DiSC Profiles

Using DiSC in performance appraisals or reviews

February 21, 2012

Struggling with conducting a performance review? Not sure how to say what you need to?

Review your DiSC profiles

Knowing your own style as the reviewer will help you to prepare. If you’re a D, you might want to reflect on how to avoid sounding confrontational or abrupt. If you’re an i, you might want to try to be more direct. Often how information is presented is as important as what is presented.

If you want a review to be motivational then knowing the style of the person being reviewed is crucial. You won’t motivate an S by asking her to lead a change management committee. You won’t motivate a C by giving him a generalized positive feedback.

Using the Comparison Reports

Reviewing the comparison reports for you and your direct reports together will give you more than an hour’s worth of productive conversation. Most importantly, it can be used to open communication about how to better work with each other. You can respond to what a report says about your differences in temperament or pace, for examples. If you don’t share the same traits, the report gives you a way to speak about them abstractly before you introduce concrete examples.

Example:

Reviewer’s priorities = action, enthusiasm, results

Reviewed person’s priorities = accuracy, stability, challenge

How accurately does the feedback describe the differences in your approach to risk-taking?

How do your difference affect your relationship or your ability to work together effectively, and what could you do to make improvements?

Are your differences being capitalized upon or are they causing problems? A challenge for this reviewer might be to consider the values of tenacity and questioning new ideas. Are these valuable to the organization? Are challenges to the reviewer’s spontaneous actions being viewed as insubordination or as honest and constructive questioning? Did you list different accomplishments by the review subject because of your differing values and expectations? Do future goals, objectives, or projects listed reflect a desire to stay within a comfort zone related to behavior, or to skill or training? Are you wanting to give a better appraisal than merited because of the “like me” factor?

If you look at a sample Comparison Report, you’ll see that there are sections where the person profiled can personalize the report and describe how she or he can apply the information from the profile. You could discuss these questions during the performance review.

Even if you don’t choose to look at your profiles together, you can receive helpful tips for conducting the employee’s review. For example, the report might tell you to avoid dominating discussions and encourage the candid sharing of opinions. Or provide more information about how a newly assigned project will work and what you will see as success.

Reviewing a team

If you have the challenge of reviewing a team that is in conflict, then the comparison reports of the individuals involved can be consulted before the formal review. You will be able to use their differences in preferred behaviors as one filter through which to view the conflict.

Even if a team is working together well, the comparison reports or group culture report can reveal the people who might not be as comfortable in the group or as productive as the could be because their DiSC profile differs from that of the group. The group culture report is designed to be used with the entire group, but can also be a useful tool to use with someone whose potential in the group might not be fully realized.

Objectivity

I suspect that we all want to believe that we review people objectively; that we use only objective measures to review accomplishments. But the truth is that our emotions and personality will play a role, so it’s important to know what our biases are. And to work on communicating clearly beyond those biases. No one wants to see this on their review form: “Your weaknesses are just overuse of your strengths. You need to work on ‘modulation.’ But a comment like “I want to see you increase your personal contact with clients. Is this a value and goal we share? How will we measure it? What assistance will you need to meeting this goal?”

Additional support to offer employees who need help in a few specific areas:

Your experience

How has knowing your DiSC profile style helped you better communicate with your peers and direct reports? Has it helped you to “manage up”? How have you used Comparison Reports?

More DiSC training ideas

February 20, 2012

DiSC activities

Strength, liability, or both?

Ask participants to choose a quality from their profile that they strongly identified with. Then have them share with a partner or small group how that quality has been a strength, liability, or both in their career. How do they try to capitalize on it when it can be a strength and how do they deal with it when it is a liability? You can also have them choose a quality they do not identify with and describe how they have seen another person use it as a strength and how they’ve seen it as a liability in another person.

Appreciation

A popular activity is bring a group back together and ask each one to say what they appreciate about the person they are paired up with, or even about each person in their group. Some facilitators prefer to have participants write these notes by hand and deliver them to each other.

Follow-up meetings

Case studies

Bring participants together after six weeks for a one-hour session built on a few case studies. Let the participants or client suggest the case studies. They should reflect common problems they deal with everyday. You’ll need to write their ideas up as case studies (just a few paragraphs about the problem, conflict, or issue). Break the participants up into groups of 4 – 6 people each. These groups review and discuss the case studies and then a representative presents how they saw the DiSC styles represented in the study and possible approaches to use to resolve the issue(s) presented. Allow time for the other groups provide them feedback.

Action Planners

Use one of the Action Planners for follow-up. Choose the appropriate one for the group: Customer Service, Managing Performance, Management Action, Sales Action, or Talk Action. This can be done with a group or one-on-one.

Comparison Reports

Each week two people on a team or in a department can meet to go over their comparison reports. They can fill out the Personalize and Apply sections of the report together.

Group Culture Reports

What’s the culture of the group? Do you feel like you have a place in it? How are tasks assigned? How do people communicate? Does the group’s culture differ from the larger organization’s culture? How do the DiSC styles of individuals in the group increase the groups effectiveness?

