What is DISC?
DISC is a behavioural model based on Jungian theory. It postulates 4 behavioural styles:
- Dominance
- Influence
- Steadiness
- Conscientiousness
DISC is based only on observable behaviours which gives it unique advantages in real-time, person-to-person situations, such as in business interactions.
DISC is not influenced by race, creed, culture, intelligence, experience, qualifications or education.
Natural Style
All of us innately possess all the 4 DISC behavioural styles D, I, S and C and our DISC Profile informs us of our innate Natural Style which we act out subconsciously most of the time when we interact with people. Our Natural Style tends towards 1 or 2 of the DISC styles, sometimes 3 styles but never all 4 of the styles.
On occasion, however, we may assume any of the other DISC styles that are not usual to us. For example, for someone whose Natural Style is D, they may act with the I, S or C style. Or someone whose Natural Style is S and C, they may act like a D or I style.
There is a second factor to consider: that is our degree of inclination to any one style or styles. So we say a person has a strong, moderate or slight inclination to any style, say D, or styles, say SC.
What is a DISC Assessment?
DISC is not, for example, a competency assessment like an IQ test which returns a number, say, 125, which tells you your intelligence ranking compared to your peers in your national population.
In comparison, there is no good or bad DISC Profile and none of the 4 styles D, I, S, C is better than the other. Each DISC style has different attributes so we say that a good team needs a balance of people with all 4 styles present. This gives the benefits of all behaviours and cover for their shortcomings too. A Team so balanced with all the styles releases its energy, creativity and motivation while being curbed from excess with due caution, thoughtfulness and attention to due process.
How is DISC Used
The well understood use of DISC and other psychometric tools is to improve interpersonal relationships and People Productivity™ within Teams in an organisation. This involves an individual in the team/organisation completing a DISC self-assessment to understand their behavioural style and its impact on their colleagues; and to similarly understand their colleagues’ behavioural styles and their impacts on themself.
The self-assessment is usually fed back in the form of a computer-generated DISC Profile report. On the basis of these reports, Team Members ideally undertake a coaching program to improve interpersonal relationships and communications which should result in better team effectiveness and improved business performance.
How DISC isn’t Used but Should Be
Today DISC is predominantly used for Team Building (see previous section) but that’s neither it’s optimum use nor its only use. Let me explain.
DISC is correctly defined as a self-assessment (see previous section). That is, individuals complete a questionnaire and a receive personalised DISC Profile report. DISC is not a team assessment even if all the members of a Team have completed individual DISC questionnaires. While improving all the interpersonal relationships in a Team will have knock on effects in improving team productivity, a dedicated team tool such as The Five Behaviours of a Cohesive Team® would be a better choice for improving team metrics such as morale, trust, commitment, accountability or performance.
However because DISC is based only on observable behaviours, the DISC behavioural style of any person you meet can be deduced just by observing that person. Of course, assessing someone’s DISC style by observation will never be as accurate as a questionnaire-based report but when you meet a third-party business contact at any venue, you can’t ask them to complete a DISC questionnaire to satisfy yourself!
Being able to read anyone’s behavioural style usually gives you the advantage of being able to build rapport with that person very quickly. Being able to read the other person’s behavioural style usually takes less than 5 minutes. You can easily tell matters such as if the person is detailed or not, empathetic or logic-focussed, assertive or more reserved, for example. This gives clues as to how you should approach your conversation with your interlocutor. For instance, if your believe your interlocutor is unassertive and you are naturally assertive, you need to tone down your own speech delivery and what you say because you can unwittingly intimidate the other person and, perhaps, unnecessarily lose a valuable business connection.
The best results can be obtained in Sales because you can dynamically amend your pitch to suit the buying style of your customer. For instance, if the customer is detailed, give them more details and vice versa. If the customer is assertive, they’re unlikely to want details and will want the pitch to progress quickly and to the point. The same principles apply if, say, you are dealing with a supplier. If you’ve managed to read their behavioural style and build rapport with them by communicating with them in a way that makes them comfortable, you can always try asking them for an extra 5% discount, say! And getting on with any officials might just make getting what you want that much easier.
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