Even if you’ve never taken a DISC assessment yourself, you probably know at least a handful of people who have. Used by more than 1 million people every year, DISC is highly effective at helping organizations improve teamwork, communication and productivity in the workplace.
Organizations around the world, whether governmental agencies, Fortune 500 companies or startups, use DISC.
DISC comprises four personality references, each indicated by a letter in the acronym.
Dominance
You’re confident in most situations and motivated by accomplishing bottom-line results.
Influence
You’re warm, open and usually extroverted. You connect with others easily and can persuade those around you.
Steadiness
You’re dependable, patient, even-tempered and work well with others. You thrive best in stable and consistent environments.
Conscientiousness
You place emphasis on quality and accuracy and—as an example—may take longer to complete your DISC assessment.
While DISC is designed as a workplace behavioral assessment and not as a test to measure specific skills or aptitude for a role, it’s not uncommon for companies to use it for just that. In an effort to better understand how DISC should be used, we spoke with Krysta Van Ranst, founder and learning business partner at Building PPL, a consulting firm in the construction industry. A big part of Van Ranst’s work involves helping construction companies build out their people.
Understanding DISC: Natural vs. adaptive profiles
Not unlike the concept of nature versus nurture, DISC works with two types of profiles: natural and adaptive. According to Van Ranst, your natural profile is who you are at home, with your friends and family. “Your natural profile doesn’t change unless you have gone through some sort of catastrophic event,” she says.
On the other hand, adaptive profiles can—and often—do change. “It’s based on your mood, based on the day and ideally, is probably shifting throughout your career based on the role that you’re taking on,” Van Ranst explains.
When someone’s natural profile is drastically different from their adapted profile, it can be an early indicator of burnout later on. Van Ranst compares it to writing with your left hand when you are right-handed. “The opportunity to adapt at those levels is going to be far more difficult than if you’re closer aligned to your natural and adapted profile,” she adds.
How companies may misuse DISC
Organizations use DISC in different ways. Some use the tool to build stronger and more effective working relationships among teams while others find DISC helpful in teaching managers how to better engage and motivate their reports.
Then there are those organizations who use DISC during hiring and ditch it shortly thereafter. “There are plenty of companies that will have you complete it and then you never get the results, or you’re given the results, and it’s a 30-page document, and you don’t know what to do with it,” she explains. By contrast, Van Ranst has a certified DISC specialist work with a new hire to make sense of their results.
She encourages leaders to leverage DISC’s extensive insights to better understand their own behavioral tendencies and communication patterns and those of the people they manage. “If you’re going to have people take this assessment, utilize it,” she says.
Best practices for DISC
As a general rule of thumb, one of the first things a hiring manager should look at after a candidate completes their profile is whether it matches the daily demands of the role they’ve applied for. She asks herself questions like, “Will this person need to be really focused or do they need to be faster paced?” “Should they be more of a people person or is it OK if they are more task-oriented and a behind-the-scenes individual?”
Once a hiring manager has assessed the bigger picture of a candidate’s profile, they should determine how the candidate might balance out the team. Drawing from personal experience, Van Ranst shares that the next person she hires at Building PPL will ideally be a C because her six-person team doesn’t have as much of that profile.
Another factor to consider is the type of project the candidate is being hired for and its duration. “If you have a small project, it is a short time frame, there might be value in them having similar profiles because they’re going to think similarly,” she says. But, “if you have a project that has a longer duration or time frame, there’s really so much value in having a diverse project team in terms of behavioral profiles.”
Why depersonalizing DISC is key for team dynamics
A common misconception about DISC is that certain profiles are more “desirable” and “hirable” than others. In reality, a person’s DISC profile has less to do with the person and more to do with how they’ll fit in with an already existing team. Van Ranst has every team member complete a DISC profile regardless of how long they’ve been at the organization. It serves as a common language everyone speaks and a helpful reference point during interpersonal situations.
Sharing this common language is a unifier and makes the acts of giving and receiving feedback feel less personal. “You can say, ‘Your dominance is like really shining through right now.’ That will allow the person to acknowledge that and then maybe scale it back,” she explains. Sticking to DISC terminology allows individuals to see different perspectives without feeling like they are under attack.
Potential downsides of DISC
As impactful as DISC is as a hiring tool, it’s far from perfect. Companies who require candidates to complete a DISC profile as part of the interview process run the risk of receiving skewed results.
Candidates who are unfamiliar with DISC and the purpose it serves within organizations may view it as a test they need to pass and answer questions based on what they think their future employers want to hear rather than what most closely aligns with their behaviors. For example, people who are highly motivated by money may tone down this part of themselves in an effort to present as more agreeable or team-oriented.
It’s also worth noting that when presented with DISC’s four personality types, unconscious associations or biases may form. For instance, some studies show that men who exhibit dominant characteristics are often seen as strong leaders whereas women exhibiting these same traits may be seen as “bossy” or less likable among colleagues.
That’s why DISC shouldn’t be the only factor in hiring decisions. DISC styles change depending on an individual’s environment, and everyone has aspects of all four behavioral dimensions.
Three ways DISC helps you and your teams
According to Krysta Van Ranst of Building PPL
You gain self-awareness
There really are no right or wrong answers when completing your DISC profile, which leaves room for self-awareness to blossom. Reading through the results can be enlightening, as it helps you take stock of your behavior in the workplace and gain a better understanding of why you act in certain ways when facing challenging situations.
You learn how to adapt to others
Gaining clarity around your tendencies in the workplace is a bridge toward adopting more effective behaviors and communication styles. For example, if you receive a lengthy email from a client that—in your opinion—could have been a sentence, you can adapt your response to be more detailed and fleshed-out.
You and your team speak the ‘same language’
Using DISC can be a great jumping-off point to creating a diverse team. With four components, everyone has varying degrees of—dominance, influence, steadiness and conscientiousness—you’re acknowledging that there are different perspectives and different ways of giving and receiving feedback.
This article originally appeared in the January issue of SUCCESS+ digital magazine.
Photo by NDAB Creativity/Shutterstock
