Learn How Personalities Work Together with DISC Certification

The DISC personality profile testing and assessment methods used by many groups and businesses are ideal for creating and building a positive and meaningful teamwork environment. DISC profiles give managers and team leaders an understanding of group and interpersonal dynamics, providing them with the means to facilitate better relationships within the groups they are managing.
DISC certification involves some study and course work, but rewards the student with a set of life skills that can be applied to almost any aspect of social integration, whether for professional or personal purposes.

The skills and methods learned during DISC certification will give a participant the ability to better understand verbal and non verbal communications and will help the participant nurture a positive self-image and identify many patterns of behavior and decision making in those around them.

Certification Course information: http://www.discinsights.com/cyber/Scripts/prodview.asp?idproduct=38&idCategory=7

DISC Profiles Look at Behavior in Four Major Categories

There are various ways to measure human behavior. One popular system is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Another popular measurement is the use of DISC profiles. DISC groups human behavior into four personality styles, which research has proven is an effective way to measure. The acronym DISC stands for Drive, Influence, Steadiness and Compliance. Today it is common for companies to use DISC profiles to assist them in finding and maintaining the right employees for the organization. The human resource department of organizations uses the tool as an aid in hiring. It also helps management in working with their current staff. Working with a team of employees takes specific skills. Ways to measure human behavior helps to reduce employee problems, helps to improve the sales and profit of the company and helps to pinpoint those employees who can be particularly beneficial to the company’s needs.

Give Your Sweetheart a Gift That Lasts All Year

Love can’t be fully expressed through a gift of flowers, chocolates, or even a Vermont Teddy Bear. Love is expressed the whole year through by showing your sweetheart that you understand her and by doing the things that are important to him. You express your affection by discovering what makes him/her feel happy, understood, secure, appreciated and loved, and then doing those things as often as possible.

DISC Personality Styles helps you understand your sweetheart’s “love language” so you can communicate to him/her the way they understand best. Here are a few tips for you and your sweetheart depending upon DISC Style:

Celebrate Valentines Day with your “D” by:

• Doing something active together. For example, go ice skating, horse back riding, or hiking. Bring a picnic lunch. If you don’t want to expend that much energy, see live theater, live music, or do something active like a ski trip. D’s love action and they are also task oriented, so follow through on a task that they enjoy.


• Setting goals together can be very romantic. Over candlelight and wine, discuss goals you have together such as trips you want to take, businesses you want to start and where you want to retire. Goals can be concrete or just thoughts to dream on. Dreams often turn into realities.

Do for your “D” all through the year by:

• Taking care of the mundane details of something for him/her. That might mean picking up the dry cleaning or getting an oil change for your loved one.


• Remembering to keep it brief and to the point when telling him/her news or information Sometimes a “D” can become frustrated with too much information.


• Asking “Why” not “How” questions as often as possible. Asking how questions are sometimes irrelevant to a “D” style. “D’s” don’t always concern themselves with how something is done, they focus upon results.


• Being as factual, specific and non-emotional as possible when trying to appeal to your “D”. Opinions, generalizations, and emotions are not going to get you too far when communicating.

Celebrate Valentines Day with your “I” by:

• Surprising your loved one at work by taking him/her to lunch. Bring flowers with you when you arrive at his/her office. Make reservations at his/her favorite restaurant. Colleagues will be impressed or maybe even a little jealous.


• Going to the place of your first date and reenact your first date. Get nostalgic with it and have fun! Go back to the first dinner date and try to order the same food and drinks you ate. Share gifts and cards at the restaurant and talk about how far you have come since then.

Do for your “I” all through the year by:

• Giving him/her an opportunity to verbalize his/her thoughts, opinions, and feelings at the end of each day. Listening and providing lively feedback is such a great “I” gift.


• Helping him/her turn thoughts and ideas into action. Your “I” is great at conceptualizing ideas, although with more encouragement, support, and help, you can bring those ideas to life.


• Don’t deny him/her opportunities to socialize, talk on the phone, make new friends, have fun, and be active. Be understanding that “I” personalities are stimulated by people and although you satisfy most of his/her social needs, you can’t fulfill all those needs.

Celebrate Valentines Day with your “S” by:

• Making a list of the top 10 reasons you love and appreciate him/her. Write a short sentence about each reason. If you feel ambitious, write a poem to your beloved.


