On your...
Elżbieta and Katarzyna met while working together at a large advertising agency that specialized in organizing events, especially various conferences and congresses with a strong emphasis on extravagant team-building activities (hot air balloon rides, skydiving, or at least paintball).
The girls worked on the same team and became very fond of each other. Seeing the value of the contracts they were working on and how their earnings compared to that, they decided to start their own training, conference, and event agency. Łukasz, who had previously been responsible for public relations at their employer's company, joined them.
The division of tasks that the team established among themselves largely mirrored what they had done at their previous company. Elżbieta was to handle the event and integration segment – particularly unusual and premium-class activities, Kasia was in charge of the conference area and consolidating all the company's activities as its president, and Łukasz was responsible for publicizing the activities of both their new agency and their clients, which encompassed broadly defined PR.
Unfortunately, working for themselves wasn't as rosy as everyone initially thought. Kasia focused on acquiring contracts from tenders, while Łukasz did his best to publicize all their events, but... there wasn't much to publicize. From the company's inception, Ela hadn't sold a single event. They also hadn't won any tenders because they had no track record, and experience in organizing similar assignments was often a prerequisite for participation. Their only revenue came from Kasia, who, thanks to her numerous contacts, secured contracts to organize two conferences.
Łukasz effectively promoted them in traditional and social media. Perhaps even – in Kasia’s opinion – too effectively, because he organized interviews in which he participated alongside a representative of the conference's content organizer. This irritated Kasia more and more. After all, she is the head of the company and she is its face; any interviews should be with her, not with Łukasz, who didn’t even ask her if she wanted to participate in any. He didn't consult her. What’s more, he didn’t tell her anything about these interviews at all! Katarzyna therefore decided that she would monitor Łukasz’s work and ask for details about his current activities. This behavior from the boss angered Łukasz: „Stop constantly monitoring and questioning me like I'm a preschooler. It's unbearable! I'm doing everything to promote our company, and I'm doing a good job” – he said. Kasia was about to say that he was best at promoting himself, but she bit her tongue. It might have sounded petty, and Łukasz might have thought she was jealous of his media activity. And being jealous and petty, in Kasia's opinion, is not fitting for her as a boss. She cannot risk losing face.
On the other hand, there was Ela. Always calm and collected, which Kasia greatly valued in their corporate work environment, now so quiet she seemed almost absent. She spent her days hunched over her computer, yet brought no benefits to the company. Kasia was irritated by her friend's „mental absence” and at the same time worried about her. Maybe she had some problems? Kasia remembered that Ela was a single mother, but that should make her even more eager to earn money and provide her children with a decent life. Meanwhile, Ela behaved like a zombie. Her body was at the company, but her mind was elsewhere... Kasia decided she would give her time to get her family problems under control and as soon as she noticed Ela returning to her old self, she would talk to her about her low work efficiency.
Meanwhile, the company's problems grew, and the partners grew farther apart. The atmosphere became increasingly tense and could explode at any moment, resulting in the dissolution of the partnership….
Before this happened, Kasia consulted a friend who is a MaxieDISC® consultant and, on his advice, ordered MaxieDISC® tests for everyone.
What turned out?
Elżbieta is an „S” type of person – nice, likeable, helpful, trustworthy, and reliable, provided she knows what to do! Meanwhile, Katarzyna never told Elżbieta what she expected of her, assuming she would know on her own, as she was theoretically doing the same thing in their previous job. However, back then, both Kasia and Ela had their superiors. Elżbieta's supervisor precisely informed her about the tasks she had to complete and sometimes even instructed her on how to complete them and what the desired outcomes of her work should be. Kasia completely forgot about this! She thought that now, "on their own," each of them would simply know what to do and just do it – without any reminders, admonishments, orders, or supervision. Well, actually, despite this, Kasia started supervising Łukasz, which greatly annoyed him.
Łukasz is an ID style individual – a sociable extrovert with a thousand ideas a minute, who easily connects with others, acts quickly, and enjoys movement, noise, the spotlight, and dislikes being controlled, watched, or having people stand over him. These are typical behaviors and preferences for people with a dominant I style. However, Łukasz's MaxieDISC® profile also strongly represents the D style, which means he doesn't typically consult anyone about his ideas and decisions. Like a true leader, a person with a strong D takes risks at their own responsibility and acts without asking anyone's opinion. He also dislikes discussing his ideas because he doesn't handle criticism well.
Kasia, on the other hand, is a person who represents three styles:
D – which makes her a natural leader of the group, but also exposes her to conflict with Lukasz, who also has a strong D;
C – thanks to whom he moves efficiently through tender procedures, effectively administers the company, including budget management, allowing the company to continue to operate despite many difficulties, and
S - which makes Katarzyna trust people, but also worry about them. Striving for a good atmosphere in the company, she often avoids actions that could be misinterpreted by others. Kasia is fair, wants to be fair, and expects others to be fair and want to be fair.
So what made Katarzyna decide to control Łukasz? This is precisely what triggered her „high C,” which is the style most oppositional to I. It should be emphasized here that Kasia herself has no representation of style I in her profile, which likely made Łukasz's actions and behaviors completely incomprehensible to her...
MaxieDISC® – Effective Improvement of Team Communication
By gaining an understanding of their own behavioral styles and discussing them together with a MaxieDISC® consultant, the partners understood how their dominant styles differentiated them from each other, how they influenced their ways of thinking, their perception of the world, and consequently the actions they took. After the consultations and discussion of all the results, Katarzyna, Elżbieta, and Łukasz decided:
- Organize regular board meetings twice a week (Monday, Thursday) to set and assign tasks for the week (Monday) and to review their progress (Thursday). To improve task execution, the company has implemented a project management system using free online tools that allow for monitoring work status, adding tasks, marking their progress, assigning responsible individuals, etc. The team has also jointly developed procedures for carrying out specific activities, including those within Elżbieta's area of responsibility, to ensure she has a clearly defined course of action.;
- Hire a person (ideally an intern), preferably with an SC or CS style, who will handle office matters, primarily preparing tender documentation, which will relieve Katarzyna. The person hired would report to Łukasz, who would thus satisfy D's natural need for leadership.;
- Give yourself the right to ask questions and seek consultation if you feel the need and have any doubts about the direction or method of action.;
- Łukasz found creative fulfillment on social media, managing the company's fan page and blog, and YouTube and Snapchat channels, as well as ad-hoc activities like Facebook live streams, etc. The aforementioned activities are simultaneously branded with his name and the brand of the agency he represents as its Marketing and PR Director. However, he arranges TV, radio, and press interviews for Katarzyna.;
- In addition to all of this, of course, with full awareness of their own and their partners' MaxieDISC® styles, Kasia, Ela, and Łukasz fostered mutual understanding and acceptance of differences, which ceased to divide and instead created new opportunities for their endeavors.
The company caught the wind in its sails. The MaxieDISC® diagnosis allowed them to strengthen and unite a team that was on the verge of collapse, gain new perspectives for action, and modernize their brand through social media activity and the implementation of project management tools.
