Personality Profiling...

I went for a 2-day course today. It was an interesting course. The coursemates are quick nice people too. The age range of my coursemates are between 24 to 40s. They are quite funny too. I look forward to more tomorrow. The trainer is very good too. He's able to help me to see things in other prospectives as well. After this course, I guess I have to help my head of department to design better programmes for my organisation.

At the course itself, we learnt about our personality and facilitation style. According to Dr Gary Couture's version of DISC, I am a Dove, followed by an Owl.

I tried looking for other personality profile test found online and here's the results.

Anyway, according to Dr Couture's version, the Dove means...

The compassionate and peaceful dove is people-orientated, loyal, friendly hard working and a great team player but tends to avoid change, confrontation, risk-taking and assertiveness.

What you naturally do well...

• You're a natural "people person" and enjoy helping other people succeed.
• You're good at building relationships and networking – the key to your success.
• You get fulfillment from satisfying social needs like friendship, sense of belonging and community service.
• You're a team player, loyal, easy to get along with, patient and reliable.
• You are happy to follow plans as part of a team, but not necessarily on your own.
• You are motivated by relationships, shared goals, community service and the common good.

What to watch out for...

• You are not a natural goal setter and focus more on the needs of others than your own.
• If you do set goals, they are more likely based on what other people think you should do rather than what you really want.
• You have difficulty confronting problems and asserting yourself.
• You tend to avoid conflict and risk taking, particularly on your own. You tend to resist change.
• You're not a good planner and don't particularly like detail.

Tips for goal setting success...

• Think about yourself for a change and put your needs first.
• Don't be influenced by others in setting your goals – the goals need to be yours and yours alone.
• Make sure you are diligent in asking, "Why do I want to achieve this goal?"
• The answer should NOT be "...because so-and-so said I should".
• Don't sacrifice your own goals to keep someone else happy.
• As a dove you will find success through your "people skills", relationships and networking.
• Recruit other people to help you achieve your goals – people like you and will happily be involved.

Being able to foster good relationships with people is important for goal setting and a successful life as you will need to rely on other people along the way for support, advice, guidance and "favours". Productive business partnerships can be made or lost on the basis of how well you get on with other business partners and even in your career– it's not WHAT you know, but WHO you know!

But building a good relationship is not about kissing the proverbial butt at the expense of everyone else – and fostering partnerships with your peers and your staff is also vital for success, as it is these people who can help support you from the ground up and lift you to success.

In fact people who appear to only want a relationship with someone "important" are seen through very quickly, and this trait isn't viewed very kindly particularly by the people you're trying to impress.

So it's important to build a relationship of some kind with everyone in your circle – some relationships will be stronger and more important than others, but it's important not to leave anyone out of your circle you never know when you may need to rely on them for something.
And of course the best thing about building partnerships is that it is enjoyable! Social activity is a stimulant and gives you a great buzz, and the best relationships are the ones where there is no obligation to provide or return a favour – you just enjoy each other’s company.