MindLab 2019 Report

I’d like to share what DeAnne and I learned at MindLab 2019. We went to Denver a couple of weeks ago to the MindLab conference put on by Wiley. We are Wiley partners, both with Everything DiSC® and The Five Behaviors™. We attended keynotes, breakout sessions, and other events to learn about what’s going on now, future trends, and to hear from some thought leaders in these areas. We like to learn how Wiley Workplace solutions is adapting and developing as a result of current and future trends.

Then, we like to see how we can fit in to that so we can execute our mission, which is to help you develop leaders who motivate and teams who love working together.

There was a lot of talk about FANG.

This was a new acronym for me. It stands for—

Facebook

Amazon

Netflix

Google

We all use those things. We expect things to be personalized, on demand, and connected. Not just connected to us, but connected to each other. Think about recommendations based on previous purchases. We have this at home, but not at work.

We go to work, and everything we experience is anywhere between two and ten years old in terms of software, technology, and the way things are done. And then we go home, and it’s 2019 again. So how do we  keep up with that?

At Group Dynamic, we think we do pretty good at keeping things personalized, on demand, and connected. We have an email series following most of our programs. We’ve developed thoughtful leave-behinds to help keep the learning alive. We try to keep ourselves available for anyone who does a session with us to talk about follow up if they get stuck. And with Wiley, if you’ve done any kind of DiSC assessment in recent years, you’re aware of MyEverythingDiSC, which is an online resource you can use after you’re done. You can generate comparison reports with others who have completed a DiSC assessment. But that’s just the start.

There’s a lot more that’s coming.

I’m most excited about Skill Builders, which is a personalized-to-you way for you to solve very specific problems. The one that’s being beta tested right now is, “What if you have something difficult or challenging to share with your boss?” So if you’ve taken Everything DiSC Management and would like to beta test this, please shoot us an email, and we can get you included on that.

There’s going to be more on demand tools online to support the assessments you’ve taken, but also, in subtle way, they will connect the different DiSC assessments you’ve taken, if you’ve taken more than one from the family.

We learned some statistics. Here’s one that troubled us: only 3% of people who have taken a DiSC assessment have taken more than one DiSC assessment. For example, someone who has taken DiSC Workplace, they say, “I’ve done DiSC.” Ninety-seven people will say “I’ve done DiSC,” if they’ve only taken DiSC Work of Leaders. It’s a little disheartening to hear someone say that when they’ve only taken one DiSC assessment from the suite. The first time you take a DiSC assessment is an entry point, and then you can enhance the way you use DiSC to improve the lives of those around you, and your own work life, and get a lot more done with less stress. Group Dynamic has always worked hard at this, so now it’s nice that Wiley is supporting this in terms of changing the We’ve-done-DiSC, One-and-done to a more of a return-and-learn, We’re-started-DiSC or We’re-incorporating-DiSC mentality.

If you’re watching this, then you know DiSC is good stuff.  And you’re not alone.

Another statistic is that DiSC has a 94% satisfaction rating from the people who use it.

I’m really excited about Wiley’s intentional approach. It’s really consistent with our mission to always be partnering with our clients over the long term, to give you whatever you need for better leadership and great team relationships.

There are three specific product-related announcements. But first, here are a couple of stats that caught our attention:

• When culture is healthy, organizations experience a 14% turnover.
• When a culture is unhealthy, organizations experience a 48% turnover.

Healthy conflict leads to greater retention. It adds security, and frankly, it’s better financially for organizations. 

• When it comes to conflict, a typical employee spends 2.8 hours each week in unhealthy or unproductive conflict.
• Managers spend 25% of their time dealing with conflict between others.

There are some future trend studies about what jobs we will need going forward. For example, basic technical jobs will not be required as much for jobs in the future because of automation and artificial intelligence. Technological prowess will be a much bigger part of jobs going forward. But—

• By the year 2030, there will be a 24% increase in work hours requiring emotional intelligence.

This makes the work we do even more important than ever.

So, a report about three products:

1. Everything DiSC Productive Conflict®. Productive Conflict has been around for a year. Many of you have done it, many of you have not. So, in order to incentivize people who have done the basic DiSC Workplace® to do Productive Conflict, Wiley is offering a temporary discount on the price of the Productive Conflict assessment. It’s a $25/person discount on our participant fee. If you want to do Productive Conflict, and you’ve done Workplace before, now is the time to do it because it’s slightly less expensive.
2. Something coming out this fall that’s related to emotional intelligence is the second round of beta testing for the Everything DiSC Agile EQ. Some of you did the first beta test. It’s very exciting and really good. (This is my thought here: In order for this to be absolutely perfect, I think this assessment will be in beta for over a year, and once it’s released, it’s going to be the thing.) Please let us know if you want to beta test Agile EQ in its second round of beta.
3. Here’s what’s most exiting: right now, there is a new assessment in the Five Behaviors™ family called The Five Behaviors™: Personal Development. Some of you have done or thought about doing The Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team, which is very intense, very specific to your team, and takes one to three days to go through. Then, once you’ve gone through the process, your team is much, much, much stronger, and you know a lot more about how you work together. It’s a fresh start for a lot of teams. But, it’s pretty intense, and very personal, and requires a lot of vulnerability. Now, with Five Behaviors: Personal Development, there’s a way to understand how individuals approach all five of those elements of being part of a cohesive team—trust, conflict, commitment, accountability, and results. This is more like a standard assessment that measures your strengths in some areas and shows areas of opportunity in others, and how you can be more effective. This assessment would be good for a team that’s not in-tact; participants can just be individual contributors all coming together to learn. We are very, very excited about this assessment, so shoot us an email if you’d like to learn more.

So that’s our report from MindLab 2019. That was a lot to share, and I appreciate if you watched/read to this point. It was a big event. There were trends to know about and work along with as we help you develop leaders who motivate and teams who love working together.