Understanding DISC: The Most Popular Assessment Tool

DISC very well may be the world’s most popular assessment tool. But despite its popularity, most practitioners and organizations fail to go past the very first level of its application. As a result, they leave piles of value on the table, untouched and unrealized.

Furthermore, many practitioners use DISC and only DISC, telling a very small portion of the story of a person. If you are one of those practitioners, or an organization that has used one of them, keep reading. If you are considering using assessments as part of your consulting practice, training programs, hiring process, or otherwise, keep reading; this blog is for you too. And if you are one of the few practitioners that really drives value for your clients with DISC, taking its application far past the 1-hour debrief session or half-day training, please also keep reading.

No matter who you are, when you get to the end, if this sounds like work you are doing or would like to be doing, we just might want to work with you.

The Importance of DISC in Organizations

First things first – DISC is a behavioral assessment, not a personality test. Personality assessments are designed to identify personality disorders and are used by those treating psychological and psychiatric disorders. Tests have right and wrong answers. DISC is neither about personality nor right and wrong.

Instead, DISC measures normal behavioral patterns across four domains. This information can be used to help people communicate what they need, recognize what others need, and adapt when and where it would support higher performance, better relationships, and less stress during interactions. Higher performance is an obvious benefit, as are better relationships. But many overlook the value of reduced stress levels.

The American Institute of Stress tells us, “Job stress is estimated to cost the US industry more than $300 billion in losses due to absenteeism, diminished productivity, and accidents. Over 5 work hours are lost weekly to employees thinking about their stressors. Work-related stress costs the United States $190 billion in annual healthcare costs.” Altogether, that’s nearly half a TRILLION dollars lost or being spent to address work-related stress. America – we must do better. We must do better not just because of the dollars at risk, but because it’s the right thing to do for all of us.

Common Misconceptions About DISC

DISC vs. Personality Tests

So how does DISC alleviate job-related stress? Here are three ways that DISC, when leveraged well, can reduce stress:

1. Transforming Judgement into Understanding: DISC, when done well, gives people a framework and language that transforms judgement into understanding. When we understand how we are wired and how others are wired, the 5 hours of time we spend thinking about our stress is reduced. The narrative in our heads goes from hours of trying to figure out why someone is the way they are, what we did to trigger their behavior, why they don’t like us, what options we have to survive the situation, and who we should talk to about the frustration, to a simple explanation, “That’s right, his High S is feeling pretty shaken up right now, I probably need to remind him that everything is going to be ok.” Or, “Wow, her High D is in full force today, I need to remember to just stick to the main points and keep moving.” Or, “My High I is feeling the need to connect, but his High C is in full effect right now. It’s not that he doesn’t care about my weekend; his High C is preparing for his next meeting, and I’m interrupting his process.”
2. Effective Hiring with DISC: If you are not using DISC assessment as part of your talent selection process, you are missing a huge potential value. Roles have certain levels of problems to solve and people to interact with. They also have a predictable level of variety and need for strict policy and procedure. Did you know that you can create a DISC profile for a JOB and then compare that to the DISC profiles for candidates to determine who is naturally wired to operate in the way the job will demand? The level of hiring accuracy and reduced friction at work can be positively impacted by benchmarking critical roles and using DISC as part of your hiring process.
3. Assigning Work Efficiently: Similar to the previous two points, we work in a world where most working professionals have multifaceted roles. When tight deadlines arise or assignments that require lots of people interaction or high levels of adherence to policies or processes, DISC helps us figure out who can take on that work with a likelihood of doing it well, and without completely stressing them out.

Beyond DISC: The Role of Driving Forces™

This is just a brief synopsis of how DISC, when used well, goes far beyond the “team-building session” and impacts organizational talent strategy. But still, DISC only tells a portion of the story. It’s just about how they behave and categorizing the observable behaviors in a way that we can use them to increase performance, build better relationships, and reduce stress. But what about employee motivation?

