Have you ever tried an Escape Room challenge? They are adventure strategy games with time limits, where escaping wins the game. If you've ever tried it, you'll see DISC styles under pressure!
What better setting to show DISC styles under pressure than to be locked in a room with family, friends, coworkers, and even strangers? Our team of six took on the challenge, but what was really in store for us?
What is an Escape Room Challenge?
Wikipedia describes Escape Room as a physical adventure game. Players solve puzzles using clues to finish and escape before the time is up. It's a game filled with time limits, tight spaces, and frenzied interacting players. Your group has to work together to win. Challenging right?
Game Designed to Show DISC Styles Under Pressure
Our room was built like an Old West bank and cramped with props. This was supposed to be all fun and games, but the pressure's on from the start. As the door closed, the wall clock starts to tick down. Wait a minute! Aren't we supposed to receive instructions? Nope, the door closed and we were off and running. We had exactly 60 minutes to rob the bank and escape with the loot. We ran around frantically in search of clues that would open the safe and win the prize.
Crazy people running around, racing against the clock, multi-tasking and trying to figure things out all sounds like a typical day at the office right? You may be used to juggling emails, meetings, and deadlines, but you go home exhausted and frazzled. You spent countless hours in meetings trying to get your opinion heard. Your co-worker is trying to explain something to you. She totally gets what she's trying to tell you, but wonders why you don't. You wonder how she could possibly think anyone can understand her explanation. The project deadline is looming. You are both frustrated.
What if there was a tool that could make our workdays more effective? Knowing our DISC styles under pressure can help us achieve so much more.
Tool to Help DISC Styles Under Pressure
There's no way to eliminate pressure, but we can control how we react to it; especially if we have a behavior action plan prepared. If you develop a strategic response plan to common situations, then you will be better prepared to manage stressful settings. However, you need a place to start. You can start by understanding how you naturally prefer to do things or knowing your DISC profile. Your DISC assessment shows how you prefer to communicate, what motivates you, how you show up under pressure, and more.
Once you understand DISC and are more self-aware of your own DISC style, then you can move on to how you interact with others. DISC helps you to identify the main DISC style of others, which gives you more information about the person. Ultimately, the key to the 4-step process is to adjust your behaviors appropriately to improve your interactions. You are in control. That's good news.
But, when you are stressed or feeling emotional, the focus and energy you'd normally use to make the adjustments isn't there. In the Escape Room Challenge you're excited, feeling competitive, and racing the clock. Players are hurling information and demands at you from every direction. You are doing the same thing to others. Emotions get higher and higher and the situation can quickly escalate into chaos.
How Did Our DISC Styles Under Pressure Do?
It can happen in a game and it can happen to us in our daily lives. That's why exercises like the Escape Room Challenge are useful. They remind us that when we are emotional and stressed, our DISC Styles are more likely to show up. However, the behaviors that are most natural to us are not always the most effective in the current setting. Whenever possible, you need to evaluate, before situations come up, how we can better modify our DISC style.
Obviously, we escaped. I will even brag that we did it in record time, but there was lot of confusion, misunderstanding, and arguments. We definitely could have worked better as a team, but hey, it was just a game, this time around. I know you want to know how we actually escaped, right? Let's just say there were some locks cracked, unarmed spontaneous shots fired, and bombs detonated. Sorry, but I'm not giving away the secrets to escaping. You will just have to win it on your own!
