Are your employees a true fit?
DISC intro
Are your employees a true fit?
The following information is from the discprofile.com site.
DiSC® is an acronym that stands for the four main behavioral styles outlined in the DiSC model of personalities. The lower-case i in DiSC identifies it as part of the original Everything DiSC® and DiSC® Classic family of products produced by Wiley.
DOMINANT
D stands for Dominance, i stands for Influence, S stands for Steadiness, and C stands for Conscientiousness.
D styles are motivated by winning, competition, and success. They prioritize taking action, accepting challenges, and achieving results and are often described as direct and demanding, strong-willed, driven, and determined. D styles tend to be outspoken, but can be rather skeptical and questioning of others.
- Fears: being seen as vulnerable or being taken advantage of
- Values: competency, action, concrete results, personal freedom, and challenges
- Overuses: the need to win, resulting in win/lose situations
- Influences others by: assertiveness, insistence, competition
- In conflict: speaks up about problems; looks to even the score
- Could improve effectiveness through: patience, empathy
DiSC Classic patterns: Developer, Result-Oriented, Inspirational, Creative
INFLUENCER
i styles are motivated by social recognition, group activities, and relationships. They prioritize taking action, collaboration, and expressing enthusiasm and are often described as warm, trusting, optimistic, magnetic, enthusiastic, and convincing.
- Fears: loss of influence, disapproval, being ignored, rejection
- Values: coaching and counseling, freedom of expression, democratic relationships
- Overuses: optimism, praise
- Influences others through: charm, optimism, energy
- In conflict: expresses feelings, gossips
- Could improve effectiveness through: being more objective, following through on tasks
DiSC Classic patterns: Promoter, Persuader, Counselor, Appraiser
STEADY RELATOR
S styles are motivated by cooperation, opportunities to help, and sincere appreciation. They prioritize giving support, collaborating, and maintaining stability and are often described as calm, patient, predictable, deliberate, stable, and consistent.
- Fears: change, loss of stability, offending others, letting people down
- Values: loyalty, helping others, security
- Overuses: modesty, passive resistance, compromise
- Influences others by: accommodation, consistent performance
- In conflict: listens to others’ perspectives; keeps their own needs to themselves
- Could improve effectiveness through: displaying more self-confidence, revealing their true feelings
DiSC Classic patterns: Specialist, Achiever, Agent, Investigator
CAUTIOUS THINKER
C styles are motivated by opportunities to gain knowledge, show their expertise, and produce quality work. They prioritize ensuring accuracy, maintaining stability, and challenging assumptions. They are often described as careful, analytical, systematic, diplomatic, accurate, and tactful.
- Fears: criticism and being wrong; strong displays of emotion
- Values: quality and accuracy
- Overuses: analysis, restraint
- Influences others by: logic, exacting standards
- In conflict: focuses on logic and objectivity; overpowers with facts
- Could improve effectiveness through: acknowledging others’ feelings; looking beyond data
DiSC Classic patterns: Objective Thinker, Perfectionist, Practitioner.
We aren’t just one style.
Hiring only from this test is not recommended but it is a wonderful way to help get non subjective opinion of a potential employee. The assessments could and should be used for team building, leadership and how to manage different people different ways to be able to get the most out of each employee as well as keeping turnover low.
We’re a blend of styles. You might be a strong D, but need to move slowly and methodically when working on financial reports. You probably just have to make a more conscious effort at it than would an S-style colleague. In other words, DiSC is descriptive, not prescriptive.
“Overall, participants report that the DiSC fit is good or excellent approximately 90% of the time. As documented under the Forer effect (1949), however, it is not unusual for participants to show a high level of agreement with psychological test results.”