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The DiSC Model of Behavior was first proposed by William Mouton Marston, a physiological psychologist with a Ph.D. from Harvard. His 1928 book, Emotions of Normal People, explains his theory on how normal human emotions lead to behavioral differences among groups of people and how a person’s behavior might change over time. His work focused on directly observable and measurable psychological phenomena. He was interested in using practical explanations to help people understand and manage their experiences and relationships.

Marston theorized that the behavioral expression of emotions could be categorized into four primary types, stemming from the person’s perceptions of self in relationship to his or her environment. These four types were labeled by Marston as Dominance (D), Inducement (I), Submission (S), and Compliance (C).

Walter V. Clarke, an industrial psychologist, was the first person to build an assessment instrument (personality profile test) using Marston’s theories, even though that was not initially his intent. In 1956 he published the Activity Vector Analysis, a checklist of adjectives on which he asked people to mark descriptors they identified as true of themselves. The tool, used by Clarke since 1948, was intended for personnel selection by businesses. The four factors in his data (aggressive, sociable, stable and avoidant) were based on Marston’s model.

About 10 years later, Walter Clarke Associates developed a new version of this instrument for John Cleaver. It was called Self Discription. Instead of using a checklist, this test forced respondents to make a choice between two or more terms. Factor analysis of this assessment added to the support of a DISC-based instrument.

For the past 40 years, the DiSC assessment has been used by over 25 million people to discover their tendencies and how to connect more successfully with others.

It has been a long time since I thought about my dreams and hopes.  Channeled strategic thinking.  Absolutely.  Free-form hopes and dreams.  Not since I was a kid.

Over the past few decades of organizational development consulting, training and leadership coaching, I have seen quite a few fads, masked as trends, come and go.  Who can forget the self-directed team movement?  Or the human resources as a business partner mantra?  What about the flat organization trend?  All came with great fanfare and a few bestsellers and all went quietly, and ineffectually, into the night.  Now we are looking at big data and neuro brain science as the next big things.  Undoubtedly, more bestsellers are on the way.

My hope becomes a bit more pragmatic and focused on a trend that began in earnest in the early part of the century and has continued down a robust path.  I hope that team member engagement continues to be an important part of all corporate and organizational cultures for years and decades to come.

The reasoning for this emphasis on engagement is twofold.  First, to the organizations that embrace team member engagement, there is tremendous documented value.  An engaged workforce will produce significantly higher levels of customer service and overall quantified results is much better than peer groups that do not place focus on team member engagement.  Quite simply, team member engagement will grow profits and most other metrics of success.

Secondly, engagement has tremendous value to individual team members.  Beyond the value of compensation and benefits, engaged team members will be happier and derive greater satisfaction from their job.  With that greater satisfaction comes increased self-worth and quality of life.  Less stress and greater happiness follows.  It evolves them from employees to partners in the venture very quickly.

To maintain the momentum that started the team member engagement movement, organizations have to make some strategic shifting beyond providing mechanisms for team member feedback and recognition luncheons.  First, and perhaps most important, organizations must look at engagement being attached to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.  The old tried and true pyramid of motivation that is based with physiological needs and topped with self-realization must be used as the blueprint for team member engagement strategies.

In 1943, Abraham Maslow broke new ground in describing the pyramid of human needs.  His five tier approach may well be the most cited and used work related to needs, reactions, motivation and satisfaction.  Later, and after additional research, he added three move levels to his model.

For our purposes, we are going to apply the Maslow Hierarchy of Needs in a modern context and use it to drive a large part of an engagement strategy.

The original five tiers are presented visually in a pyramid.  This purposeful approach highlighted the need to build need fulfillment from bottom level to top.  Ultimate motivation, and therefore performance, would be achieved when all levels of need were satisfied.  The converse view is that performance and motivation is limited because needs were unmet or unsatisfied.

