Recognising your own DISC profile

Hello again and welcome to this second blog around the fascinating world of DISC.  In this chapter we’ll be taking a look at understanding which DISC profile is most prevalent in your personality.

Scared? Don’t be! Each of the four of the profiles have validity and strengths that can ensure success and triumph – the key is understanding what you do well and consistently using those behaviours or, better still, hone those skills to perfection and take results and relationships to higher levels.

So let’s start with a simple flow-chart using two questions.  Once the two questions have been answered you will have a strong indicator of which of the four profiles you are.  Are you sitting comfortably?  Then let’s begin…

As we will explore further in later blogs, circumstances and environment may cause our DISC profile to change although our natural ‘core’ DISC profile will still always be there.  It is when we focus on the strengths of our ‘core’ profile that we work best.

Another way of identifying our own DISC profile is to look at people we know and those that we identify with and are similar to and if we know their profile we can gain an understanding of our DISC profile.  Below you will see a list of famous people and personalities – remember, though, it is personality traits that we are looking at, not how likeable, powerful or beautiful (thank goodness!) they are.

So here is a list of typical personalities and famous people that are typical of the four profiles:

Interestingly enough when I work on my “D” qualities whilst I am going for Alan Sugar it seems to come out as Alan Carr! Hey, I’m a high Influencer, so the theatrical traits will be there!

As I mentioned earlier in this blog it is important to understand what our profile will do well so that we can use them to produce increased results and outcomes. OK so you probably now have an idea of which of the four DISC profiles is most like you – but what does it mean and how do we use it?  Keep reading to find out!

Let’s start with some statistics (the C’s among have now suddenly become much more interested – welcome!).  It is believed that just 6% of the world will have the Dominant trait, any more than that and the world would constantly at war with each other!  As for our Influencers, there are around 11% in the world, if that number was to increase anymore we would never get anything done!  If you are a Steady person, then you are in the majority with 66% and thank goodness that the majority of the world is an ‘S’ it means that things will get done and we have people that focus on working together in harmony – on behalf of the world – thank you – take a bow if you are an ‘S’, you’ve deserved it.  Finally, if you already know that the final figure is 17% then you are likely to be Conscientious – good work ‘C’!

When we look at specific traits and strengths of each of the profiles we begin to see why as a species the human race works so brilliantly when we truly work using all four DISC personalities. So, let’s take a look at those things we do well;

If we look at the combination of all these strengths and imagine that you had a team of four people and you had a Dominant, Influencer, Steady and Conscientious you can see that you truly have a perfect team that can deal with anything that a company could have thrown at it.  The team will be able to predict, see opportunities, strategize, sell, maintain service, deliver results and much, much more.

So, take a moment to reflect on the people around you and your family circle and start to think about what each of those people are like and their DISC profile and then we start to understand why sometimes we have conflict or don’t deliver results or perhaps not achieve our goals and potential.  Well, you guessed it, a great place to start is DISC – you knew that was coming didn’t you!

In future blogs, we will explore in much greater detail how the profiles interact with each other and what happens if you get the same profiles working together.

Next time we will look at typical development areas and potential pitfalls that are common for each of the DISC profiles.  I will be kind and careful, although it will be honest and useful and maybe even entertaining – who knows?

And that about wraps it up for this week.  Now go out into the world and think about what you do well and where you can use your strengths.  Think about your teams and your family circle and then tell them what they do well, after all February is the month of love and valentines.  You will find that by focussing on what people do well is far more positive than constantly thinking about what we don’t do well.

Spread the love and DISC the hell out of it!

Tags: B2B Marketing, Coaching, DISC, DISC Profiling, Disc Profiling Blogs, Learning and Development, Learning styles