• Taking a portrait as a couple. This can be very tender thing to do with your sweetie, be serious, silly or creative; frame the finished product as a reminder of your love.

Do for your “S” all through the year by:

• Expressing genuine interest in his/her, work, ideas, and life each day. “S’s” like to know that they are supported just as they are so willing to support.


• Always being patient with him/her. "S’s" may not live such a fast-paced life as the “D” or the “I” style, but they have strengths in many other areas.


• Being friendly, affectionate and showing appreciation in the little things. This is the way to an “S's” heart.

Celebrate Valentines Day with your “C” by:

• Skipping the busy restaurants, and making dinner for him/her. Make his/her favorite meal at home, have decadent deserts afterwards and light at least 10 candles for the event. Even better if he/she wants to cook with you.


• Going to a day spa and relaxing together. Get a double massage, sit in a hot tub, or soak in a whirlpool. Drink warm tea while reading together.

Do for your “C” all through the year by:

• Remembering to use facts and accurate statements when communicating with your “C”. Don’t be vague or make them “read” into what you are saying; you will get a lot further, the more information you provide.


• Keeping surprises to a minimum. Give him/her as much advance warning of any changes, so that he/she can make adjustments.


• Creating a non-confrontational, peaceful environment for your sweetheart. Use patience, persistency and diplomacy at all times.

Career Coaching is a Hot Market

Layoffs, downsizing, store and factory closings, and a shrinking labor market has made job searching more challenging than ever this year. In this competitive job market people need more than a good education and work experience, they need a coach. For this reason, the fields of Career Coaching, Executive Coaching and Life Coaching are hotter than ever. Career Coaching is not limited to entrepreneurs only. Companies, government agencies, and organizations are now incorporating career coaching into their employee development programs.

Every good Career Coach has a tool box that they use to help their clients discover their true value, personal strengths, personality style, learning style, motivational style, team fit, and personal goals. This “diagnostic” work is fundamental for a coach to have when developing a client’s Personal Marketing Plan.

What is a Career Coach?
A career coach is someone who has a passion for helping others understand and communicate their true value. Career Coaching is the act of partnering with people to help them transform their life and become more productive, effective and fulfilled in a very competitive playing field.

A career coach will help their clients identify their natural strengths, personality, behavior, motivations, goals, abilities and desires –this seems fundamental, but few people know. Coaching also means being an excellent listener and having a comprehensive toolkit that will help clients first identify their goals and then move toward them faster than one individual could do alone.

Coaches also offer creative viewpoints, guidance and motivation all along the way regardless of the time it takes. Many individuals prefer to have ongoing support from their coach until the client has met his/her goals.

What types of people does a career coach work with?
Anyone from a high school student to a C.E.O and…

- People downsized from companies
- People who have been laid off from their job
- People unhappy with current occupation ready for a change
- Mothers re-entering the job market
- Middle/high school/college students seeking direction and study skills
- Individuals from military service

What Are Your Services Worth as a Career Coach?
Typically, coaches would charge from $50 to $150 for an initial meeting that includes using several key assessments to find a clients strengths, abilities, potential limitations, passions and motivators, and look at a short and long term plan for that individual. Additionally, most coaches working with individuals charge $250 to $500 per month for a 30-60 minute call per week with additional support being offered via email. Executive and corporate coaches charge more because of additional time being spent and expertise requirements, with the best often receiving $1,000 to $2,000 per month per client.

Career, Executive and Personal Coaching Tools:
The following certification courses and assessments will position you with the knowledge and tools to conduct personal evaluations and be a springboard for developing a personal marketing plan.

Introduction to Behavioral Analysis Course and Certification

Advanced Behavioral Analysis Course and Certification

StudentKeys Leaders Pack I

TEAMS Profile

Values Style Profile

Career Coaching is a continual learning process. The best coaches are the ones who are constantly informed about the latest trends like social networking and personal branding, business news, and technologies. As with any profession, you must constantly sharpen your own skills as you try to anticipate what companies today are looking for. This is an employer’s market and companies are being more selective than any other time in history.

What is your Company’s Personnel Quotient (PQ)?