The bottom or base level of the pyramid is described as physiological needs.  This lowest level of need includes breathing (duh!), food, water, shelter, sleep and a few more bodily needs.   I have a couple of friends that would include beer, jet skis and credit cards to this list.  Quite simply, the bottom of the pyramid is the minimum amount of commodity and function needed to live.

The next level up on Maslow’s model is safety.  This is the most straightforward of the levels and the easiest to understand.  The descriptors for this level include security, law and order, stability and being free from fear.  As easy as this one is to understand, it is also the level that has changed the most in meaning and application.  More about that in just a bit.

The third and middle pyramid block is social needs that include a sense of belonging, love, affection, relationships, acceptance and connectivity.  Just as the safety level has changed a great deal, this level has changed very little in meaning and application to a healthy working environment.

One of the most misunderstood levels of the pyramid appears next.  Just the word ego tends to send a lot of people spinning in various directions.  Images of arrogance and aloofness often are created but this could not be farther from the truth.  Ego needs, the next level of need and motivation, relates to how we are validated and includes recognition, reputation, achievement and status.  These ego needs tend to be very powerful motivators.

The final and top level of the Maslow Hierarchy of Needs is self-actualization.  When describing this need in leadership development programs, I have seen more head-scratching, eye-glazing looks than with any other discussion point.  Maslow did us no favors when you used the title “self-actualization”.  This final tier of need and motivation relates to how you see yourself and where you are at.  The description words he used include development, personal growth, challenge and new experience.  As it is the highest point on the pyramid, it will be the most elusive of the motivational factors and needs.

As noted previously, Maslow added three more levels after his initial findings.  Those levels are cognitive needs, aesthetic needs and transcendence (sounds like this will make your head explode).  The cognitive category includes our intellectual and knowledge acquisition needs while aesthetic is concerned with our need for beauty and pleasing surroundings.  Transcendence is not as mind blowing as it sounds.  It is the need to guide another person through self-actualization.  This is often seen in the role of parent or mentor in a working situation.

So what the heck does all this classic psychology and needs mean to a healthy working environment?  That is the most simple of all responses.  Many organizations fail to meet the needs of their team members and therefore impact, in an adverse manner, the engagement and motivation of their organization.  Meet more needs and your organization will be healthier.  Stymie the meeting of needs and you will have an unhealthy working environment.

Beyond matching engagement strategy to Maslow’s work, organizations must make a strategic shift in how they manage talent on the front end.

No job interview should be a recap of someone’s resume’ or application.  In fact, the items listed on those document should be rarely discussed or referenced.

To make a dent in overall organizational health, leaders and talent managers must use behavioral interview questions related directly to those behaviors desired for a healthy environment.  You will want to test for communication desire, ability to work well with others, willingness to provide internal and external service, skills associated with working through difficult and changing situations and problem solving competencies.

You also want to get the pulse of a job candidate’s attitude.  This can be a little slippery at times but it is doable and must be done.  Do you want consistent upbeat and engaged team members or do you want another of your thick-file team members?

In an age of extremely well prepared job applicants, throwing a curve in a behavioral interview is more difficult.  Consider using some of the following questions to connect a candidate’s skills to your desired outcomes in organizational health:

•  Describe how you would work with and diffuse a difficult customer.
• Talk about how you have worked successfully with difficult or challenging co-workers.
• Tell me what kind of things you do to insure a high level of internal service to other departments and fellow team members.
• Describe your desired approach to communication during a project.
• What are the things that you do to work well with others?
• How do you build consensus among team members or when competing deadlines exist?
• How do you manage your own attitude and approach?
• Describe, in some detail, your demeanor under pressure and when deadlines and customer demands are looming.
• How do you react and respond when priorities change or when you have to manage multiple priorities?
• How do you stay upbeat and positive when times are challenging?
• When faced with a difficult co-worker, please describe your approach to working with them.

