coaching our D Style managers, brief, to the point, emphasize ownership. A phrase you can use, “It’s your call. You have control. It’s your call as a manager. Here’s my expectations. How you handle this is up to you, but let’s have a direct conversation about what’s expected.”

Jeff Plakans:
Do as you see fit. I trust you.

Dan Kaplan:
Yeah. Does that work for you, Jeff, as a D Style?

Jeff Plakans:
All the time.

Dan Kaplan:
Yeah. i Style. “I know these aren’t your favorite, but you’re totally capable of doing this. I believe in you.” Reinforce their strength, pump their game up a little bit, normalize discomfort. It’s okay. It’s okay to be uncomfortable. S Styles, “You’re not alone in this. I’m here for you. Let’s plan it together. We can do it step by step.” Help them reduce that uncertainty. And with the C Styles, “Okay, let’s take a look at the facts. What’s going on here? Let’s have a full conversation where we take a look at the very specific behaviors that you want to change, the impact of that employee’s behaviors.” So you can have a conversation.

And map it out, plan it out. Because people down in the bottom of the wheel here, they’re not super improvisers. Up on the top of the wheel, just dive in and figure it out as I go. No, not with the down. The bottom half of the wheel is more like, “I got to plan it out. I got to see this thing coming.” So we do have a interaction guide that we’re going to share with you as part of this workshop and this webinar. And you can print it off. It’s a little cheat sheet. Put it by your desk, carry it in your purse or your pocket. It’s a great little resource to help you think about how you’re going to approach these conversations.

Jeff Plakans:
We’ll get a question on it, so it’s worth mentioning right now, Dan. Yes, everyone’s going to get the slides.

Dan Kaplan:
Yeah.

Jeff Plakans:
The interaction guide will be in the slides. And you’ll be, not only happy to put that up to your desk, you can put it up at everyone’s desk.

Dan Kaplan:
Yeah. Yeah, and something else you can do for everyone is to get the DiSC assessment. We have an incredible tool. It’s called Catalyst. It’s used by over 10 million people now. It’s the gold standard. I like it. I mean, I love all the assessments. Myers-Briggs and Strengthfinders and Enneagram, they’re all incredible. I just like this because it’s easy to use. I just showed everybody how to use it. And it’s about communication. It’s about communication. And we have this tool called Catalyst where you can look people up. And your managers can look up their employees and get very targeted specific advice on how to motivate, empower, navigate conflict, navigate change, give constructive feedback, and motivate others.

It’s an incredible tool. As I said, you can look people up and get advice. We have Groups Tools where you can put a group together and see the culture of the group and get conversation starters. Really very, very helpful. Also, we have a two-minute tip if you’re interested in that. Every Monday and Thursday, a little nugget on how to be more influential at work. And finally, we have our community called Bring DiSC To Life, where we come together as leaders to help each other build cultures of open communication. And I also have a little form here if anybody wants to fill it out for more information. All right.

Jeff Plakans:
So there are a few questions in there. Let me ask, Dan, a little bit more. Can you tell us a little bit about how you work with clients, how you work with clients with DiSC? What are some of the things that you do with those clients to give them the results and the best results of using the DiSC?

Dan Kaplan:
That’s a great question. So I typically start by having everybody in a group, could be a team, could be the entire organization. Complete the DiSC assessment in advance two weeks before our first workshop. And we have this great podcast. It’s a one-hour podcast on your specific style. And it’s like, “Oh, my God. They’re in my brain. How do they know this? These are my triggers. These are my tendencies. These are my strengths. These are my challenges.” And it gets everybody excited to talk about themselves.

So when we come together into the first workshop, everyone’s revved up to share about themselves, what they agree with, what they disagree with. And we go through the initial workshop is really about three things. First of all, sharing with the rest of the team what my style is, what I need, and things that I want you to know about me. If I’m a D Style, just get to the point. Stop with the chit-chat. All this wishy-washy, it’s driving me crazy. And it gives a space for people to be heard and express themselves.

Jeff Plakans:
So that eliminates a little bit of the guesswork out of it then, right?

Dan Kaplan:
Yeah. We all can see each other’s style. We do fun games and fun activities. I’ll have the D Styles all stand up and talk about what it’s like to live inside their heads all day long. And everybody gets that perspective. And that’s the second part is to understand really the needs of the other styles. Okay, just because I am an S Style doesn’t mean everybody has my needs. And a C Style colleague, they might need me to be more fact-based. Right? Or the i Style person might just need for a little bit of chit-chat and camaraderie and a little bit of praise. So we get to understand the other styles through fun games and activities.

