Assessement: DISC Assessment

DISC Assessment applications include:

• Hiring & Selection using Benchmarking - Gives business owners, managers, and HR professionals the tools they need to compare applicants to desirable job-performance benchmarks 
• Change Management - Teaches behaviors that transform resistance into receptivity
• Coaching - Empowers you to help others consistently achieve their potential
• Conflict Resolution - Brings clarity, rapport, and understanding to different behavioral styles
• Customer Service - Teaches administrative and customer support teams how to dependably provide world-class service and effective interaction regardless of behavioral style
• Leadership Programs - Teaches leaders how to get the most out of their teams in a way that really works
• Management Skills - Teaches methods to consistently and genuinely motivate, engage, and challenge their staff
• Mentoring - Reveals how to propel fast trackers and high-potentials to greater effectiveness
• Sales Training - Enhances revenue by teaching sales professionals the keys to harnessing identifiable behaviors in their prospects
• Team Building - Helps create teams based on compatible skills and traits as well as identifying where other support or resources may be needed to address performance gaps 
• Productive Meetings - Assists in planning meetings that account for behavioral styles to ensure best outcomes and results

How DISC Behavior Assessments Work

The good news about DISC assessments is that there are no right or wrong answers. They're also simple to take online, with some assessments taking as little as 10 minutes to complete. 

Although a person’s Natural profile tends to stay fairly consistent over time, the Adapted style can change based on the environment, situation, or relationship and is a reflection of a moment in time. Some may consider taking the assessment again several years apart because the accuracy of the assessment itself is continually improved. Keep in mind, changes to behavioral style can also occur due to seasons of life and emotional experiences. It’s always a good idea to continue to evaluate your behavioral patterns to build awareness of how you are responding to various situations, environments, and relationships. 

Scoring and reporting can either be done electronically or in a few simple steps if you take a paper version of the assessment. 

Taking a DISC assessment involves answering a questionnaire about your own behavior by choosing descriptors most like you and least like you. From your selections, an algorithm returns your personal behavioral blend and your scores produce a profile report. You'll be able to read about your unique behavioral style, your tendencies, needs, preferred environment for greatest opportunities to be effective, and strategies for adapting behavior appropriately with others. You will also learn more about your strengths and potential challenges. 

Reports also include insights about other DISC styles so you can learn more about how others act and what their strengths and weaknesses are as well. When you do this in a work team setting, you will end up with a greater understanding of your workplace colleagues to help you with effective communication strategies going forward. 

Some people are concerned that DISC profiles can place unfair labels on people. For example, you might have heard someone dismiss someone’s action or comments with a remark like “She’s a D, what do you expect?” Assigning labels and rationalizing poor behavior are not what DISC profiles are about. Not all D styles behave or respond in the same way, especially when we consider the style blend. A DC will behave differently than a DI, even though their primary style is the same. DISC simply helps people better understand behavioral and communication preferences and priorities. 

How Long Does the DISC Assessment Take?

In most cases, it takes 10-15 minutes to complete the questionnaire. 

When you begin the assessment, you will make 26 selections of the words or phrases that are most like you and the words or phrases that are least like you. From these choices, the report algorithm determines the balance of your DISC blend and returns the comprehensive report tool. 

It is important to note that not all vendors will have the same DISC assessment process. Some offer computer adaptive testing with up to 80 questions, and others provide a 28-item forced-choice questionnaire. 

Because DISC is not a copyrighted model, vendors are free to use their own process. However, there are only a small handful of valid, scientifically-backed versions of DISC assessments out there. Be sure you examine the validity of the tools and pay special attention to the last time the data was validated. 

What Does DISC Measure?

DISC measures observable behavior and emotions. It does not measure intelligence, education, experience, aptitude, mental health, or values. 

You may gain greater insight into how you respond to challenges, how you influence and interact with others, how you operate at your preferred pace, and how well you follow directions and function with structure in place, as well as many other tendencies. 

When you are aware of these dimensions and know how to apply them effectively, you can use your style strengths or modify your style weaknesses to meet your needs and the needs of others. 

DISC Assessment Test Sample Reports

Click on the links for each assessment below to view each sample report. Note that the foundations of the reports are the same: each DISC assessment begins with the DISC-Self report, and the Leadership, Sales, Service, and Coaching reports provide a specific appendix for each focused content area to help you apply DISC. 

DISC Self - Describes "you" based on your observable behavior and can provide insights for others regarding your communication preferences as well as how you will likely interact with and respond to them. This self-perception report allows you to observe and evaluate your behavioral responses in various environments. By exploring your behavior and communication in a variety of environments, situations or relationships, you can determine the most effective communication strategy or course of action to take with others. 

DISC Leadership – After the DISC-Self portion of the report, this report provides simple, practical tools to help with using DISC as a leader in Developing, Adapting, Helping, Motivating, Complimenting, Counseling, Correcting, Delegating, & Acknowledging. 

DISC Sales – This report uses individual assessment data to provide information about your sales priorities and preferences. You’ll also learn how to connect better with customers whose priorities and preferences differ from yours through the five stages of the selling cycle – Connecting, Assessing, Solving, Confirming, and Assuring. 

DISC Service – This helps you to understand how you can use your strengths and improve upon your weaknesses to improve customer service in your organization by communicating effectively in the service process – Greet, Value, Ask, Listen, Help, Invite. 

DISC Coaching – Coaches really enjoy helping people and this report helps to determine how you can best provide this type of mentoring based on your strengths and skills and the interaction you have with others. DISC Coaching focuses on 5 ways to mentor and support others - Ask, Listen, Coach, Praise, and Challenge. 

DISC-Motivators Combination – By combining DISC and Motivators, you can not only apply what you’ve learned about your behaviors and emotions, but also align them in ways that reflect what matters most to you (your motivations). This combination report allows end-users to evaluate how their behavior is in alignment with or in a position of tension against their core values and motivational drivers. 

DISC Virtual Training – An interactive program that trains, tracks, monitors, and measures every student in real-time to give a deeper, more comprehensive foundation of DISC through a video series. This program can be re-visited by each user repeatedly as necessary to keep the information fresh and accessible at any time.