Understanding Personality Differences with Jane Yow

“When you’re through learning; you’re through.”

By: Khon Bunsy

A vision session was held this Friday for the skill-building component of the Laval Entrepreneur Mentor Program. It involved mentees bringing in hand drawn posters representing their vision of where they wanted to be in the next five years. Everyone had the opportunity to share their vision with the group.

Connor Alstrom was in charge of providing this week’s lunch from “Fresno’s Finest Soup & Sandwich Café,” The Packing Shed.

Dak Feaster presented his personal entrepreneurial journey, sharing his important moments from the past, the lessons learned, and his projections for the future. Currently he is working on a subscription, loose-leaf tea business called, Varietea.

We had the pleasure having Jane Yow as our guest presenter this week. She attended college in Iowa and taught at Chicago Public Schools while pursuing a Masters Degree in Education and Psychology. She is also a presenter at national conferences, sharing her consulting expertise and experience. After hearing her speak at a conference, the CEO of Saint Agnes Hospital offered her a position. She decided to take the position, but after a change in leadership within the organization, she was laid off. She drove home devastated, but realized her opportunity to succeed; she could link people to their performance, thus positively affecting their bottom line. The day she drove home, she came up with the name The Performance Link. The name as gone unchanged and has been in business ever since.

Jane began by explaining the four different behavioral styles in the DISC Personal Profile Assessment. The four classical patterns are: dominance, influence, steadiness, and compliance. This was reinforcement on what was learned before for the veterans, but for new mentees, this was a chance to learn about their own behavior style according to the results of their individual assessments. Understanding the DISC Profile is important because knowing our own personalities, as well as others’ personalities, will help foster a more productive organization and lifestyle. Jane notes, “If you really understand the DISC Profile, you will succeed.”

Near the tail end of the session, we broke into groups and shared each other’s profile results. This exercise was helpful in learning about the behavioral tendencies of new members, as well as those new members learning personality information from the veterans. Jane pointed out, “If you don’t know how to work with others, your business will fail.”

According to Jane, “Everyone is a leader, what kind of leader one chooses to be separates the average leader from the good ones.” Understanding one’s own personality, as well as others, is essential for work/personal relationship success. All in all, it becomes clear it’s the “people stuff” which translates to the bottom line. Having knowledge of the different dynamics of each person in an organization will have a beneficial impact to the bottom line.

While sharing a personal story, Jane gave some advice given to her by her mother; “when you’re through learning, you’re through.” For many entrepreneurs, learning is a never-ending process whether it’s learning something new about their business or learning about the people within their organization. Success in both, professional and personal relationships is a learning process; one must continue the process through life in order to continue this progression.

Thank you Jane Yow for your involvement with the Lyle Center and for sharing your wisdom with us, your positive energy is greatly appreciated.