DISC assessments are highly useful but also highly misused

DISC is a highly useful assessment. It is one of the most widely used personality assessments for the past 70 years.

It is also highly misused.

We’ll look at some of those common misuses.

DISC background

For those not familiar with DISC, here is some background. DISC is directly related to classic psychological, counseling, and business research and use. “Personality” can be defined as “characteristic patterns of thoughts, feelings, and actions which may change throughout our lives as influenced by personal experiences, situations, events, and external conditions.”

The “DISC” name comes from the first letters of the four DISC personality styles:

• Dominant Director,
• Interacting Socializer,
• Steady Relator, and
• Cautious Thinker.

(There is some name variance among assessments, but almost never in the first letters).

The styles help us understand several aspects of our personalities. A crucial aspect is indicating the primary sources of our long-term personal satisfaction.

The assessment also helps from a work perspective. DISC can help us understand what jobs naturally suit us. It can also predict natural areas of compatibility and conflict with others. DISC is a key assessment for improving both individual and team performance.

No one personal style is better than others, though each can be more effective in different types of situations.

12 common types of mistakes/misuses

While DISC is highly useful, there is widespread misunderstanding and misuse of this powerful behavioral concept.

There are 12 key, common types of mistakes in effectively applying DISC. The 12 mistakes fall into these general areas:

• Content
• Process
• Interpretation
• Usage

We will look at at least mistake from each area as examples.

First, a content mistake

AND the most crucial mistake.

DISC alone does not cover everything essential to understand performance. Unfortunately, it is commonly used alone for predicting and improving performance.

DISC, by itself, does not and cannot predict higher performance. The simplest reason is because DISC describes what we do or don’t do naturally. It does NOT describe how well we perform in task or people situations. Instead, our developed capabilities are more predictive.

The most important capability both now and in the future is a person’s developed ”adaptability” … ability to deal with new, different, changing, complex, or difficult situations. Higher performers are those who perform beyond their own natural “comfort zone.” This is regardless of a person’s natural style.

Other determinants of performance are a person’s:

• beliefs/values
• the types of work they enjoy
• emotional energy in different situations, and
• job-specific skills
• transferable skills

The most common process mistake

The most common, process mistake is using DISC as only a self-assessment. In fact, most “style” assessments are used only as self-views.

Self-view assessments have limited predictive validity for several reasons.

Among the most well-known are:

• Lack of self awareness,
• Tendency for self-views to be over rated/positive, and
• Difference between a person’s responses (may be more their intentions) and their actual behavior.

Does that mean that DISC assessments should only be by others/observers?

No!

For self-improvement, it is important to know both how we actually “show up” and how we think we “show up.” Understanding the gaps is a key part of effective improvement action plans.

For leaders, getting others’ views is critical to leadership effectiveness. Self-perception alone can lead to wrong actions and wasted time (and maybe wasted relationships).

Another important process mistake

To get useful results from a personality type assessment like DISC, there should have a consistent role or scenario focus in answers.

For example, in what area are you trying to understand behavior? The current job, a desired job, a role outside of work, or what? Even in current jobs, there can be multiple roles like leader, mentor, coach, peer, and so on.

The reason for a single, consistent focus is that behavior tends to be situational. Research shows our attitudes and actions can be affected by forces outside of ourselves. The “forces” can be job requirements, expectations of other people, perceived reactions/impact of personal behavior, and so on.

Without focus on a single role and consistency in answers, the assessment is more likely to:

• Provide mixed or confusing results.
• Be less predictive.
• Indicate less useful or even wrong approaches to increase effectiveness (e.g., action plans can be wrong and even decrease effectiveness).

… and if you are a coach or assessment administrator, help the assessment taker with this. Often, assessment instructions either don’t include this kind of instruction or are unclear.

An interpretation mistake

Incorrect role focus can also produce an interpretation mistake. If a person changes a role (or the role significantly changes), then it’s time to do a new assessment. Otherwise, any improvements or actions will be targeted to the old role. Interpretation should be in the current context.

Pick the right role focus and at the right time.

A usage mistake

A key usage mistake is thinking that DISC represents the whole person.

DISC is only one of 6 factors largely explaining why people do what they do. The 6 factors affect both motivation (what a person will or won’t do) and capability (what a person can or can’t do).

DISC is a motivation component along with values and interests.

The capabilities components are those related to:

• Capabilities for a specific job or role,
• Capabilities transferable/applicable across jobs/roles, and
• Capability to adapt (willingness, ability).

Don’t assume that DISC alone is sufficient to describe a job or role and then find a person who is a good fit.

It is only one piece of the puzzle … include the other 5 factors for better organizational results and personal success and satisfaction.

What to do

Don’t throw out DISC as an assessment … check if any of the 12 mistakes are present in your assessment or how your organization uses DISC. Contact us for the free full list of mistakes.

Also, if you are a leader and haven’t had a DISC assessment, or that assessment didn’t include others’ views, contact us for a free assessment and analysis.