This is not an all-inclusive list but rather a set of examples that you can use to build your own questions.  In each of the examples above as well as behavioral interview questions that you construct, the importance does not rest with textbook answers.  The importance is found in an applicant’s comfort in discussing these situations and whether or not they appear uncomfortable with the subjects presented.  A great organizational health fit will answer these scenarios with ease while someone who is engagement challenged will struggle finding the words and concisely expressing their approach.

While we are talking about interviews, we may as well take a poke at some organization’s sacred cows:  the group interview.

Quite bluntly, group interviews, even the two-on-one variety do not work.  They become an exercise in presentation skills and not a good approach to finding good organizational fit candidates.  If you are looking for someone who will be good presenting to groups, great.  If you are looking for a more balanced score card of skills and competencies, kill the group interview process and replace it with multiple interviews with different people who will all be asking the same questions.

Another important facet of engagement driven organizations and those highly concerned for organizational health is that they never compromise their standards to get a position filled.  When organizational health is foremost as a business strategy, you will never hear “he was not perfect but we need to get that job filled”.

No compromise means that you will not take a warm body or a pulse no matter what other pressures you face.  A bad hire decision or a knowing compromise today will create organizational health issues for you for years to come.  Again reference back to your problem team members.  How many of them would you hire again or how many would you like to re-interview and test those engagement and organizational health competencies?

On an operational level, you will need to take a stand.  You will need to tell your human resources department that you need more candidates.  You will need to rerun your job advertisement.  You will need to tell your boss that you haven’t found the right fit yet.  All difficult but all extremely necessary to guard your existing organizational health and insure team member engagement is not harmed.

And finally, organizations must come to grips with the equation that engagement requires engaging leaders.  Leaders with people skills.  Leaders that care about team member and communicate frequently with them and build relationships with them.  Leaders that are engaging and not hiding behind a stack of big data.

My dream is that engagement remains a reality and evolving strategy for the year 2015.

While balancing a couple of competing career paths, I started to work at Rocky Mountain Federal Savings and Mr. John Dilday.  Fresh out of college, John was my first “real” boss away from my hometown.

John was self-made and a master of self-promotion.  John was his biggest fan.

He was also a master motivator before such a category existed.  He praised, thanked, recognized and encouraged.  He mentored.  He shared knowledge.  John was also able to use threats, cajoling, ridicule and shame with the same frequency and without even a noticeable shift of gears.  He could press buttons that I didn’t even know existed.  And it worked.

But above all of that, John Dilday was a challenger.  He did it every day.  Asking about what you could do a little better, making sure I was not sitting on the laurels of a good month or even a good year.  He promoted me to manager; not because I deserved it but because he could challenge me more then.  I was nothing special to him, he challenged everyone equally and constantly.  Always pushing for better in his team and in himself.

To this day, I still summon some Dildayisms when challenging others to be more than they are now.  May use a little different language pattern than John did but the context is still the same.  And also to this day, I credit John with a big piece of my drive and internal motivation to push myself and others forward.  And finally, to this day, I would still stretch myself and my performance for that man.

Status quo is a curse phrase for effective leaders.  They find themselves in the position of appreciating today’s effort and performance while constantly striving for more.  Effective leaders recognize the near endless capacity of human performance.

To add some more challenge to your team and guide them to the performance in which they are capable of delivering, work on:

1. Asking the team what the potential is and how high can they grow their performance and skills.
2. Watching diligently for signs of comfort and complacency in team members.
3. Understand the individual motivating factors of team members and appeal to each one of those on a very personal level.
4. Help team members set targets and track results to build self-challenge mechanisms and systems.

Las Vegas is home to a couple of University of Wyoming alumni.  I am one and Robert Rippee is the other.  We didn’t know each other in school despite having similar majors but we became fast friends through a common professional connection; his employer and my customer.

During our time together, I have never seen Robert stop learning.  He is a passionate seeker of knowledge and hones his skills constantly.  Conferences, classes, articles, books, sharing with others; Robert is constantly learning.

