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

In the first post of this series, 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 think ourselves, then to understand the different styles around us – our leaders, our colleagues, our direct reports so we can better understand why they do what they do; then to be able 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 the last post we focused on the first of the 4 DiSC styles - the D style, and I’m sure many of you recognised this style within a sales environment. Now we are going to look at the 2nd of the 4 styles – the i Style … read on

Leaders with strong i style are typically fun, creative, inspiring, collaborative, and extroverted. They are great at setting vision and infecting others with their enthusiasm, gaining support with their personality. Expect to go on adventures with an i style leader who will love to offsite meetings including adventure sports and fun activities. They often prioritise instinct over data when making decisions, they are risk-takers and they thrive on change and new challenges. They get bored and frustrated quite easily, needing regular stimulation and so have the potential to move onto new projects before the current ones are completed. Leaders with the i style don’t enjoy deep dive activities that analyse all the detail preferring to keep things at high or conceptual level. Leaders with a strong 'I Style' operate most effectively in start-up situations, where there is little structure and where there is maximum freedom to exercise creativity. They are often great evangelists and orators so expect leaders with the i Style to enjoy opportunities for public speaking and presenting at corporate events.?

I worked for a VP who was a very strong i style leader and she ran a start-up team within an established organisation. She was the most creative, most energising, rule braking, fun person I've ever worked for, the ideal person for a new team who was tasked at breaking the mould of current thinking - it makes me smile just remembering those times now. Her infectious enthusiasm encouraged us to stretch ourselves, to challenge the status quo, and do our best work. I loved working for her and, as I have an iD Style, I was quite naturally aligned with the way she thought. She made an impact and made people think. Her strong i style brought her into conflict with the established structured organisation and frustrated her direct reports including me - why?

Firstly, we were in an established organisation that was very operational in culture, it was a DC Style corporate culture. Our VP was full of optimism, had the gut instinct that we were doing the right thing, did not bother too much about the detail, assumed trust and had plenty of ideas. The company, and its senior execs expected pragmatic change, based on hard data, minimum risk, and trust was only given on results. There was a culture clash and neither side gave much ground to compromise. Possibly with better understanding, the VP could have invested in creating better data, and the senior leadership could have been more open to a radical change-agent.

Although we loved our boss and she had our support, she could be frustrating when we needed her to focus on detail. It was often difficult to gain enough of her attention for long enough to cover important topics that needed a deeper dive and her approval. This VP like many with the i Style was most impactful and happiest in a start-up type environment, moving fast and thriving in change.

Salespeople with the i style are the creative salespeople in the team, they come up with great ideas to work around obstacles, are very good at handling objections and thinking on their feet, and will be competitively creative to outwit the opposition. These people are great at setting out a vision for the future and capturing the imagination of the customer. They are important people to have within the team especially if the sales motion disrupts existing ways of doing things or complex. Don't expect salespeople with the i style to be great at forecasting or planning, both require a level of detail and attention span which will be challenging for them. An i style salesperson may be vague with close dates, and lack clear steps to close a deal, and their plans will be high level in nature, so this an area where someone with an i style needs to work harder than most, especially if their boss is a D or C style.

Teams that are more i centric are impactful when they are responsible for introducing new leading/bleeding edge or solutions where change and evangelising new ideas are key to success.

Not all people with a 'i' profile think the same, there is a spectrum of colour within this quartile dependent on how influential the other styles are to a person's makeup.

A person who has an i style but has strong influence of the D style (iD) is more driven and results orientated than a typical i, and so has a blend of creativity and enthusiasm with a stronger drive to take action and get things done. A leader with an iD Style will bring new ideas and take risks based on gut instinct taking on ground-breaking sales approaches and deals. Therefore an iD will bring additional creativity and ideas to a D centric team, or additional drive to achieve results in a more i centric team

A person who has an I style but has strong influence of the S style (iS) is more driven to consider people and the team and will be highly collaborative. An iS will be an inspirational but considerate leader, looking to bring in many points of view and seek consensus within the team and across stakeholders, and will avoid conflict wherever possible. A leader with an iS style will be good at managing a team through turbulent times or through long sales cycles where patience and team cohesion will be crucial. Sales Leaders and salespeople with an iS style can be very successful where a lot of customer hand-holding and coordination is required such as 'customer success' environments, where salespeople will be closely working with customers through a long period where continuity is important.

Does the i, iD or iS 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 I’ll focus on the S style so sales leaders and salespeople who are strongly people and team oriented, focused on collaboration, support, consensus, and stability.