Glossary
Management jargon, translated into plain English
Management and coaching vocabulary is full of words that sound precise and are used loosely. These are the definitions we work from.
- DISCDISC assessment · DISC profile
DISC is a behavioural model describing four preferences — Dominance, Influence, Steadiness and Conscientiousness — used to understand how someone tends to communicate and decide at work.
DISC describes behaviour rather than personality, and describes it in a working context specifically. It is deliberately simple: four preferences, observable in a meeting, usable within minutes of meeting someone.
Its value is practical rather than diagnostic. Knowing that a counterpart prefers conclusions before detail changes how you open a conversation. It does not tell you what they are like as a person, and treating a profile as a verdict is the most common way DISC is misused.
- EnneagramEnneagram of personality
The Enneagram is a model of nine personality patterns, each defined by a core motivation and a core fear. It describes why someone acts, where a behavioural model describes how.
Two people can behave almost identically for opposite reasons — one avoiding failure, the other pursuing recognition. The Enneagram addresses that layer, which is why it is used alongside DISC rather than instead of it.
It is not a psychometric instrument and has not been validated as one. We use it as a structured way to think about motivation and to have a more useful conversation, and we say so in the room rather than overclaiming.
- Peer coaching circleCodevelopment · Co-development
A peer coaching circle is a small group of managers who meet regularly and work on one member’s real problem per session, under a structure that forbids premature advice.
The structure is what makes it work. Left alone, a group of managers given a colleague’s problem will offer solutions within ninety seconds — usually to a problem they have misunderstood. The format forces a phase of clarifying questions first, and the reformulation that follows frequently changes what the problem was.
Circles can eventually run without a facilitator, which is the point of them.
- Proximity bias
Proximity bias is the tendency to favour colleagues who are physically present — in visibility, in opportunities and in performance assessment — over equally performing colleagues who are remote.
It operates without intent, which is what makes it persistent. Work gets assigned to whoever is in the corridor; informal information circulates among whoever is in the room; and assessment quietly rewards observed effort over delivered output.
The correction is procedural rather than attitudinal. Deciding in advance how work is allocated and how performance is evidenced removes most of the effect, where resolving to be fairer removes almost none of it.
- Situational leadership
Situational leadership is the practice of varying how much direction and how much support you give according to a person’s readiness for a specific task, rather than managing everyone the same way.
Readiness is task-specific, not person-specific: the same experienced colleague may need close direction on something unfamiliar and none at all on their core work. Managers who treat readiness as a fixed property of the person get this consistently wrong in both directions.
Competence and confidence are also separate. Someone can be fully capable and still need support, and the response to that is not more instruction.
- Team coaching
Team coaching is facilitated work with an intact team over several months, aimed at changing how the group operates rather than resolving one question or teaching one method.
It differs from training, which teaches a method, and from a seminar, which settles a question in one or two days. Team coaching targets habits: how the group decides, disagrees, and escalates.
Because habits change slowly, the format requires spacing. Sessions sit four to six weeks apart, and the work between them matters more than the sessions themselves.