And then the last part is my favorite, and that’s about framing your message, and how do you be more influential yourself? So these workshops, the way that I position them for everybody in the room is, this is not another typical corporate training. This is actually something you’re going to use in your real life. This is really valuable to you because it’s going to help you be more influential, lower your stress. And when people see the value in it like that, they really come out of there with more engagement, more energizing. And the result of all this, this is the foundation from which we build. You know?

Once everybody has this foundation of understanding the four styles and my style and your style and that we’re different, and I’m starting to give grace. I’m starting to understand my coworkers a lot better. We immediately see tensions lower. We see collaboration increase. And then what we can do is we can hone in, because everybody’s got that foundation, then we can hone in on specific. If it’s a management training issue, if it’s communicating change issue, whatever the issues are, we’ve now got a common language and we’ve got permission to talk about this and to bring best practices to everybody. It’s very powerful, very powerful.

Jeff Plakans:
And I just wanted to add that, in my experience of working with so many different companies, what we see… Really at the end of the day, what you want is everybody rowing in the same direction. Right? And if there are communication barriers that exist or miscommunication that exists, then obviously that is a problem that can contribute to that not happening.

We see a lot of organizations not taking the time or making the effort to invest in tools and leverage tools like this to do that early on, so then it becomes kind of the fabric of the organization. And when someone new comes in, which is likely to add new components to that whole communication equation, then obviously everybody knows what’s happening, and it’s not really just a mystery to everybody.

Dan Kaplan:
Yeah. Right. You can put up posters about different DiSC styles, or we have a poster on what the different DiSC styles need to be prepared for a meeting, how they make their decisions, how they react to conflict. And when you have these visual reminders around, it really helps people understand. Oh, well, we’re taking this idea of an open communication, transparency, good communication, we’re taking this seriously. It is really part of our culture.

Jeff Plakans:
So there’s a question in here, Dan. Somebody said, “Some people are chameleons.”

Dan Kaplan:
Yeah.

Jeff Plakans:
“What if it’s not obvious what drives them?”

Dan Kaplan:
Yeah, that’s a tough one. Easy answer is to get them on Catalyst, so you can look them up and take the assessment. But yes, some people are very… You know? And this happens a lot also when, as we mature, we all can stretch more. We all become more like a blend of all the four styles, and that absolutely happens. But some people, their tendencies are much less pronounced, and I’ve seen that a lot. What do you do? Well, I would go back to those same two questions. Are they fast or cautious? Are they facts or people? And I would think about them under stress. Their true personality would come out under stress.

Jeff Plakans:
Can somebody change over time, Dan?

Dan Kaplan:
Yes. We are affected by our environment. Nature and nurture, right?

Jeff Plakans:
Right.

Dan Kaplan:
So just a quick story. I’ve got a client who is a very strong i Style, spent 15 years in the military, very C, D Style culture. She moved from i to iD. Nobody’s going i to C or D to S. But yeah, we definitely can change over time a little bit. Your job affects that too. You know? If you’re an S Style person who elevates and gets more and more authority in an organization, you’re going to have to be direct. You’re going to have to be enthusiastic. You’re going to have to be more facts-based. So what your job demands of you also can affect and impact your style.

Jeff Plakans:
So there’s another question here. This gentleman says, “Now that I know I’m a high C, I guess it’s normal for me to be concerned about delegating HR tasks to managers where there could be a problem with consistency of policy enforcement. To what extent do I need to back up what a manager says when handling HR tasks and how they say it if I don’t think it was handled properly?”

Dan Kaplan:
Good question. Well, Susanne, is there more than one way to handle a situation?

Susannah Forbes:
Certainly. Who’s your audience? That’s how you’re looking at that, how you handle it, for sure.

Dan Kaplan:
I think the way that I would coach this person, this very strong C Style is to think about when your own need for accuracy and correctness and standards might be getting in the way of what the situation calls for. So check in first with yourself. I call it me, you, us. Whenever you’re communicating anything, first step is to check in with yourself. What’s going on with me? It’s that self-awareness.

Susannah Forbes:
Yep.

Dan Kaplan:
And then you, the other person. Me, you, us. You is, okay, well, what do they need? And if they’re an i Style person, and their way gets the results without breaking policy, but isn’t my way, maybe I need to let some of my need for precision go, so they can be more effective in their way. And then the us is, okay, how do I have this conversation, so it’s not you against me, but you and me on the same side of the table like we’re working on the puzzle together?

Susannah Forbes:
Yep.

Dan Kaplan:
Best advice I ever got. So my grandma, when I got married, she said, Dan, always remember it’s not you against your wife, it’s you and your wife against the problem. So what’s the problem here? What’s the behavior that we’re trying to address? And a great question for a manager is, how do you think you want to handle this? And can we discuss my input as well, my perspective of that as well? See, that’s a very us type framing. We’re working on the problem together. The problem might be that you don’t have the confidence to do this alone or what have you. I don’t know. Hope that answered the question.

