Your personality defines who you are as an individual and how you relate to other people. Though often overlooked, personality is a great indicator for workplace success as it can help you figure out how you work best as well as how you can best team up with your colleagues. Knowing all this, wouldn’t it be great if there was some way to get an idea of your personality? That’s where the DISC test comes in. A great tool for shining a light on you as an individual, let’s learn about the DISC test in the following post.
What’s A DISC Test?
As stated, a DISC test is a personality test. Having said that, there are a number of personality tests out there so let’s find out what makes a DISC test special.
- 4 Quadrants
A DISC test is unique because of its simplicity. This means it separates individuals into 4 different quadrants. These are Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, and Conscientiousness.
While every individual is more a mix of various quadrants, having a baseline of 4 personality types make a DISC test much more easier to understand than some of its counterparts.
- Simplicity
Taking a DISC test is also a simple process. For the most basic DISC test, all it involves is taking a 15 – 20 minute assessment with 80 questions total.
Once the test is complete, participants will receive a personalized profile containing information regarding their personality type, their needs, as well as various strategies and tips for helping them engage with others. Better yet, all of this can be done online!
- Popularity
Finally, a DISC test is great because of its popularity. As a personal assessment tool, DISC tests are used by over 1 million people every year.
Besides their widespread use, DISC tests have been tried and tested since the assessment was first introduced in the 1940’s by industrial psychologist Walter V. Clarke. Given this decades long history, what ends up happening is that many organizations and companies usually have databases containing information on their employees, allowing knowledge of personality to be spread more easily.
How Can A DISC Test Help Your Company?
- Build Connections
First and foremost, DISC tests are great for your company because they help the individuals that make it up build connections with one another.
Really, this is the great promise of DISC tests, and why I’m such a staunch supporter of them. All too often I’ve witnessed employees of a company go years without understanding why they get along with a certain team member and why they don’t with another. Taking something like the DISC test is a simple, quick, and effective way of getting an answer to these questions. This leads us to our next benefit.
- Foster Understanding
DISC tests build connections between individuals. This, in turn, helps foster understanding between people.
Again, imagine you’ve been working with someone for a few years and for whatever reason you two always seem to be at odds. You’re not sure why, and for all you know, neither are they. One day your company announces everyone will be taking DISC tests and upon completing it, team members gather to discuss their profiles. You find out your colleague is more on the Dominant scale, whereas you’re more on Influence.
As you begin learning about each quadrant, you find out the differences that would have resulted in your past misunderstandings, as well as how to move into the future in a much healthier, productive manner. This is how DISC tests foster understanding.
Going Deeper Into DISC Tests
- What’s DISC Flow?
Given that DISC tests are such popular and powerful tools, there are many versions of these tests online. Out of all of them, my favorite is called the DISC Flow.
What separates DISC Flow from your average DISC test is the focus on emotional intelligence. Essentially, with DISC Flow profiles, emotional intelligence is the factor that determines how well individuals manage their DISC personality traits.
This is valuable as it allows one to recognize signals and emotions inside of themselves and in other people, thereby cultivating a culture of patience and understanding amongst colleagues.
- What’s The Truth About DISC Tests?
At the end of the day, one thing I like to clear up about DISC tests is that they are not meant to be used to point fingers, they simply shine a light onto what is.
What I mean by this is that no matter what your DISC profile says about you or someone you know, you shouldn’t pass judgment on the result. Some people have a tendency to look down upon or criticize individuals with contrasting personality types, but this isn’t the right attitude to be taking.
No personality type is better than the other. DISC tests are simply available to provide you with the information to better understand yourself and others.
What If You’re Unsure Of Personality Tests?
No matter how confidently I can talk about DISC tests, some people will remain a little unsure about personality tests and their validity. Usually, the claim is that they’re in the same category as horoscopes, and don’t actually reveal anything about who you are as a person.
To those doubters, I have no ill will. As a matter of fact, I agree with them, to some extent. There are 8 billion alive today and of course something like a DISC test–no matter how useful–will not be able to succinctly categorize each and every one. However, to me, that’s not the point!
→ I consider DISC tests to be more like funnels for learning about yourself and those around you. They should not and cannot accurately describe each and every human being because every individual is too complex to be described using any kind of test. However, at least with such tests you can get an overarching view of an individual, and then drill down to the details from there.
Want to take a deeper dive? Learn more about DISC tests
Why Should Companies In Southeast Asia Use DISC Tests?
Despite the numerous benefits of using DISC tests to get a deeper understanding of your company’s employees, in Southeast Asian organizations there still remains a gap in how they approach such tools.
While people are beginning to wake up to these tools in countries like Singapore, Vietnam and others in the region are still a few years behind. While this might seem like a negative, in actual fact it means there’s tons of room for growth in such places!
Once companies begin opening up to personality tests like DISC tests, DISC Flow, as well as ideas like emotional intelligence, the amount of advancements made in such a short time will surely leave them amazed.
How I Can Help
With over almost two decades experience, including impactful roles at Google and Apple, I, Thijs van Loon, am your Professional Skills Development Facilitator in Asia. My suite of services is meticulously designed to propel your team to new heights.
One area of expertise is in Management & High Performance Coaching, which can cover anything from NLP coaching, Psych-k coaching, and small group management coaching.
By leveraging training certifications from Google and Apple, in addition to my certifications in NLP and Psych-K, I offer tailored, practical solutions that deliver immediate results to your business. By working together, I can help you empower the individuals in your company and your business at large, wherever you are in the world.
Interested in management & high performance coaching? Get in touch now.