DISC - Team Verve

NYC Managers Use DISC Training to Improve Team Communication

Matt King — Tue, 17 Jun 2025 20:20:18 +0000

Living in New York City gives Team Verve a front-row seat to watching world-class businesses communicate effectively…or not! In NYC’s fast-paced business world, poor team communication creates communication bottlenecks that hinder productivity—learning to eliminate them boosts team effectiveness.

Whether you’re running a restaurant, retail store, or service team, miscommunication leads to missed deadlines, frustrated customers, and burned-out employees. That’s why more companies are turning to workplace communication training to improve team communication and stay ahead.

We all use communication at work, and effective communication is hard work!

Here’s the thing: Most communication problems aren’t about what we say—they’re about how we say it. For example, things get lost in translation when a direct, results-focused manager tries to communicate with a detail-oriented team member the same way they’d talk to an enthusiastic, people person. That’s where DISC training comes in handy.

How Does DISC Training Improve Team Communication?

DISC training breaks down personality styles into four types:

Dominance (D) – Direct and results-driven
Influence (I) – Social and enthusiastic
Steadiness (S) – Patient and team-oriented
Conscientiousness (C) – Analytical and detail-focused

Everyone has a mix of these traits, and understanding them helps teams improve team communication in ways that are actually effective.

When we gain a greater understanding of others, we can communicate better with our colleagues and customers.

Practical DISC Strategies for NYC Managers

To reduce communication bottlenecks, NYC managers can apply these DISC-based strategies:

Match your communication to their style:
- D-types: Keep it brief and action-focused
- I-types: Be enthusiastic and encourage discussion
- S-types: Provide steady, supportive guidance
- C-types: Give clear, detailed expectations
Speed up decision-making by knowing who needs quick answers versus who needs time to process.
Improve remote team coordination by setting communication protocols that respect different DISC styles.
Build stronger relationships by showing your team you understand how they prefer to work and communicate.

Communication Bottlenecks: One Way Team Communication Goes Wrong

Most communication bottlenecks happen because of these common issues:

Mismatched communication styles – Confusion occurs when a D-type manager gives rapid-fire instructions to a C-type employee who needs structured details.
Slow decision-making – When managers or teammates don’t adapt their approach to different personality types, projects stall.
Remote team disconnects – Multi-location teams struggle even more when communication styles clash across distances.

These breakdowns are exactly what workplace communication training, like DISC training, aims to fix.

Real Workplace Communication Results: Manhattan Restaurant Case Study

A growing restaurant chain in Manhattan was dealing with constant mix-ups between their front-of-house managers (D-types) and kitchen staff (C-types). The managers communicated quickly and directly, while the kitchen team needed detailed, structured information.

After implementing DISC training, managers began providing clearer instructions to the kitchen while teaching servers to adapt to the fast-paced front-of-house environment. The result? Smoother operations, happier staff, and fewer customer complaints—a clear win for team communication.

You Can Improve Team Communication Today!

For NYC managers juggling productivity, morale, and tight deadlines, better communication isn’t optional—it’s essential. You can provide your team with a practical framework to eliminate communication bottlenecks, reduce misunderstandings, and create teams that actually work well together.

Whether you’re managing a restaurant kitchen, retail floor, or service team, investing in workplace communication training helps everything run smoother.

Ready to eliminate communication bottlenecks in your team? DISC training might be exactly what you need. Chat with Matt.

The post NYC Managers Use DISC Training to Improve Team Communication appeared first on Team Verve.

Healthy Conflict Response Strategies for Teams

Team Verve — Tue, 06 May 2025 20:25:17 +0000

Cycle of Conflict: Three True Stories

Did you know that healthy conflict—and healthy conflict resolution—make teams better? Successful conflict builds teams that make crucial decisions despite differing opinions! We don’t always have control over the conflict around us, but we can learn and use healthy conflict response strategies.

Team Vocal Volley and Team Fragile Frays

Years ago, I worked for a company (let’s call them Team Vocal Volley) where our boss frequently created unhealthy conflict. He would get into shouting matches with employees, and the insults flew freely. It was an unhealthy company culture and a stressful work environment, to say the least.

Another team I joined (Team Fragile Frays), everyone tiptoed, afraid to speak up about issues. Silence replaced visible conflict. This conflict avoidance, hoping issues would miraculously disappear, did not create a healthy culture or enjoyable workplace.