As some people with Robert’s tenure are fighting to remain relevant, he is on the cutting edge of his craft and considered a subject matter expert in the constantly changing world of marketing.  Beyond his core expertise, Robert has added new levels of knowledge in big data, destination management, luxury brands and content development.  All self-learned through his passionate pursuit of knowledge and growth.  As of this writing, Robert is a widely sought after presenter, consultant  and panelist because of his life-ling learning passion.

Far too often success becomes intoxicating for a leader and the learning stops and stagnates.  A few promotions, a great review, a bonus and a raise will create no impetus for a leader to continue to learn and grow.  That type of leader will often be fighting obsolesce and organizational obscurity.

The effective leader, like Robert, will be in a constant state of learning, growth and evolution.  There will be no need to stop to sharpen a saw blade because it always honed to maximum cutting edge.

Restarting the desire to learn and in some cases, relearning to learn may require you to begin:

1. Read an article a day related to something you want to know more about and applies to your abilities to lead in your organization. This is one of the great values of social media.  These types of articles are everywhere on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
2. Start a classic book that challenges your knowledge, vocabulary and comprehension of complex concepts.
3. Take a class or refresh a skill through some online learning. I know this sounds a bit self-serving but it works.  Stimulates the mind and encourages future learning.

A senior leader in the convention services industry effortless and constantly delivered “great job” on top of “thank you” in addition to “you got this” on a daily, all the time basis.

Also on the top of her list were creating opportunities for her people to connect socially and receive the recognition they had been lacking during her tenure.  She created rituals for social interaction and celebrations.

She delivered it sincerely, timely and with an unwavering upbeat demeanor that made her the organization’s cheerleader.  The consummate cheerleader.

I always wanted to use one of those tick counters and follow her around for a day or so and see what the daily tally was but never did.  Suffice to say it happened a lot and every day.

And how did her people respond?

With unprecedented production, commitment to quality, organizational loyalty, embracing of mission and a quantum leap in customer service levels.  End game.  It played out over seven years.  Some of her peers ridiculed her for the constant praise, encouragement and appreciation.  Some of her own team members suspected her motives were not good.  But at the end of the day, the results spoke for themselves.

This is one example that we have had the privilege to work with in the past 20 years,  There are hundreds more.  Maybe thousands more.  When leaders put time and effort into positive feedback, thanks and encouragement, the results grow dramatically and pretty quickly.  Toxicity is reduced.  Turnover goes down.  Benefit after benefit.

Great leaders understand this and have for quite some time.  As their peer leaders are working with metrics and working through a politicized corporate culture, the great leaders are investing time and energy in building their team morale and replicating valued behaviors and performance.

Any leader can achieve what she did by adopting a few simple strategies.

1. Say thank you when someone does something for you or the organization.
2. Tell people “good job” when they meet or exceed expectations.
3. Encourage people to grow, stretch, make decisions and take risks.
4. Do these consistently and beyond the limits of your current comfort level.

Self-care is an interesting subject among leaders.  Many want their team to have it.  To balance their life, even encouraging time off.

But unfortunately while espousing a balanced life, those same leaders work 55 to 70 hours a week and live at work.

Dr. Steve Buuck works very hard.  He has to.  As the CEO of the largest private school in Nevada, he really doesn’t have much choice.  Work, donors, athletics, arts, sciences and activities of all sizes and shapes keep him hopping all week with little break during the summer.

But Steve also takes care of himself.  He is no gym rat but he bikes, golfs and walks with his wife.  He is in pretty good physical shape for the work rigor he puts himself through.  But physical activity is only part of the story with Dr. Buuck.

Steve feeds his mind, emotions and his soul frequently.  That becomes of greater care value than the bike rides through the National Recreation Area.  He learns constantly and hones his craft through courses and reading.  He feeds his emotional composition through intentional time with family and complete detachment from the working world.

The spiritual feeding is something often neglected in many leaders but not with Steve.  He is a man of God.  Has been all his life.  His relationship with God is of utmost important to him and he takes care of that daily.  This growth becomes every bit as important as an annual executive physical and cholesterol count.