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Do you have any training ideas to share?

Try Everything DiSC for Less: 2012 Migration Program

January 23, 2012

Have you been using DiSC Classic, but have wanted to try or move your company to an Everything DiSC product? Now is the time. During 2012 if you have completed a DiSC Classic online report (DiSC 1.0, 2.0, Plus or PPSS) you can migrate to Everything DiSC for less.

Why upgrade to Everything DiSC?

Everything DiSC Products are the newest DiSC Products. They have several differences compared to DiSC Classic.

The Everything DiSC questionnaire is on a rating scale vs the DiSC Classic using forced choice. With Everything DiSC your scoring uses 8 scales as compared to the 4 scales with DiSC Classic, making it a more precise assessment. For a complete comparison see Which DiSC to Use.

There are many benefits with Everything DiSC including FREE comparison reports. The report is more personal, relevant and has a richer narrative. Your results are displayed on a circle, which is more intuitive and memorable. The shading of the circle better illustrates how we are all D, i, S, C. The Everything DiSC reports are all application focused.

Migration offer

We are offering a way for you to migrate to the Everything DiSC family for less from now until December 31, 2012. All Everything DiSC reports will be 10 credits less if you have already completed a DiSC Classic report. As an example a Everything DiSC Workplace which is 15 credits will only be 5 credits or a Everything DiSC Sales profile which is 25 credits will only be 15 credits.

We’ve created a new bundle of EPIC credits to make this offer even better. You can now purchase just 150 EPIC credits. So if you’ve already completed a DiSC Classic profile online, those 150 credits will make available 30 Everything DiSC Workplace profiles migrations (or 10 Everything DiSC Sales or Everything DiSC Management.) Migrating 30 people to Everything DiSC will make comparison reports available for them all. And it will reinforce learning from previous DiSC trainings.

The process is easy…

Sign into your EPIC account.

Search for your DiSC Classic profile by using the Edit Existing Reports feature.

Select the option to Create Additional Report and select the Everything DiSC profile of your choice.

For additional instructions see our EPIC help page.

Questions?

Have any questions regarding this exciting program? Contact us at www.discprofile.com.

Work of Leaders Facilitation Kit sample videos

December 28, 2011

Everything DiSC Work of Leaders Facilitation Kit

Everything DiSC^® Work of Leaders^™ Facilitation Kit provides classroom training that uses online pre-work, engaging facilitation with contemporary video, and online follow-up to create a personalized learning experience. Based on best practices, Work of Leaders connects to real-world demands, generating powerful conversations that provide a clear path for action.

Samples

Program Overview (769KB .pdf)
Leader’s Guide (801KB .pdf)
Sample Module (904KB .ppt PowerPoint slides)

Included are five 60 to 90 minute modules.

Sample videos

The videos include 17 segments of contemporary leadership examples to connect leaders to real-world demands and generate powerful conversations to provide a clear path for action.

Introduction

Introduction to the Work of Leaders profile
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Optional training videos for Module 3: Alignment

Alignment: Ineffective with Clarity

Sample video showing a leader ineffectually trying to use clarity to achieve alignment with his vision.
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Alignment: Adapted for Clarity

Sample video in which a leader communicates upcoming changes to his work group with clearly and effectively.
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Create an end-to-end leadership development program or concentrate on specific areas. Switch out video clips, modify the presentation, Leader’s Guide and handouts. Add or delete sections to fit any timeframe.

DiSC profile definition

DiSC^® is a personal assessment tool used to improve work productivity, teamwork, leadership, and communication.

DiSC measures your personality and behavioral style. It does not measure intelligence, aptitude, mental health or values. DiSC profiles describe human behavior in various situations, for example how you respond to challenges, how you influence others, your preferred pace, and how you respond to rules and procedures.

The DiSC model discusses four reference points:

Dominance–: direct, strong-willed, and forceful
Influence–: sociable, talkative, and lively
Steadiness–: gentle, accommodating, and soft-hearted
Conscientiousness–: private, analytical, and logical

The test instrument and the profile results are designed so that it’s easy to understand and recall your behavioral style and insights. The writing is engaging and the visuals are memorable. Facilitation resources are available to guide and reinforce learning.

People interested in DiSC often want to see DiSC profile sample reports. You’ll find that there are several versions of the DiSC assessment based on what outcomes are desired. So you’ll find reports focused on the workplace, sales, management, and leadership.

More: What is DiSC?

History

The DiSC Model of Behavior was first proposed by William Moulton Marston, a physiological psychologist with a Ph.D. from Harvard. Later, others developed assessments based upon this model. The Everything DiSC^® product family, launched by Inscape Publishing in 2007, was created to make the DiSC assessment even more valuable to its users. It introduced more highly personalized reports, customizable facilitation tools, and electronic access to unlimited follow-up reports.

More about DiSC profiles

How DiSC works

DiSC profile questionaire

10 Reasons to use Everything DiSC instead of DiSC Classic

DiSC and the MBTI