Your PQ is a measure of the overall efficiency and performance of your workforce, as well as a measure of how well you are managing your key assets….your people.

Your PQ is also a measure of how fulfilled your people are. Studies have consistently proven that people who are in the right places and in the right environment are likely to reach their personal potential. Employees that reach their full potential will, in turn, help your organization reach its strategic goals.

Your PQ is a number that relates to your bottom line and overall health of your organization. It is one of the key factors in judging the future success and growth rate of your company.

A company’s Personnel Quotient is made up of seven key factors of corporate health within a business. If you are interested in your company’s Personnel Quotient, begin by asking the following questions of your organization:

1. Do you have the right people in the right places?
2. Are you effectively developing talent within the organization?
3. Do you have a hiring model in place that always finds and replicates your best people?
4. Are you satisfied with the retention of key personnel?
5. Do you have a succession plan in place?
6. Are your executive compensation and employee benefits packages really motivating top performance?
7. Is your management team all pulling in the same direction and aligned with your organizational goals?

A company’s bottom line is directly affected by it’s PQ. If your company is weak in any of these key areas (filtering, hiring, job role, team fit, talent development, retention, succession planning, and mission/goal setting) PeopleKeys can help. Speak to an associate who can give you the tools to raise your company’s Personnel Quotient + 1.800.779.3472

Do you have the right people in the right places?

Our company has developed a comprehensive assessment and reporting system to help organizations unlock their people potential. PeopleKeys helps you find, place and motivate employees with a complete online system that either compliments your existing HR function, or operates as a stand-alone solution.

Satisfied clients include the Manpower corporation, who is a world leader in the employment service industry. When Manpower needed a system to help them make sure they had the right people in the right places, they turned to PeopleKeys.

Are you effectively developing talent within the organization?

Federated Investors realized that effective training and staff development was the key to their future growth and success. They also discovered that the task of maximizing the potential of each employee was not as easy as it seemed.

PeopleKeys provided Federated with a greater understanding of how their employees, staff and managers are motivated. We also provided insight on staff learning styles and how to best target training to maximize impact and retention.

By assessing their current staff, PeopleKeys was able to fully develop the talent that already existed within their organization. PeopleKeys was able to increase employee morale and productivity, all of which enhanced client satisfaction and ultimately added to the bottom line.

Do you have a hiring model in place that always finds and replicates your best people?

It is the success of your company based on the work that your people do as a team (birds of a feather flock together) or is it based upon the individual efforts of a select few? (The eagle who soars alone). PeopleKeys looks at dozens of behavioral traits to determine the key elements for success in your employees.

PeopleKeys factors in the way you do business, then determines the appropriate assessment for each position in your company.

We us an in-depth set of question that are specific to your industry and benchmarked to the traits of your top talent. It produces accurate readings on a potential hire’s team and individual work style, motivation, communication skills, relative strengths, and overall value.

Are you satisfied with the retention of key personnel?

Turnover is the unseen cancer than can destroy a company from the inside out. The cost of a new hire is not you greatest expense. It is small compared to the investment made in training and developing you existing employees.

Your key personnel hold within them valuable information about your organization and your customers that your competition would love to own.

Never lose another key employee again!

Do you have a succession plan in place?

It has been said that a great leader is not the genius that surrounds himself with supporters, rather, a great leader is the one who teaches and trains others to one day do their job.

Great leaders develop a plan for success that outlives their tenure. PeopleKeys has been instrumental in helping companies of all sizes develop contingency plans and plans for succession that allow leaders to be recognized and nurtured so that companies can grow.

Are your executive compensation and employee benefits packages really motivating top performance?

Studies have shown more than half of all employees’ compensation packages miss the mark and reward other than great performance. They tend to over compensate employees without rewarding increased performance.

Monetary compensation, while important, is not ranked in the top five motivators for highly successful executives.

Let us help you customize a plan that serves its intended purpose. Rewarding people in the way that will motivate them best, keeping employees stimulated and encouraged. In turn, they will be more productive and less likely to be discouraged or leave.

Is your management team all pulling in the same direction and aligned with your organizational goals?

The people you trust with the greatest responsibility are highly self-motivated, perfectionistic and often have a high-ego strength.

Every “Top Gun” must learn that wars are not won or lost through the efforts of an individual. They are won through the highly synchronized efforts of a team supporting a common goal and direction of flight.