Effective leaders, like Dr. Buuck, use a holistic approach to self-care.  It is not just working out.  It is not just rest.  It is not just family.  It is not just learning.  It is not just spiritual enrichment.  It is all of those.  All of those and done in doses every day.  A misalignment in these areas is as bad as being a workaholic.

To add a little self-care to your leadership routine, consider:

1. Spend some time each morning, not reading email but either reading about or connecting with your spiritual life.
2. Schedule time and activities that serve your physical side. A sports league is great because they take care of the scheduling for you.
3. Don’t forget the care and feeding of your family and friends. They came with you to the prom and will need a ride home as well.
4. Close your day with some reading or writing. A great habit that cares for your mind.

Ken Atha is a grower.

Not of flowers, crops or gardens.  He is a grower of people.  And he does it in a very unique way.

Ken is a senior executive for a major United States federal agency.  He is young, aggressive, mission focused and an all-around great leader.  But what stands out about Ken is his passion for mentoring and growing his team.

The easy part to document and write is that he devotes serious time with several subordinate level team members in mentoring their growth.  This part is very traditional and not new ground.  He coaches them, shares information for their career progress and most importantly listens to them.  Ken is a great listener.  Mentoring is not so much about sharing as it is listening and responding when needed.

One differentiating part of Ken’s approach is that he does not limit his mentoring to immediate direct reports that represent the traditional succession map.  He looks for emerging talent at all organizational levels and initiates the mentoring discussions.  There are some risks in this but the rewards far outweigh any potential consequences.

Another huge difference in Ken’s mentoring is that he provides universal opportunities for growth in his entire organization.  He has encouraged using four hours per month for just such activities for ALL team members.  He wants them to grow, seek knowledge, innovate, critically think and share information.  This alone has had a stunning impact on the engagement, creativity and overall performance of his organization.

Do all leaders have an opportunity to mentor?  Absolutely but unfortunately very few do.  Mentoring takes some commitment, a more global view of the organization, a future perspective of legacy and the ability to subordinate daily operational stuff.

If you want to incorporate some growing and mentoring into your leadership arsenal, look at:

1. Making yourself available. Many leaders are so buried in their office, behind a computer with phone in hand that no one dare to approach them; let alone ask for some mentoring time.
2. Examine what your true organizational legacy is about. It is not the projects or performance but the people you leave when you are gone (retirement not in a fatal sense).
3. Seek out those high performing and high potential team members for mentoring. Many will want it but not ask for the opportunity.

Never really took the time or had the chance to tell my dad that he was one of my leadership heroes.  Was not the right time or I thought he would always be around to tell.

The one unwavering leadership characteristic that my dad modeled consistently was work ethic.  When there was work to be done, he did it.  Day of week, time of day, personal plans; none of that mattered.  The work had to be done.  You could never guarantee the work would be there tomorrow.  Used a mantra about crops in the field.  I use that to this day.

Please don’t get me wrong, I am not advocating becoming a workaholic or anything close.  As a kid, I resented my dad not being around much and missing much of life.  It probably contributed significantly to his demise.  What I am advocating is a single-mindedness of purpose and focus towards significant work events and projects.  That passionate application of purpose and vocation is a powerful force when connected to life balance and understanding of the need for overall health (physical, mental, spiritual and emotional).

Effective and successful leaders in the modern working environment share this singularity of focus and purpose.  They work a project and push things until they are done.  There is no giving up.  There is no calling it a day.  There is the recognition that tomorrow might not bring the same opportunity and that there is a crop in the field.  If you have ever seen the face of someone fire walking, you have seen the face of singular focus and drive to completion.

This focus and passionate pursuit can also not be sustained indefinitely.  Rest, fun, personal balance, attention to learning, self-examination and soul restoring activities must also be mixed in but effective leaders will do so gracefully and without much thought.  It is a part of their routine and their being as a leader.

