Same deadline, four different reactions

When a client moves a deadline, four people on one team react in four different ways. Each of them acts for a good reason, and each is misread by at least one of the others. Seeing both sides tells you what to say first.

By the WiredType team

When a plan changes at the last minute, most of us react before we have had time to think, and we react in much the same way every time. DISC, a model of behaviour the psychologist William Marston described in 1928, sorts these habits into four styles: Dominance, Influence, Steadiness and Conscientiousness. Most people lean towards one or two of them.

Your style shapes more than how you react. It also shapes how you read other people’s reactions. Under pressure we judge each other through our own worry, and much of the friction on a team starts there.

Thursday afternoon

Dante, Sofia, Nadia and Elena work on one team. Dante leans towards Dominance (D), Sofia towards Influence (I), Nadia towards Steadiness (S) and Elena towards Conscientiousness (C). At 2:40 on a Thursday a client emails all four of them to say the launch has moved up two days.

By three o’clock Dante has cut two features, moved testing to Monday and sent everyone their new tasks in a four-line message. Sofia calls the whole team to the meeting table so everyone hears the news together. Nadia says nothing and opens the schedule, because one of the two people who report to her is out on Monday. Elena replies to the client with six questions, one of them about whether Friday’s review still happens.

Dante (D): “Two days are gone. Get them back.”

What Dante was thinking. The fastest way to protect the launch was to decide at once, so he decided and told everyone. He left the reasons out because they seemed obvious to him.

How Nadia and Elena read it. Nadia saw new tasks arrive with no question about who could take them on. To her, the message said Dante had not thought about the people doing the work, and she took its shortness as irritation. Elena saw two features cut with no reason given, and read the decision as a guess made in a hurry.

What helps. Dante can add one sentence of reason to each decision. “We’re cutting the export feature because the client never asked for it” takes ten seconds and lets Nadia and Elena see his thinking. If you work with someone like Dante, read a short message as speed, and ask for the reason when you need it.

Sofia (I): “Let’s face this together.”

What Sofia was thinking. Bad news lands harder when people get it alone, so she brought everyone to one table. In the same meeting she told the client’s project lead “we can absolutely do that” about a feature Dante had just cut, because she wanted the client to feel looked after.

How Dante and Elena read it. To Dante, the meeting was an hour of talk while the deadline came closer, and the promise to the client undid a decision he had already made. He took it as Sofia not listening. Elena was troubled by the same promise for another reason: nobody had checked whether the team could keep it.

What helps. Sofia can write down who does what before the meeting ends, and check that list before she promises the client anything. If you work with someone like Sofia, see the meeting as her way of keeping the team together, and give her the facts before she speaks for the team.

Nadia (S): “Who is going to carry this?”

What Nadia was thinking. Her colleague’s Monday work would now fall on someone else. She did not want to raise it in front of everyone and have it sound like a complaint, so she waited for a quieter moment.

How Dante and Sofia read it. Dante heard no objection and took Nadia’s silence as a yes. Sofia saw Nadia nodding at the table and assumed she was fine. Neither of them asked her, and the quieter moment never came.

What helps. Nadia can say, “I need ten minutes with you about Monday,” which raises the problem without making a scene. If you work with someone like Nadia, ask her directly and in private what she needs. Silence from an S often means “not yet”.

Elena (C): “What will this cost us later?”

What Elena was thinking. A faster launch is worth nothing if it breaks the contract, so she wanted the facts before anyone acted. Her question about Friday’s review turned up a clause in the contract: the client’s sign-off depended on that review.

How Dante and Sofia read it. To Dante, six questions while he was trying to move felt like stalling, and he wondered whether Elena was against the new date. Sofia read the questions as doubt, which worried her because she wanted the team to feel confident.

What helps. Elena can put the most important question first and say why it matters: “The contract requires the Friday review. Can we keep it?” If you work with someone like Elena, read her questions as care about the result, and give her a straight answer, even if it is “we don’t know yet”.

Monday morning

The launch went out on time. On Monday the four of them talked about the week for fifteen minutes.

Dante told Elena he had thought her questions were slowing everyone down, but that her question about the review had saved the client’s sign-off. Elena told Sofia she had thought the Thursday meeting was a waste of an hour, but it was the only time all week anyone had asked Nadia how she was doing. Nadia told Dante she had needed help with her colleague’s work since Thursday afternoon, and that next time she would ask sooner. Sofia said she would check with Dante before she promised the client anything.

Each of them kept their own style, and each now knew how the others would read it.

Try this the next time a deadline moves

Emotional intelligence is the skill of noticing feelings, your own and other people’s, and using what you notice to decide what to do.

Wait one minute before you reply, and notice which worry arrives first: losing time, the team pulling apart, the people the change lands on, or a costly mistake. Noticing it is self-awareness, and waiting before you act on it is self-regulation.

Before you judge someone else’s reaction, ask what they might be worried about. A short message may be speed. A meeting may be care for the team. Silence may hide a problem nobody has asked about. A list of questions may be a mistake about to be caught. Asking is empathy, and it tells you what to give each person first: a reason, a written plan, a private question or a straight answer.

If you are not sure which style you lean towards, the free test linked below has five short scenarios and takes about three minutes.

About WiredType: WiredType is a DISC platform with a free assessment that shows how you are wired and how to work well with the people around you. Dante, Sofia, Nadia and Elena are its characters for the four styles. ei-matters readers can take the free test at wiredtype.com/in/eimatters. You will not be asked for a credit card or any payment details. The link or the code EIMATTERS takes US$10 off the Full Profile, WiredType’s complete paid report, until 31 December 2026.