Rainbow Thinking & DiSC? Diversity in Sales Leadership & Sales Teams - The D Style

In the last post, I introduced my thoughts around diversity of thought within a team and the concept of?rainbow thinking. To achieve this, we need firstly to understand our own style and how we naturally think ourselves, then to understand the different styles of people around us – our leaders, our colleagues, our direct reports - so we can better understand why they do what they do. We then have the knowledge to adapt our style to be more effective as a leader or as a team member, to develop a sustainable trust culture and build the foundations for high performance. In this post we start to look at each of the 4 styles defined within DiSC and using it to help us understand and develop our rainbow thinking. Now we are going to look at the D style, and I’m sure many of you will recognise this style within a sales environment.?

Sales Leaders have always been defined by their ability to lead from the front, to have all the answers, make quick decisions, be personally accountable to deliver results and to be personally rewarded.??Most sales leader have a strong element of the D Style in the DiSC? model in their character, hired through a job description that prioritises personal drive, results orientation, challenge and action.

D in DiSC? stands for Dominance and a strong D style person prioritises getting immediate results, taking decisive action and challenging themselves and others to get things done. Where a D goes, others are expected to follow, it's 'their way or the highway', and they are fearless at doing what's necessary to reach their objectives. A 'D Leader' will drive the team to make things happen, will make decisions quickly, will be fearless at challenging old ways to doing things and will overcome all obstacles to success, any residual issues can be resolved afterwards. Organisations needs D Leaders to get things done especially where difficult and disruptive change is needed and where fast change is critical to the success of the business.?

D is the archetypal sales leader style, often depicted as an alpha male, loud, brash, forceful, daring etc. I've worked for and alongside many sales leaders who were strong D in style but several of them were women and actually this style is not confined to one gender, culture, or colour.

A strong 'D' will get results, but at what cost? At worst, an autocratic D leader will make decisions quickly but won't ensure they include all inputs from people around, so potentially

• decisions could be a repeat of previous approaches because they have not brought in the creativity and collaborate nature of the 'I' style people in the team
• decisions could ignore negative impacts on people, the feelings of the team, their buy-in, aspects which people with a more 'S' style would bring to the process. 'S style people are usually very quiet and reflective and so a strong D risks overlooking or dismissing these important members of the team.
• decisions could be made without enough due diligence and analysis, evaluating all possible options to find the best decision, which the 'C' style people within the team could bring the process to reduce the risk of failure
• or the team has been built in their own image (all D Style) so there is no dissent

Note:?at the time of writing this post, the UK was going through the turmoil of the Liz Truss era and I could not help but smile to recognise how a leader with the D style can get things badly wrong. Thankfully there are many examples of national leaders with the D style who are very successful?- this is potentially a separate post in it's own right!

A while back I was part of a leadership team which went through a DiSC? style assessment and the result was that everyone in the team was heavily ‘D’ weighted. We were all extroverted, go-getter and results oriented individuals, we all got on very well, we worked hard and played hard, we were a mix of men and women. We worked in a challenger vendor so we were the underdogs in a very competitive marketplace. We were very successful, but we made mistakes which can be attributed to lack of rainbow thinking. We made decisions fast but without all the facts, so we missed things which we should have captured which subsequently slowed us down, we all felt the same about things so we missed alternative ideas and creativity which could have improved our Unique Selling Points and better anticipated our competition, we made decisions which upset people and did not get buy-in from everyone in the organisation, so we had to go back and repair relationships which took time and effort. We were a high performance team and we were great – but success did not last when markets and customer buying habits changed and we failed to adapt.?

A sales leader with a D style, can be a brilliant leader and make great decisions provided there is diversity of thinking in the team and the team are allowed to contribute. A D style Leader therefore needs to temper their desire to steamroller over all questioning and dissent to get to a fast decision and take a breath to include the views of those around who have a stake in the outcome. For example, recognise that i's can have some great creative ideas but will frustrate with lack of structure and be more emotional in approach, S's will really think about wellbeing and people's feelings but may not speak up so may seem too soft and easy to ignore, that C's will analyse all the detail and think about all the implications so may seem too pedantic and negative.?

D Style salespeople are the direct forceful and competitive sellers in a team, they thrive in a direct sales motion powering through challenges and objectives and winning through their determination and talent. They are most successful in a team when the product or solution they are selling is superior to the competition so can afford to go head-to-head with the competition, and they excel in an organisation where the salesperson is king/queen. They tend to try and avoid sales admin as they would prefer to be out with customers and partners so timely forecasting can sometimes be challenging, and there can be a tendency for deals to slip due to unrealistic expectations on their own ability to close. They tend to be highly motivated by financial renumeration so comp plans that rewards over achievement with no earnings ceiling fit this style perfectly.

Not all people with a D style think the same either, there is a spectrum of thinking within this quartile dependent on how influential the other styles are to a person's makeup.?

A person who has a strong D style but has strong influence of the C style (DC) is a driven individual but is more detailed oriented, more questioning, will move quickly and decisively based on accurate data not instinct, and is a person where trust is earnt, not given or assumed. Leaders with a DC style are typically very successful in established and operationally driven organisations. Salespeople who are DC will tend to be accurate forecasters.?

A person who has a strong D style but has strong influence of the I style (Di) is a driven individual but will be motivated by new challenges and less structured than a DC, will be impatient and keen to move to action with less data to get things done, and make decisions with a higher degree of gut instinct. Leaders with a Di style are well suited to start-ups or higher risk situations, where ‘fail fast, learn and adjust’ is a favourable environment to flourish. Salespeople with a Di style ‘think on their feet’ and can find creative solutions to make things happen quickly.

D Style sales leaders and salespeople are forceful and motivated go-getters who will drive to achieve results. By understanding their own style, but also the styles of the rest of the team, they can adapt to harness the overall spectrum of thinking and styles of the people around them to achieve the winning results that so motivates them, and contribute to a high performance, rainbow thinking team.

Does the D, DC or Di style ring any bells with you? Who do you know with this style and how well do you relate to them?

In the next post, we discuss sales leaders and salespeople with the I Style.