The DISC assessment is a behavioral self-assessment tool based on psychologist William Moulton Marstons DISC emotional and behavioral theory, first published in 1928. It is a personal assessment tool used by more than one million people every year to help improve teamwork, communication, and productivity in the workplace. The DISC model provides a common language people can use to better understand themselves and those they interact with, and then use this knowledge to reduce conflict and improve working relationships.
The DISC assessment measures dimensions of an individuals personality, such as how they respond to challenges, how they influence others, their preferred pace, and how they respond to rules and procedures. It does not measure intelligence, aptitude, mental health, or values. The assessment describes human behavior in various situations and measures tendencies and preferences, or patterns of behavior, with no judgment regarding value or alignment with a skill set or job classification.
The DISC model identifies four main personality profiles: Dominance (D), Influence (i), Steadiness (S), and Conscientiousness (C). People with D personalities tend to be confident and place an emphasis on accomplishing bottom-line results, while people with i personalities tend to be more open and place an emphasis on relationships and influencing or persuading others. People with S personalities tend to be cooperative and place an emphasis on stability and support, while people with C personalities tend to be analytical and place an emphasis on quality and accuracy.
The DISC assessment is designed for use in personnel management in businesses. It helps to identify workstyle preferences, determines how someone would interact with others, and provides insight on work habits. DISC has been used to help determine a course of action when dealing with problems as a leadership team by taking the various aspects of each DISC type into account when solving problems or assigning jobs.
While DISC assessments have high reliability, meaning that an individual will consistently get the same result over time, they have demonstrated no ability to predict job performance as the validity is low. However, DISC assessments are extensively researched and time-tested, and the publisher of DiSC assessments, Wiley, is one of the world’s oldest and most respected publishers of scientific and technical references.