Susannah Forbes:
Yeah. I have to say when I talk to clients and when I’m coaching managers, I often talk about how it’s the end result that you want to get to. The how, maybe how you as a manager would do it isn’t how your employee would do it. And what’s most important in this situation is what’s the end result? How do you get to the end result, so that you get there? It doesn’t necessarily matter how you want it to work for the employee. And so I think that thought process around the me, I, us, that may not be exactly what you said, but getting to the us is getting to the end result, that’s what matters.

And so often as a manager, we have to remember that it’s our employee’s success shows how successful we are. So as a manager, if I’m a D and I’m very direct, but I have an i or an S, and I need to sort of get them there, it’s how do we get to the end result? How do we work together and do that? It may not be the way I want it done, but if it’s the way you want it done and it works, the end result is all that matters.

Dan Kaplan:
Yeah. I’m going to go off-topic a little bit because I have this thing that I want to share that I think might be of interest to people. So you’re HR, you’ve got these managers. You’re observing the impact that they have on their teams, right?

Susannah Forbes:
Mm-hmm.

Dan Kaplan:
I think it’s really helpful to help managers understand the unintended impact of their style if they’re not really super self-aware of the impact of what their style is having on their teams. When you have these hard charging D Style managers, you know?

Susannah Forbes:
Mm-hmm.

Dan Kaplan:
Results, results, results. Not a lot of the handholding, the emotional part, the relationship support. Or maybe even results over accuracy, driving hard without making sure everything is step by step and done to the quality standard, and sort of what I’ll call hard driving. The cultural impact of that leader on the team often is stifling innovation. People are protecting themselves. They’re covering their butts. They don’t dare speak out against the boss, and it leads to distrust of the entire organization.

i Styles, people who have a very strong i Style management style who are not self-aware and are not flexing and are not stretching to the other styles when needed, and they’re moving from thing to thing, and they’re, oh, they’ve got so much energy about this new idea, and everybody’s like, “Oh, my gosh. We don’t have the space we need to do quality work,” because everything’s a fire or everything’s this great new idea and doesn’t go anywhere. That could be an impact on the team.

S Style managers who are overly concerned with harmony and support, and don’t speak up, and don’t say the hard thing, and don’t drive their teams to pick up the pace or have to get everybody’s input before they make a decision and are really slow to make decisions. The impact on the team, you can just imagine, it’s like some people on the team are like, “Oh, my gosh. We don’t have any urgency on this team. We don’t have any ability, the sense of being able to just directly say what I think.” And with the C Style people who are super rigid with the process and the procedures and everything have to be exactly correct.

And oh, my God. That one cell in this spreadsheet is incorrect. Therefore, everything is suspect, and I have to go back, and now go to the beginning. And maybe I have to do it myself because you’re incompetent, micromanaging you. What’s the impact of that culture? People are like, “We don’t get recognition for our work.” Sometimes there’s no fun or recognition and collaboration. Right? Because everything is so rigid and precise. So it can be really helpful, this tool, to sort of increase self-awareness in the managers and see the cultural impact that they’re creating without even knowing it.

Jeff Plakans:
So I’ve got time for one more question. I think that’s about what we have. Ah, yes. This is a good one. It might have a follow-up question on this one. Dan, passive-aggressive production manager passes all problems off to HR and owners. Willing to do annual reviews, but the minute employee disagrees with annual raise, production manager refers employee to HR/owners.

Dan Kaplan:
Yeah.

Jeff Plakans:
How would I coach this manager?

Dan Kaplan:
Yeah, that’s a tough one. Okay. Well, first of all, I would identify their style and think about what’s really going on for this person under the hood. Why are they passive-aggressive? They might not have the skills to say things directly. There might be some psychological issues. I don’t know. But let’s start by sort of having some conversations with them around this specific passive-aggressive behavior. I wouldn’t use the word passive-aggressive, that could be triggering for some people, but talk about behaviors. When you do this, this is the impact. The impact on the team, the impact on me, the impact on the organization. And be very clear about what you expect them to start or stop, behaviors you start or stop doing. So that’s the first level.

If that doesn’t work, then it’s time for consequences. I want to talk a little bit about consequences. I don’t know if anybody on the call has ever inadvertently come across a bird’s nest on a hike or something or in your neighborhood. I think you can learn a lot from nature. What does the first thing the bird do? They’re going to kind of call, make loud noises. That’s their warning. They’re going to warn you. You’re in my space, you’re doing something wrong, and that’s your warning. And if you don’t leave and you’re hanging around, they’re going to escalate. They don’t jump immediately to dive-bombing you. The next escalation, they might drop something on you.