Can success be predicted in hiring?

This is a burning question for many who are asked to make hiring decisions. Hindsight has always been 20/20, while foresight is less than perfect. Good hiring managers use every tool available to try to predict success. However, many know that education, experience and references, while they are a good starting point, can hardly forecast productivity, attitude, team fit, or job fulfillment.

How do you hire winning people every time? On one end of the continuum is cloning your best performing employees and at the other end is gut instinct. Benchmarking falls somewhere in the middle. It isn’t a guaranteed magic path to the perfect hire, but it does significantly improve the employee filtering and selection process in record time.

What is a benchmark? A benchmark is a pre-determined set of assessment criteria used to filter the candidates in a particular position. In other words, the benchmark is the de facto “ideal candidate”. Criteria such as work history and education are already disclosed, but what is not known and generally doesn’t come out until later on the job, are soft skills such as personality, behavior, values, motivators, and team role fit. A PeopleKeys benchmark attempts to quantify a set of optimal soft skills targeted to each specific job position. In this way, PeopleKeys is attempting to “predict the success” of the candidate.


How are PeopleKeys benchmarks set? PeopleKeys can set benchmarks in three ways. The benchmarks, together or independent, set the tone for each candidate search.

1. Standard Benchmark: A benchmark may be set based upon standard benchmarks determined by 30+ years of statistics collection and analysis. PeopleKeys has standard benchmarks for hundreds of established positions. For example, Peoplekeys has assessed so many successful sales people in a variety of companies, that it generally knows what it takes to be a good salesperson. As a result, PeopleKeys has existing benchmarks for hiring winning sales people.

2. Occupational Keys: This feature of PeopleKeys allows a hiring manager to provide input to further tweak the benchmark. This 20-question evaluation, along with a detailed job description, can tailor a benchmark to any unique job need. In some cases, a standard established benchmark is not enough. Sometimes there are cultural differences – either corporate, or international – that may affect the benchmark, or a hiring manager may want to provide more specific input into a benchmark.

3. Custom Benchmark: The most targeted and optimal benchmark, the custom benchmark provides an in-depth study of the current top performers in a certain position. People within a company who are already performing at a high level can be assessed, and the results analyzed to provide a specific, custom benchmark. The benchmark study involves PeopleKeys consultants analyzing the top performer’s results along with the culture of the organization and position, to provide the benchmark. The benchmark study can be completed on up to 12 top performers.

Best Investment Advice for The New Year

"In this economic slump, invest in people for the greatest return."

If there aren't enough grim economic forecasts or doom and gloom on the evening news, one has only to look into one’s own portfolio or 401K to discover just how sour things have become. Regular investors have long been advised to invest in the stock market, diversify, and be patient. But our current environment has given way to a cut your loss mentality and the mattress suddenly seems to be the best place to stash money.

People have had no choice in the matter, either shoulder "the mother of all bailouts" or risk our entire economy. We’ve grown tired of learning about massive Ponzi schemes fueled by people who can’t resist a too-good-to-be-true investment. We have invested in state of the art electronic gadgets that we can’t afford and don’t last as long as the monthly charges on our credit cards.

This year, let’s invest in the things that provide long-term gains – people and relationships. It’s the only sound investment that works in any kind of market - bear, bull, up, down, sideways or corkscrew.

When we discover that markets, portfolios, gadgets, and things have empty returns, we will put our efforts in "human capital". For companies, that means treating employees like they are the greatest asset. It means hiring the right person for the right job based upon carefully benchmarked behaviors. It also means retaining their most valued assets.

For couples it means working on your relationship, discovering what makes your significant other tick, learning how to communicate best with them, and how to avoid and resolve misunderstandings.

Ironically, our recession has one silver lining - it has caused divorce rates to drop. Drops were recently reported in circuit courts all over the country. Because divorce is costly and complex, people are finding out that their marriage is worth working on. Toughing it out is now the lesser of two evils. For better or for worse, our own economic turmoils have made us concentrate on what we would have taken for granted or dismissed in a throw-away economy.

So before rolling the dice and keeping your fingers crossed, take a look at the greatest assets of your life. Maybe this year, we can rebuild the economy starting with our relationships.