D.I.S.C.over yourself !!!

At first I thought that the diagnostic was only half right; it named me as being primarily conscientious and secondary steady. I agreed entirely with the steady aspect, but I heartily disagreed with the conscientious. After consulting with my friends and getting their opinions, it was fairly apparent that they thought the test had described me extremely accurate. But I personally did not know if I believed the results. After thinking about it, I realized that I was having a hard time believing the results because I did not like being called conscientious. In the face of dominance, influence and conscientious, I would much rather have been influential, and then dominating before conscientious. I suppose that developed from the fact that my entire family is very strong willed and either falls into the dominating category or extremely influential category; I have learned from them, their behavior, and interactions with them that one must be outwards, and push, and very forceful from time to time to get their way; This applies especially to me when I believe that more often than not I have the best ideas in my family, but other individuals might be more apt to argue and fight to get their way. I have learned from experience that after a brief confrontation I am very likely to give up my stance and avoid hurting someone else's feelings, despite how strongly I feel. This is about where I decided that the test was completely right and that I just flat out wasn't entirely happy with that fact. But in retrospect, did I have good reason to believe that my profile was the profile of someone who was invaluable to a company? The answer is no, I did not have reason to look upon my future with doubt. As I have just mentioned, my family is quite strong-willed. Even though it is not necessarily the strongest characteristic in my nature to be strong-willed and "force" my ideas through, I have learned over time how to do it. This can be very valuable when I am completely sure that I am right and that the other person is making a grave mistake. Also, when Professor K began to explain the strengths and weaknesses of each class, I realized that for my intended profession, which lies within the financial world, prudence, accuracy, and consideration are very valuable assets. These characteristics unfortunately do not provide me with an edge to make the big, blockbuster securities-trade or IPO, but they do position me well to avoid undertaking extremely risky positions and losing clients' money. I play poker in the same manner, very sure handed and calculated, and I am lucky enough to have won more often than I lose. Another aspect that I was happy to hear about my characteristics is that I was someone who can be trusted in almost any capacity. Not only do I consider myself to be trustworthy, but I consider myself to be a Jack of all trades; Or at least I am attempting to develop myself into the caricature while in college. Personally I think that I would put a substantial amount of stock in this personality profile test, but I would not trust it completely. People change over time, and although I am a CS now, I can develop into a DI after a few more years with my family. The value of this test lies in the fact that we all bring different inherent attributes to the table and that as managers we must realize that the same approach and personality is not best for every situation. Rather we must change our approach to better accommodate situations, or if we can not change our approach, we must find someone whose personality type is ideal for the moment at hand. I believe this was very apparent in the Stranded scenario. In this scenario, two details, which are fairly minor, influence which type of managing personality would perform best. The issues are 1) The limitation on time that they have. 2) The amount of information that is readily available regarding the situation. For instance, if their was a time constraint of a few hours left to live, then their really is no time to sit and discuss; I would rather be with the dominating personality then because most likely he or she would be able to incite action in the survivors and would be able to quickly coordinate them. This would be far better than wasting time analyzing the situation. However, if their was a large amount of time, it might be best if a conscientious or steady decision maker was in charge, because he or she would probably encourage the group to come to the most logical and efficient way at achieving survival, whether that is staying still or attempting to find help. The influential class would midway between both of the aforementioned extremes, and would help in either case, although I think that in either case he or she would be too ineffective. The second constraint, the amount of readily available information is also an influencer of who should be in charge. For instance, if someone knows survival information, or has a gps satellite, there is very little if any need for discussion and planning. In that case the answer is essential deterministic rather than probabilistic, and a dominating or influential personality would be better suited to develop results at a faster pace. In there is very little information known, then a plan is needed to determine what is most likely occurring and how to best deal with the situation. In this case, a steady personality would be best, while a conscientious personality would be helpful. Although, I must admit that I think that a too conscientious person might waste too much time in giving everyone a say in what is and is not an option for survival. The steady personality would be better because the analysis would quickly weed out those options and suggestions which clearly do not provide substantial value to the group. But remember, these are just my ideas pertaining to the stranded! discussion. In any discussion or situation, who would be the best leader is very dependant on the parameters of that discussion; For instance, who makes the best teachers is very dependant on the area of the world you are in; In high power societies such as China or India, dominating teachers or influential teachers are preferred. However in low power societies such as America or South America, conscientious teachers or steady teachers are most likely preferred.