We all know that the job description document is very important. It is a profile document that should enable you hire the appropriate person you require. The JD is a profile of the job duties, the expected experience and skills required from the prospective employee.
What many people don’t know and therefore don’t do is the importance of creating a personality profile for the person in the job. Understanding people is an essential skill when recruiting, managing and team building. Having a comprehensive and objective view of how a personality works is a major advantage in the workplace and can give you the competitive edge you’re looking for.
DISC is one of the most popular personality profiling techniques available today; simple to use, but as detailed and adaptable as your business needs, with powerful and insightful results. This is what I use.
In recruitment many never consider their behaviour. In recruitment we say we usually recruit for skills but fire for attitude.
What this means is that we concentrate on what the person can do and totally ignore their behaviour. However skills can be taught but behaviour is inherent and can’t be easily changed. It is much better to start with behaviour and end with skills because you can always teach the person with the right behaviour the right skills while it is much harder to teach the person with the right skills good behaviour.
I remember about twenty years ago when I did my first personality profile analysis, I came to understand myself for the first time. It was so accurate and even revealed some blind spots I did not know I had.
It is important to start off with profiling the behaviour required for the particular job. So for example take sales and marketing jobs. Many people think they are the same thing and recruit people with the same personality profile into these jobs.
Sales is the process of selling while marketing is the profiling of the buyers and matching them to the products. So sales people go after the people that marketing have identified as potential buyers. Marketing is a science while sales is an art and the same type of people can’t do both.
A marketer should be someone who can do analysis and has the patience to experiment and must be happy to write reports.
A sales person on the other hand should be someone who likes people and is not intimidated at talking with total strangers. This person has to be someone who likes to get up and go out even though it is pouring with rain and there is gridlock traffic.
If you get a get up and go person in the marketing job they will not thrive and if you get the person who likes to be in the office doing analysis and writing reports in the sales job they will not thrive. However when you put each personality profile in the correct job for their profiles to thrive, you can teach them the skills required for the job and you will get an A class employee.
Many companies say they want bubbly people who dress well and speak well. The truth is that all employees in a company cannot be alike because the jobs are diverse in the profiles and personalities.
So my personality profile gave a hint on how to manage me in the workplace. It said you should give me a job, explain what you want and leave me to get on with it. I will not thrive with having a micro manager managing me. I will not thrive in an environment where I am not given room to express myself. However when left on my own I work so well to achieve the goals set.
This means not only do you get the profiles of the job right you have to get the profile of the supervisor of that job right also in relation to the job.
Another example is in hiring a front desk person. You have to balance someone who likes people with someone who is compliant and will demand certain things before people are let in the front door. Just for your information, those people who like people may not be able to keep still and so may not always be found at their duty post therefore leaving the job very badly done.
DISC uses four profiles the Dominant Compliant Steady one Influential
So take those who have a high dominance personality they are Self-reliant, relying on their own independent resources, rarely looking for help or support from those around them.
They are Competitive and are motivated by success, especially tangible success in competition with others. They are ambitious, and relate to a clear set of goals or ultimate aims, and have the determination to work towards these goals.
Being decisive they have little patience, and will prefer to make a rapid decision, even if that involves a degree of risk. They are Leaders and their preference for independence and forthright attitude means they will tend to work towards leadership roles.
Influential people are conspicuously confident in the company of others, and find it easy to form friendly relationships. They have a positive attitude towards people and the confidence to demonstrate it. They are sociable with strong influence and go out of their way to build warm and positive relations. Being outgoing they tend to say what’s on their mind in an open way.
They are so informal, prefering to communicate on a personal and relaxed level rather than be bound by formality. So enthusiastic that when engaged by an idea or topic, the naturally positive attitude of an influential person is often highly motivating for those around them.
On the other hand Steady people are patient, they tend to wait for events to unfold and respond as needed, rather than take direct action of their own. Determined, they tend to focus intently on tasks and can be remarkably resolute in concentrating on a project. Once embarked on a course of action, they will focus on their task and work persistently towards its conclusion.
Steady people also has a social side, and are open to building positive relations with other people. Very open and considerate, they tend to think about the consequences of their actions, especially on those around them.
Finally the compliant personality are very rule-orientated and like to work within an established and well-planned structure, rather than relying on their own resources. They are practical and detailed and well organised. Always wanting to feel that they understand the details of their situation and how they fit into it.
Precise, they are concerned with getting things right, and will take time to ensure their work is accurate. They tend to avoid risks, preferring to be cautious in all they do. They tend to be rather reserved in communication, using diplomacy and tact and focusing on matters of fact.
No one profile is the best. Each organisation needs all profiles to function. Next time we will see how to combine the organogram, the job descriptions and the personality profile analysis?
Olamide Balogun