Jeff Plakans:
So Dan, there’s a little more information on this. Looks like the question I just put to the individual was, what’s their style? He’s indicating that they have a tendency towards accuracy or precision. So it looks like we’ve got a manager who’s a bit on the C side.

Dan Kaplan:
Okay. Well, I’d keep it to the facts. Let me go back to my cheat sheet.

Susannah Forbes:
I think the consequences, the cause and effect is so huge for someone to understand. Because often, managers don’t understand the effect of the way that they’re behaving. And so, giving them those examples is extremely important.

Dan Kaplan:
Yeah. Yeah, so let’s talk about escalating. You’ve had that first conversation. First of all, a C Style particularly needs to see the consequences of their current behavior on them, on their ability to advance, on the team, and the team’s ability to perform, and also on me as the HR manager too. That’s a consequence as well. Our relationship, I get frustrated when. And with a C Style, it really needs to be just the facts. Right? If you use vague language, “You’re always doing this,” or, “It’s really not appropriate when you…” And give a big broad, high level example. That’s not going to resonate with a C Style so much as, “On Thursday, you talked over this person in the meeting,” or whatever that specific exact behavior was and just keep it to the facts.

Keep the judgmental language like, “You always do this.” Keep that stuff out of it. And just keep it to fact, impact, request. Fact, impact, request. Another thing that can really help with the C Style employee is, with a C Style employee, a manager, you’re not going to want to walk into their office and say, “We got to talk.” They’re going to feel blindsided by that. Remember, be prepared and get their head around the whole thing. Otherwise, they’re going to just get into a logic battle with you. You ever been in a logic battle with a C Style? It means they’ve been triggered. They got to win through facts. Right? So what do you want to do?

You want to give them a heads-up. You want to say, “This happened. I observed this on this date. This was the impact on the team. I would like to have a conversation with you about more effective approaches. I want to make sure you have everything you need to have a productive conversation. What else do you need before we talk on Thursday at 2:00?” And when you give that kind of information to a C Style and inviting them in, you’re opening, you’re not barging in their office, which they’re immediately going to become defensive. They’re going to feel that their needs are getting met a little bit more, and they’re going to be a little bit more able to have that conversation.
And this goes for any style. You’re in a conversation with somebody, and they start changing a subject, or they start bringing up other stuff, or they start attacking you, whatever, we use a strategy called bookmarking. Two ways to do this. You can say, “You know what? I understand that that’s important to you. That’s an important thing to discuss, but we’re here to discuss this. So we can discuss that after we finish having this conversation.” So you redirect the conversation back. The other way to bookmark is to say, “You know what? I can see this is really important to you. We can go down this road. We’ll have this conversation. But before we leave, we’re going to return to the issue at hand.” And you bring it back. You don’t let them divert control, change the conversation. I don’t know, hopefully that’s helpful. A lot more strategies in Catalyst and with DiSC, in particular DiSC management to use, handle all the styles.

Jeff Plakans:
The great thing about a tool like this is it’s really, really helpful because there’s no guesswork. You just, “No, she needs to hear it this way. He needs to hear it this way. They need to hear it that way.” And it eliminates a lot of the mess that can happen.

Dan Kaplan:
Yeah. I wouldn’t say no guesswork. I’d say eliminates a lot of the mess.

Jeff Plakans:
Less guesswork.

Dan Kaplan:
Yeah.

Jeff Plakans:
Because we’re still human beings. Excellent. Dan, could you go back to just one more time the QR code you had on the tail end there?

Dan Kaplan:
Yeah.

Jeff Plakans:
Just in case anybody-

Dan Kaplan:
Yeah, that’s my QR code for DiSC, if anybody’s interested in learning a little bit more about DiSC. But also, feel free to reach out to Commonwealth. Anybody on your team as well, Jeff, because I know you’re a big practitioners of this and its…

Jeff Plakans:
Anybody wants more information, wants to see how we work with our clients with the DiSC assessment, just feel free to mention it to us or go ahead and send in an inquiry. There’s lots of information out there. Mention it to your HR business partner if you have one. If you don’t have an HR business partner, maybe you should. We can talk to you about that as well.

And again, thank you for giving us an hour of your time. Hopefully, we seek to provide value. The value from here will be, of course, in a copy of the recording and a copy of Dan’s slides. And hopefully, we’ve helped you guys learn something and helped you become better employers. Have a wonderful afternoon.

Susannah Forbes:
Take care, everyone. Bye-bye.

Jeff Plakans:
Thank you.