Understanding Employee Motivation

When we do DISC, we never do DISC alone because it doesn’t tell the whole story of the person. What drives a person to go toward or away from things, the underlying motivational factors, are JUST as important. Driving Forces™ can help us learn even more about a person and what matters most to them.

You’ve met people who are really competitive, right? And if you’ve done DISC, you’ve probably been told that that’s a High D behavior, right? Well, not really. Some Ds are very competitive, and some are not. Competition is about wanting to WIN, wanting to achieve status, wanting to be captain of your own domain, wanting to be recognized for accomplishments. It’s about what you WANT, not what you DO. Driving Forces™ is an assessment that helps us figure out what people WANT. It identifies and describes the 12 underlying driving forces that explain what matters to us most, what compels us to take action, and what leaves us feeling fulfilled.

Why does someone love Jeopardy, or spend their time playing other trivia games, while another finds that incredibly boring? Why does someone routinely volunteer their time with no expectation of reward or incentive while someone else gets bent out of shape that they put in extra effort and got absolutely nothing in exchange for it? Why do some people love to experiment with new approaches, while others seem stuck in their belief system about what is right and what is wrong? And why does any of this matter?

The Evolution of Driving Forces™ Assessment

The Driving Forces™ assessment identifies what people value most. As a matter of fact, years ago it was called the Personal Interests and Values Assessment, then Motivators, and now Driving Forces™. This language evolved as research showed that our driving forces are the underlying reasons we take action. These underlying motivation factors drive our choices about how we spend our time. When these are fulfilled, we feel fulfilled. And when not, it’s like our work “love bucket” is bone dry, and motivation to take action ceases, unless it is action that fills the bucket again.

Driving Forces™ and Corporate Culture

So, what does this mean for the corporate world? You’ve heard of culture fit, right? Driving Forces helps us identify culture fit. Like jobs have a DISC profile that can be identified, companies have a Driving Forces™ profile that can be identified. For example, as a company:

• Do you value educational pedigree or real-world experience?
• Do you value measuring ROI or just getting things done?
• Do you help others because it just feels good, or helping others if it serves a specific purpose?
• Do you adopt a wide variety of belief systems, or have specifically focused beliefs about what is right and wrong?
• Do you incentivize collaboration and recognize teams, or do you have a competitive spirit where there is one winner recognized?
• Do you focus more on the functionality of your work environment or whether your employees feel good being there?

Chances are, as you read that list, you had a reaction to one or two of those decision points. Those are YOUR driving forces showing up. Knowing these about current employees and candidates for hire will help you understand whether they are a natural fit for the corporate culture.

For current employees, we aren’t saying that those who are not a fit should be dismissed. As a matter of fact, exactly the opposite – they should be engaged. By knowing what matters most, you can allow that employee who wins the “employee of the year” award to bring their entire team on stage and not force them to stand alone. You can offer incentives to people that include things like standard bonuses, OR donations to charity, a budget to redecorate their office, the new ergonomic desk setup, or tuition reimbursement.

Knowing what matters most by understanding the underlying Driving Forces helps us hire better matches and taps into people’s motivating factors, which leads to higher levels of engagement and performance.

The Synergy of DISC and Driving Forces™

So how do DISC and Driving Forces™ work together? TTI’s Talent Insights Report is a combined report that shows both the behavioral profile and the motivational profile, as well as how they combine to give us the version of a person we see. It’s the “Operations Manual” for a person that every manager in every company should have for every employee.

Call to Action

For the current DISC practitioners that read this far, I look forward to your feedback and comments, and for those deciding if DISC (and Driving Forces™) is right for you, hopefully, this inspires you to action. Either way, I hope everyone reading closes their web browser with a deep understanding that DISC, when done well, goes far beyond a team session with color, letters, or animals. That’s a great first step, but the real value lies in applying these tools at an organizational level. If you’ve already started, let’s finish it together; and if you’re new to this concept, let’s get started!

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