In both of these cases, conflict turned personal. Misunderstandings, personality clashes, and perceived slights disrupted team productivity. The cycle of conflict continued, perhaps because no one understood healthy conflict response strategies.

Yet some teams understand that positive momentum can be created by the necessary friction between diverse ideas and approaches!

Healthy teams embrace and harness tension, but this requires trust.

The way we interact with this necessary conflict is important. There’s necessary friction between our car tires and the road. Without necessary friction, motors can’t run and brakes are useless.

Similarly, without necessary friction—like productive, enthusiastic, honest debate around ideas and important matters—teams can’t move forward. Instead, they’re stuck in mediocre territory!

Effective teams practice healthy conflict response strategies often and become better co-workers because of it. But…it occurs only if there is vulnerability-based trust.

Team Trust Troop

Back to our stories. At one point, I became part of a third team, Team Trust Troop, an organization that ran multiple programs to serve many legitimate needs. Naturally, this led to passionate debate about our use of time and resources.

We had to clarify our purpose and prioritize accordingly.

Not surprisingly, this healthy approach to conflict resolution led to positive outcomes!

When teams have healthy conflict—sans ego and defensiveness—mutual trust and respect guide the conversation, and opposing views can be considered.

“You can disagree without being disagreeable.”

– Zig Ziglar

Identifying Types of Conflict

What pops to mind at the word conflict?

Perhaps negative concepts like meanspirited, ugly, power struggles, and war?

One Webster definition is, “To fail to be in agreement or accord.”

When you work with people there will be conflict. The million-dollar question is, Will your team spiral out of control in the cycle of conflict, or will you learn to regulate and negotiate conflict with success?

Break the Cycle of Conflict

In life and work, conflict often occurs not because someone was trying to do us wrong, but because they were approaching life by a different set of expectations.

Often, we don’t realize we’re playing by different expectations until confusion and frustration arise. We’re probably reacting to the conflict by then—either inwardly…or outwardly.

Different Personalities Approach Conflict Differently!

Understanding how different personalities approach conflict builds awareness and helps break the cycle of conflict.

It’s possible to manage conflict productively by regulating and adapting our own conflict responses. This may de-escalate situations quickly and help all parties regain equilibrium to consider options and agree on next steps.

For example, if you are prone to withdraw or checkout during conflict, find ways to engage in a more active, positive way.
If you naturally attack or blame in a conflict situation, instead engage in a more caring way that doesn’t create alienation.

Further, we can become bridge builders and master negotiators in conflict situations.

When we come to conflict with this type of a win-win approach, we view our conflict through the other’s eyes, talk with them in ways meaningful to them, and consider positive conflict management strategies that benefit all.

DISC and Conflict Resolution

At Team Verve, we often use the DISC model to jumpstart conversation.

Our DISC traits show up in conflict. In challenging times, we choose to be constructive or not. Understanding our predispositions can help us choose a healthy path—

D’s can either go on the attack OR restore with love.

I’s can expose others’ faults OR make others look good.

S’s can dodge the issues OR care enough to confront.

C’s can want to criticize OR examine self first.

How would you like your team to function in the heat of the moment?

Plan for Developing Healthy Conflict Resolution Strategies

Jay Samit said, “Conflict is not the end of the story. It’s often the beginning of something better.”

At Team Verve, we believe that your team can develop HEALTHY conflict resolution strategies and turn your team’s friction into fuel for success.

Our high-energy, interactive, practical “DISC Conflict Strategies that Work” workshop has 5 goals:

Understand conflict responses
Learn how to effectively approach people during conflicts
Cultivate honesty
Reduce team stress
Negotiate with success

Do you have questions about how DISC can help with healthy conflict response strategies for teams? Drop a line below or chat with Matt. We want to connect with your team!

Team Verve, NYC

Return to Home Page

The post Healthy Conflict Response Strategies for Teams appeared first on Team Verve.

Your Toolbox: DISC for Hiring and Onboarding

Team Verve — Fri, 21 Jun 2024 23:03:56 +0000

Hiring new employees—while maintaining a healthy team culture—is an immense and challenging responsibility for even the most seasoned leaders. Adding key equipment to your recruiting toolbox, like using DISC for hiring and onboarding, can yield great results!

