Relationships and dynamics

While we can analyse individual behavioural profiles en masse to provide an overall picture of a team's likely performance, its everyday functioning is more closely affected by individual relationships within the team. An understanding of the ways that individual members interact with one another can be crucial to developing a clear picture of the way the team works, especially on a short- to medium-term basis. We use the term 'relationship' here exclusively to describe bilateral interactions (that is, interactions between two individual team members). Most interactions within the team will take place in such a bilateral manner, or can be considered in these terms. There are exceptions, however, especially those situations in which one member (usually the leader) addresses all the other members of the group. In these situations, the likely actions and reactions of the team are better considered in more general terms.

When analysing an individual relationship between two members, the key concept is that of the dynamic, a concept that describes a specific element of the relationship. In the rest of this section, we'll consider how dynamics work, and how they can be used to build a picture of the ways in which a relationship can be expected to operate.

Note that an understanding of the way dynamics work is to some extent dependent on a grounding in the basic principles of DISC theory. If you are new to DISC, you may wish to review, especially, the contents of the DISC Factors & Sub-traits section of this site.

Introduction to Dynamics

A dynamic is a basic unit of interaction, derived by examining a combination of two DISC profiles. The number of dynamics within a given relationship is not fixed, but is instead dependent on the complexity of the individual profiles. Some rare combinations yield no dynamics at all, while the maximum number is twelve, for each profile being considered.

To derive dynamics from a combination of profiles, we look at the high and low factors that appear in each of the two individual profiles. For example, if one profile shows a high Dominance score, and the other a low Steadiness score, then the dynamic 'High Dominance to Low Steadiness' appears in the relationship (usually written 'D>s' for short).

Because the behaviours associated with each DISC factor are known, it is possible to interpret the ways in which the two factors (one from each profile) will interact with one another. This analysis gives us a basis for interpretation of one element of the relationship.

Applying the principle of dynamics to a real relationship within a real team provides some useful insights into the ways in which the two members concerned will interact with one another. By examining each factor on each profile individually, we can construct a list of all the dynamics that bear upon that particular relationship and use this to gain an understanding of the actions and reactions of each of the two individuals.

There are a total of sixty-four possible dynamics, of which up to twenty-four can appear in a given relationship between two individuals (though this is rare).

Because the calculation of dynamics works through an examination of the high and low factors in two profiles, it is necessary that both profiles contain at least one high or low factor. Dynamics cannot, then, be generated where one or both of the profiles under consideration is 'compressed' (that is, all the factors lie near the centre of the profile, and none can be considered to be high or low). The same situation applies in reality as well as theory: it is difficult to predict how a member with a 'compressed' profile will react within a relationship, and so we cannot reliably attempt to produce an analysis in this situation.

It is important to remember that dynamics have a direction associated with them. They describe the relationship from the point of view of one or other of the members involved. To clarify, consider the High Dominance to Low Steadiness (D>s) dynamic we have already discussed. This describes an aspect of the relationship from specifically the point of view of the highly Dominant member. To see how the other member (with low Steadiness) viewed the relationship we would need to consider the opposite of this dynamic, Low Steadiness to High Dominance (s>D) which would yield a different perspective.

This is an important point to bear in mind. Often, the two individuals concerned have different (sometimes very different) subjective views of their relationship with one another. It is necessary to look at dynamics from both sides to reach an understanding of the way the relationship works.

The exception to this occurs where the factors involved in the dynamic are identical (for example, the dynamic that occurs between to members with high Compliance scores, C>C). In this specific case, the dynamic is 'symmetrical', and both members view the relationship in essentially the same way.

Before we move on to look at some examples of relationship dynamics in practical use, it is important to point out the limitation of this approach. Dynamics are a powerful tool in discovering the underlying behavioural workings of relationship, but they cannot take account of factors outside this area. Working relationships are necessarily affected by conditions outside behaviour per se. This applies especially with regard to past actions - members' views of one another will necessarily be coloured by each other's previous activities and decisions, whether good or bad. While the underlying behavioural factors remain, such external considerations cannot be interpreted through the concept of the dynamic.

Examples of Dynamics

The easiest way to understand how dynamics work in practice is to consider some practical examples. Here, we will look at some of the more common dynamics, and see how it is possible to extract useful information from them regarding the relationship to which they apply.

The standard dynamic notation, incidentally, simply uses capital letters to denote high factors, and lower-case letters to signify low factors. So, for example, 'S>S' would reflect a dynamic between two highly Steady individuals, while 'c>c' indicates a dynamic between two individuals who share low Compliance.

Remember that there are a total of sixty-four possible dynamics. The examples shown here demonstrate only a few of the more common manifestations found in working teams.