How to Recognise the DISC Behavioural Styles of your Friends and Family

We’ve all been there! You are invited to a summer BBQ at a friends house, only to find you don’t know anyone except the person you came with. Some people thrive off this opportunity to meet new people. They find it easy to introduce themselves to others. This situation is overwhelming for introverted people. The desire to build relationships is not second nature. So, for those of us who find it hard to put ourselves out there, here’s a quick hack to communicate with anyone!

Extended DISC Styles provide you with a framework for people’s behaviour. Once you can identify the DISC Style of the person you are communicating with, it becomes much easier to converse with them.

As you become more familiar with the DISC Styles, you will find people are easy to identify. You will quickly think to yourself: “She is a D-style” or “He is an S-style.” These individuals are predominantly one style and can be identified more easily than those with combination styles.

Other people you encounter will take a little more effort to identify. However, it is a simple, three-step process of identifying your friend's style:

Step 1: Observe

When you talk to someone, pay attention to traits such as:

• What the person talks about
• How they say it – type of words (e.g. “I” vs. “We”), type and amount of questions (e.g. “what?”, “why?”)
• Body Language
• Tonality

You will discover that observing behaviours will become second nature. Soon you will observe behaviours without thinking.

Step 2: Assess

Based on your observations, determine if the friend or family member is more:

• Introverted – talks about the present, speaks calmly and quietly, limited body language hesitant to make eye contact
• Extroverted – talks about the future, speaks loudly and with inflection, animated body language, maintains eye contact

Then determine if they are more

• Task Orientated - talks and asks about things, focuses more on tasks than people, does not show a lot of emotion
• People Orientated - talks and asks about people, focuses more on people than tasks, shows emotion fairly easily

Step 3: Recognise

Now you have the information needed to identify the person's style by combining the Active / Reserved and Task Oriented / People Oriented.