Hiring and Onboarding with Intention

Finding, hiring, and onboarding ideal candidates successfully requires thoughtful pre-work before any hiring campaign gets underway.

Hiring managers need…

A well-defined understanding of the role being filled and its value to the company
A thorough-yet-concise job description for the role
A clarity about the extent to which each new hire might affect company culture

Are your leaders crystal-clear on the types of employees you wish to attract and the expectations your culture is building? If not, head back to the drawing board on the above list!

Additionally, what shared language does your organization use to express these values and expectations? How can new employees learn that language quickly and accurately so they understand how they fit in the team?

Useful Hiring Assessment Tools

We often hear of job candidates being administered assessments—like DISC—as part of the recruitment process. These assessments can be helpful tools in discerning key aspects of a candidate’s work or communication styles.

As your recruiters look for potential hires who fit well with the job’s description and requirements, the DISC Hiring Bundle can help describe an ideal candidate for the position.

At interview time, that simple DISC assessment can assist the hiring team with crafting strong interview questions based on each applicant’s predictable strengths and weaknesses. Sample questions to add to your interview guide might be,

“Do you see this as one of your strengths? How could this play out on the job?”
“Do you think this is actually one of your weaknesses? How can our team help you in this area?”

DISC can also help you understand a candidate’s work style a bit better and discern if the typical requirements of the role fall within their comfort zone. Be cautious about pigeonholing or typecasting job seekers, however. You may be surprised by hidden skills and talents best uncovered through unbiased, thoughtful conversations.

Additionally, DISC can help bring aboard styles to balance out an existing team or advance a particular project. It is a useful tool to help you build your bench for success!

Intentional Onboarding Practices

According to recent Gallup studies, only 12% of new hires felt their onboarding experience was adequate. Today, more than ever, a clear, enjoyable, and intentional onboarding process is crucial to retaining employees and protecting healthy work culture.

Companies who are already using DISC with their teams can tailor certain aspects of onboarding (and even pre-boarding, that phase between job acceptance and the employee’s first day) to suit a new hire’s learning style and communication needs. A New Team Member Bundle provides key tools for this!

DISC provides common ground and shared language as teams get to know the newest team member. As that new teammate acclimates to a new daily routine, conversations about company and shared team culture can happen organically in the context of discussing how the team’s goals are influenced by their DISC styles.

Likewise, managers who disclose their own DISC results with new hires—and who welcome discussion about preferred communication and work styles—can build trust and loyalty with these new team members more quickly and effectively.

The Right Bus, the Right Seat

Once you’ve discovered your team’s newest star, hired and onboarded them with intentionality and care, then what?

Now comes the work of making sure your new great-fit employee is in the right seat on the right bus, to help them achieve their best and to maintain your company’s healthy team culture.

Patrick Lencioni, in a nod to Jim Collins’ book Good to Great, refers to this bus metaphor to help leaders understand that they must thoughtfully take care of the “Who” in order to effectively manage the “Where” (the organization’s trajectory) and the “What” (the solutions to be discovered along the way).

Taking an organization’s mission and legacy to new heights involves leaders being intentional about hiring, firing, onboarding, and role structuring for success.

Consider your “A Level” personnel—those employees who would walk through fire or flood for your organization, your clients/shareholders, and your team.

Are they achieving success in their roles?
Could they push your organization’s mission to greater heights if they moved to a different bus seat?
What if another A Player joined them in the adjacent bus seat—what could they achieve together for the greater good?

Do you need to find more of these great-fit employees for your bus? Remember that a DISC assessment is just the start to finding your next shining star!

Using DISC for Hiring and Onboarding

DISC is just one tool to keep in your recruitment toolbox for intentional hiring and onboarding. It is also useful for placing your team members in their right-seat roles. Use DISC as a tool to build your team. We are cheering you on!

Additionally, DISC can be put to work in other contexts—to give more specific feedback and ask better questions, to understand the preferences and concerns of your customers, to build on the strengths of your employees and work through differences, to talk about hard things, and to build a culture of trust in your team.

If you have questions about any of these DISC tools, we are glad to point you in the right direction. Chat with Matt or check out DISC training workshops.

Return to Home Page

The post Your Toolbox: DISC for Hiring and Onboarding appeared first on Team Verve.

