What is DISC profiling?
DISC is a really powerful and easy to understand tool that helps you to better understand your behaviour, strengths, communication style, and leadership skills, enabling you to bring your best to your life and work.
DISC also equips you to better understand other people through giving you a model through which you can observe other people’s behaviour, and appreciate them in a new profound way. You can determine their drivers, motivators, fears and strengths, helping you to work with them more effectively, motivate them, and experience far less conflict.
The way that Disc works is by inviting you to take a short 10-15 minute online questionnaire, where you select the statements that are most and least like you.
From this, you then receive a comprehensive Disc profile report, which talks you through your behavioural preferences, your strengths, development areas, communication and leadership style. It also provides insight into how your behaviour changes when you are at work and under pressure.
I am an accredited Disc practitioner, meaning that I am licensed to provide online links to Disc assessments, and trained in debriefing clients on their Disc profiles.
DISC is estimated to have been used by over 40 million people worldwide and is one of the most common personality tests used in business.
The DISC Model
The DISC model looks at human behavioural preference along two difference axis:
1) How task orientated vs. people orientated someone is
2) How reserved vs. outgoing someone is
This creates 4 distinct personality styles - of which we are all a blend.
D = Dominance: Assertive, direct, and results-oriented.
I = Influence: Outgoing, enthusiastic, and persuasive
S = Steadiness: Patient, dependable, and supportive.
C = Compliance: Analytical, detail-oriented, and systematic.
The online assessment helps you to determine your own unique blend, and how that varies when at home, when at work, and when under pressure.
Here are four different ways in which DISC can help you:
Improve Your Team Communication and Collaboration: When team members know and understand each other's DISC styles - it improves communication, collaboration and team cohesion, and reduces conflict leading to more effective teamwork and a higher performing team.
Enhancing Leadership and Management Skills: Leaders can use their DISC knowledge to help them adapt their style to suit different team members e.g. providing feedback in a way that resonates, focussing on individual motivations, and delegating more effectively according to strengths.
Resolving Conflict and Reducing Friction: DISC helps reduce conflict through enhancing understanding of everyone’s similarities and differences. Once you understand why someone did something (their motivators, drivers, fear, differing communication styles) you increase empathy and decrease frustration. Disc provides a common language and framework for having constructive dialogue about differences and creating resolutions and ways forward.
Facilitating Personal Development and Career Growth: Individuals can gain a deep-level of self-awareness through DISC - understanding their natural strengths, leadership capabilities, and preferred working environments. These help to guide their career choices, and equip them with tools and knowledge to use ongoing as they navigate life.
