HileThoughts

Prior to our opening retreat we have all taken the DISC assessment ( an "assessment" not a "test") that describes our leadership behaviors. According to the presenter, like the Myers-Briggs it is based on Jungian theory, though the presentation does not stress this nor do I see an obvious connection.

Four dimensions are described and we are asked to self select the one that we feel most closely reflects how we are at work. For my part I select the "detail oriented and completion focused" C type as slightly more important to me than the D type with its "get it done attitude." Meeting with others who also find affinity with this dimension is a lot like talking to myself. What my C group members describe doing is exactly what I to do as a matter of course.

When we get our actual results I find that I am must know myself pretty well. I was indeed highest in C followed, lower by a single point, by D. Termed creative by the DISC report it reflects my interest in the specific details of getting things to work and the desire to actually get things to work and to make decisions.

As a psychologist, trained in assessment, I find the results of assessments I take about myself fascinating. Do I see myself in the results? Do I see others in the assessment? Can I see how a particular individual might score and why they and I have the relationship that we do? In this case I can answer yes to all of these question.

But more interesting to me are the questions from the group. I have taught for the last 10 years at the American Ethical Union’s Lay Leadership Summer School. There we have traditionally taught and used the Myers-Briggs. So, as I listen to and participate in the DISC portion of our weekend it is with both ears - as a LSL participant and as a faculty doing similar work for the AEU. The questions and comments from the groups are remarkably similar.

I am both this way AND that way, it depends on the situation.

Is my score related to American or world cultures?

These were hard questions to answer.

How can this be valid?

There is more to me than this.

The presenter fields the questions carefully, stressing the ideas that this is "only one data point," that we each have a unique personality, and that we cannot be fully described by the pattern of four scales. 

For me, the idea of assessment seems so natural. That those few questions on the assessment, hard as they were to answer, do seem to accurately describe things about the way I think and work. Yet it is clear that my response is idiosyncratic. Others are clearly concerned reading more, or less, into the assessment then is there.

When I last used the Myers-Briggs in Summer School I worked hard at minimizing the stress the assessment caused our students by presenting it as a useful heuristic. That helped some. But no more than the comments of our DISC presenter. The questions and concerns remain the same. Perhaps that is just the way it is going to be.

Last weekend was the LSL’s class of 08-09 first official meeting, a two day overnight stay at the Cedar Creak Conference Center in New Haven Missouri. With a mixture of trepidation and excitement my car pool drove an hour out of St. Louis into Missouri’s lovely wine country. Who will be our roommates? What do those cryptic agenda items really mean? What will we learn about ourselves? About others? About our region?

Confidentiality and these posts

Early on we have a discussion about our ground rules. Taking as a basis the rules adopted by the previous class, we are invited to question and add as we felt appropriate. The question that I raised was the rule of confidentiality - what was its intentions, where were its limits. The answer, as one of my classmates later put it, was not particularly "crisp." The sense that I got was that I should avoid quoting presenters who might be letting more show than they would in a typical public setting. That this should extend to my classmates who will be conversing openly and frankly with each other based on a mutual respect for our multiplicity of views, positions, and cultural backgrounds. And, finally, that I should not be to explicit about some group’s events and activities so as to preserve the mystery and sense of anticipation for future classes. (Certainly people I have talked with from previous classes have  been pretty vague when talking about the program with me.)

So I will endeavor to follow the spirit of these guidelines while writing these words. I will do this as I also attempt to follow another of our accepted guidelines, to "commit to act upon the new knowledge gained in LSL outside of the group." Should any of my classmates come upon these words and feel that I have not followed these commitments please give me an "ouch" and I will respond.

Connections

Some of the goals of this retreat were to have us learn about ourselves, to meet all of our classmates, and to start the conversation about our region that we will continue over the next nine months (and most likely beyond). I have not been a participant at this sort of retreat for ten years, since I was a student at the American Ethical Union’s Lay Leadership Summer School. Yet the excitement about meeting new people, with widely divergent (and to a person fascinating) backgrounds is still there.

We are divided into groups for activities; each time a different group, each time a different activity. We are encouraged to sit in different areas of the room during our meetings. To eat with people we do not know. We wear our name tags at all times (a great support for my name challenged memory) and always introduce ourselves as we stand to speak. We are given a photo, name, bio directory of our class. All with the goal that we should meet and know each of our 65 classmates. It is a whirlwind as I try to keep track of names and stories. I missed meeting some folks during the two days but will make it up to them as we continue to work together.

In the end I found that the meeting met its goal of connection. I thoroughly enjoyed the people I met, worked with, and played with. I felt a connection with people who two days before had been nervous freshmen. I also heard the start of a community with people helping others solve problems and reaching out to share ideas and resources. Not bad for the first two days.