Naja Amelung about Conflict Management
"Everyone wants fewer conflicts and misunderstandings"
Everything DiSC® is an indispensable tool for Naja Amelung when she helps organizations create harmonious and effective teams. It shows where the shoes pinch and indicates a better way.
How did you come across Everything DiSC®?
”It starts all the way back to 2007, when I was certified for the first time. At the time, I worked as an organizational development consultant in a municipality. A few of us in the department agreed that we needed a tool for staff and management development. Everything DiSC® was a big eye opener for me and I’ve been using it ever since – for the past 10 years as a freelancer. Today I use it mainly for team development courses of shorter and longer duration. Often the customer comes to me with a specific challenge that needs to be solved. It may be that you are constituting a new team or a board, and therefore want to utilize the resources best possible from the beginning. But typically the occasion is more problematic. It could be that a team often has conflicts or shows clear indication that it is not thriving. Or it could be that a manager learns that some teams are not performing as they should. In all cases, Everything DiSC® is eminent for discerning the dynamics of the collaboration. What exactly happens between employees when a team stalls or just doesn’t function? Why do some work well together, while others avoid each other? I would like the team to find ways to regulate these things themselves, so they don’t have to run everything by the boss.”
"In all cases, Everything DiSC® is eminent for discerning the dynamics of the collaboration."
How do you approach team development in practice?
”There are a number of fixed basic steps. First of all, I invest my energy in discerning what my customer’s challenges are and what they want to attain with the process. When that is in place, I invite all participants to meet – either physically or as an online session. Here I give them a brief introduction to Everything DiSC. It is important to establish that the profile is not a test, but is based on an analysis of the questions answered by the respondent himself.
And it is especially important to be told that there is nothing right and wrong about some of the profiles. You don’t have to pass anything, and the profiles are equally valuable, because in a team they precisely contribute something different and therefore together help to create the joint success. Those points are important to convey from the start, because it takes the sting out of any reservations the participants may have. The parades are lowered and then everyone is ready for the next step, which is to take an Everything DiSC profile. They then all receive thorough, individual feedback from me, so that they both gain insight into their own strengths and challenges as well as a look at how they interact with their colleagues. It gives quite a few cool aha experiences. And it also does when we ultimately all meet for a joint team day, where we match the profiles against the themes the customer would like to have strengthened. For example, mutual communication, stronger collaboration or increased self-management. Then the realizations really start to come in.”
"And it is especially important to be told that there is nothing right or wrong about some of the profiles. You don't have to pass anything, and the profiles are equally valuable, because in a team they precisely contribute something different and therefore together help to create the joint success."
What insights and skills will the participants take with them?
“They become a lot smarter about themselves and learn to understand their colleagues better, including the dynamics that make the collaboration not always take shape as they want it to. Just the fact that on the last day we target the learning from the Everything DiSC profiles to the participants’ everyday life at work makes a difference. I can see that they gain a deeper understanding and respect for each other. It’s so easy to just avoid those we don’t fully understand or misinterpret their signals. But when you suddenly understand why people do what they do, you immediately become much more tolerant. Remember that basically everyone wants to be part of a workplace where you thrive and collaborate well. With Everything DiSC, you get an overview of the possibilities and a common everyday language to articulate what is happening in the room. At the same time, it becomes clear if a team lacks certain resources in order to perform better. And it becomes clear that some employees spend an unreasonable amount of energy on fitting into the norms defined by the majority (ones profiles, ed.). So part of the exercise is definitely also about the individual employee getting better at putting into words what he or she needs in his or her work. Including speaking up when something drains them of energy.”
How do you ensure that the points are put into practice?
“I am super concerned that the insights should lead to a new and better practice. Otherwise, it doesn’t matter. First of all, it is about sticking to the learning when everyday life presents itself. This can be done, for example, by committing each other to use the DiSC tools in planning the daily tasks, or by meeting with me at fixed intervals to gather information on how things are going. I do that with some of my clients. And then I hand out posters where all team members can plot themselves on a DiSC overview, so that everyone gets a daily reminder of what drives the colleagues. It provides an overview and something to talk about when a given situation needs to be analyzed. A funny detail is that the GDPR regulations actually mean that the posters must not be seen by others, so I have several customers who have placed the poster on the back of the toilet door. After all, it must be seen by everyone in the team a few times a day. When I talk to old customers, it is often the same message that repeats itself when the effect has to be assessed. Team development in itself works to prevent conflict, and with fewer conflicts comes better teamwork and better well-being. The team simply performs better, and employee turnover is lower, which of course also affects the bottom line in the end.”
How is your cooperation with DISCnordic?
”Perfect. They are always there to help and support me, and I actually consider them a kind of colleagues. I chose DISCnordic at the time because they are down to earth, and I still have that feeling 100 percent. I’m also quite excited about their reports – both the graphics and the language. It’s understandable, and if I stumble across something linguistic in the profiles, they are always responsive.”
The article is translated from Danish by Google Translate.
AMELUNG
AMELUNG strengthens wellbeing in organizations through practical leader and team development, courses and leadership coaching. The company is run by Naja Amelung, who, among other things, has extensive knowledge of the teaching area and the special education field.