To create higher levels of the Git Er Done type of focus and work ethic, consider:

1. Removing, eliminating and delegating routine tasks that don’t mean much to the overall success of the organization.
   Challenge your own commitment level to the mission, vision and values of the organization.
2. Reconcile how your project or other work products contribute to your legacy as a leader or team member.
3. Build systems of task shifting (30 minute changeovers) to insure freshness and passion renewal.
4. Watch your work, life, emotional, spiritual, physical and mental balance. Listen to your mind, body and heart for signals that you need to walk away for a bit.

Today I have the great luxury of celebrating one of our own.

Katie Meeks is a rule breaker.  Not even sure she acknowledges that rules exist.  Not the kind of rule breaker that will end up in front of a judge for bad driving but the kind that challenges paradigms and boundaries associated with how work is done and how value is created.

She works outside.  Sometimes in a chair.  Many times in a hammock.  Regularly takes play breaks with her kids.  Pets her dog when there is a bit of down time.  Her office space looks a bit more like a personal retreat than a traditional office.  Katie’s hours are when she wakes to when she is done for the night.

But beyond the methods, there is extreme value.  Innovation and creativity is at an off-the-charts level.  Productivity is high.  Quality of work rocks.  And all for the singular purpose of inspiring others and helping other people learn and grow.  It is truly a scene of a rebel with a cause.  A very good cause.

The point of this is not to celebrate Katie but to point out that the bounds of traditional working policies and practices don’t always fit.  In fact, they rarely fit.  The best leaders are those that will consistently challenge policies for the benefit of people.  When they do that, engagement, production, quality, service and overall performance soar.  Without it, it will be the same old and tired performance of yesterday.

For further proof, take a serious look at the organizations that embrace this philosophy.  Zappos is a big rule breaker.  They have corporately challenged every traditional paradigm about working policies and it has paid off in spectacular fashion.  Google is the same way.  Nordstrom’s was the pioneer in this area by allowing and encouraging policy breaking when a customer would benefit.

As a leader you can stir some of your inner rebel by:

1. Ask about your organization’s policies that don’t make much sense or provide any benefit to people. Propose substitutes and changes.
2. Use your discretion in policy enforcement to help others achieve flexibility and higher levels of satisfaction.
3. Throw away the damn policy manual (or delete it from the shared drive/welcome to 2015) and trust your very talented people to do the right thing.

One of our very first customers back in the mid-1990’s was Cashman Cadillac.

A family owned luxury automobile dealer that was run by Tim Cashman.  He ran a tight ship and one that was highly engaged before engaged was a thing.  They were successful and highly respected in the community and by customers.

But Tim had a dream and a vision.  He wanted to have the world’s largest Harley Davidson dealer that would become a destination of sorts.  Motorcycles, clothing, accessories, repair and evening dining.  From Cadillacs to Harleys.  Do you suppose people gave him a little grief about his vision?

Tim converted his vision to action.  Not overnight and not alone and not without input and assistance from others.  He took on a partner in the venture.  He ceded control of the Cadillac operations to a trusted leader.  He listened.  He learned about the Harley product.

That pre-work then turned into buying land, building a magnificent building, partnering with the manufacturer, hiring team members with shared vision and eventually opening his visionary location.

Effective leaders like Tim are able to not only have a vision but to turn it into action and result.  Perhaps not perfect and not as quickly as desired but the action and the end result came and came spectacularly.

I would make the case, to some people chagrin, that visions are cheap.  The real value comes when input is sought, planning occurs and the visions become real.

As a leader, you can turn your visions into reality by:

1.  Documenting what you see and sense. This is a huge reason many visions never see fruition.  Write down, in any form, what you want to do.
2. Begin slowly to bring others into the vision. Seek input, ideas and guidance from a small circle of trusted people.
3. Note the largest milestones and actions. Avoid getting into the weeds and minutiae as those will change a hundred times over.  There is time to deal with the details and now is not it.