Use DISC as a Tool to Build Your Team

Team Verve — Tue, 17 May 2022 20:00:15 +0000

People often use personality profiles to increase their emotional intelligence (EQ) and understand their own behavior. While the DISC personality profile can certainly be used in this way, we recommend that you use DISC as a tool to build your team.

At Team Verve, we use DISC as a tool, a language, and to be others-focused on a team. DISC is recognized as “the universal language of behavior.” It can be put to work in many different ways to improve communication, build trust, and boost team performance. What do we mean? Here are a few practical ideas:

Performance Management

As leaders and managers, part of our job is helping our teams grow and improve. One key aspect of this is giving regular, constructive, and encouraging feedback.

Use an employee’s DISC report to ask good questions about their needs and perspectives. A DISC report can jog your memory on areas where they are doing well or talk through an area they could improve. Throw away the stiff annual performance reviews and try regular meaningful feedback instead!

Hiring & Onboarding

It can be tempting to hire people who you connect well with and who have a similar personality as yourself. But we caution against this recruitment tactic. Instead, look for people that work well within your job requirements.

Many companies ask each serious job applicant to fill out a simple DISC assessment.. This equips you to ask good interview questions based on the applicant’s predictable strengths and weaknesses. “Do you see this as one of your strengths? How could this play out on the job?” “Do you think this is actually one of your weaknesses? How can our team help you in this area?”

The DISC Hiring Bundle goes a step further and quickly powers up a hiring campaign: It provides the DISC assessment along with a Job Match Tool and one-hour consultation to help you describe an ideal candidate for the position. By using DISC in the interview process, you have a common way to review hires with your management team that will improve clarity and speed.

Onboarding, when an individual joins your team, is a huge opportunity. Often team members are more receptive, trusting, and excited at the very beginning. Capitalize on this window of time by using personalized DISC onboarding training to position new team members to thrive on your team.

Sales & Customer Relations

Do you sell or work with a wide variety of customers? Learn to recognize the different personalities of your customers. Quickly speak into different customers’ concerns, values, and preferences.

Use the insights in the Direct Sales DISC report to expand your styles, tones, and preferences. Building strong business relationships demands that we learn to communicate effectively.

Meetings & Projects

Equipped with the knowledge that not everyone works in the same way, your team can make better use of each other’s strengths. For example, just because someone isn’t boldly asserting ideas, doesn’t mean they aren’t engaging.

Get a snapshot of your team using the DISC Team Chart. As you understand different styles on your team, you can embrace different work styles and put together a more rounded teams.

Conflict Resolution

Most people dislike conflict. Yet, conflict becomes a positive opportunity when a team appreciates differences. By understanding where someone is coming from, it is easier to embrace differences in communication style, speed of work, and perceived work ethic.

Many times, the success of a team is directly related to how well they can work through difficult things. Use DISC as a non-threatening framework to talk through each other’s differing perspectives, values, and blind spots. Use the DISC Interaction Guide to give any two members of a team tips and strategies for working together.

Build Vulnerability-Based Trust and Understanding

Teams must have high levels of trust to reach greatest productivity and effectiveness. If you have read the plethora of articles out there, you know that trust encourages questions, builds phycological safety, minimizes miscommunication, encourages quick decision making, enhances morale, and the list goes on. With such high-value benefits, the most asked question becomes, “How do I build trust?”

Vulnerability-based trust starts when team members begin to share openly with each other. Yet, getting our teams to start sharing can be easier said than done. DISC is just one simple tool you can use to jumpstart this kind of conversation.

DISC is only one tool and an imperfect one at that. Like many tools, it can be used in wrong ways. Never use DISC to make excuses about behavior, hammer someone over the head, or endlessly study yourself. Instead put DISC to work to give more specific feedback and ask better questions. Use it to understand the preferences and concerns of your customers, to build on the strengths of your employees and work through differences, to talk about hard things and build a culture of trust in your team. Use DISC as a tool to build your team. We are cheering you on!

If you have questions about any of these DISC tools, we are glad to point you in the right direction. Chat with Matt or checkout DISC training sessions, assessments, and team charts.

Team Verve, NYC

Return to Home Page

The post Use DISC as a Tool to Build Your Team appeared first on Team Verve.