How DiSC® is Different from Other Assessments

There are dozens of assessments, quizzes, and tests that claim to help you determine your personality and behaviors. Among them, DiSC^® stands out as a tried-and-true tool to better understand workplace behaviors. But how is it different from popular tests like Meyers-Briggs, the Big Five, and others? We’re breaking down why DiSC is our pick for a workplace assessment that has the power to change your team dynamics and improve the way you work.

Key Takeaways:

• DiSC can help you understand behaviors and how you show up in the workplace.
• DiSC is an ipsative style assessment that compares you against yourself, not a standard population.
• Taking a course that is focused on understanding your DiSC results is a great way for individuals and teams to develop a stronger working relationship with their colleagues.
• The philosophies DiSC is based on are nearly 100 years old and for over 50 years DiSC assessments have been leveraged by organizations like Google, Walmart, and Carhartt to unlock stronger teams.

What is DiSC?

With beginnings nearly 100 years ago in 1928, a model first proposed by William Moulton Marston in his book Emotions of Normal People later inspired a practical assessment created in the 1940s by Walter V. Clarke. He took Moulton’s four behavior types and created a self-assessment using a checklist of attributes that fall into the DiSC^® styles we have today: Dominance (D), Influence (I), Steadiness (S), and Conscientiousness (C). Then, in the 1970s, John Geier expanded DiSC from a self-assessment into a more comprehensive tool for personal and professional development.

Today, DiSC is a sophisticated tool that provides insights that build teams, develop leaders, and provide insights into communications and conflict resolution styles. It has been leveraged by companies like Google, TikTok, Walmart, Carhartt, and more. By better understanding your behaviors and how you tend to work, you can work towards a more harmonious, stronger team.

Behavior Assessment vs Personality Assessment

The key difference between DiSC and personality assessments is that DiSC is focused on behaviors. DiSC is an ipsative assessment, meaning it compares individuals answers against themselves. This helps highlight personal strengths and preferences. In contrast, personality tests like Big Five are normative assessments that compare your answers against the average answer. While this can say you’re more “open” than the average, it doesn’t translate what that means for you personally. Ipsative assessments are stronger tools for behavior analysis as it defines what is most or least important to you specifically.

Benefits of DiSC Classes for Individuals & Teams

Once you take your DiSC^® assessment, you’ll get a report with your work styles and a breakdown of how your work style might work with others. At Archbright, we offer two DiSC courses that help you understand your results and build a foundation for ways to improve your communication skills with teammates of the same or different DiSC Style. Building Interpersonal Awareness With DiSC^® and Managing with DiSC^® are both offered regularly through Archbright University.

Understand Your Behaviors and Work Styles

Our courses will help you interpret your DiSC results as well as other participants in the course. This interactive, virtual training is a great way to begin to see how the different DiSC behaviors can navigate potential conflict, find harmony in shared traits, and understand how you show up in a work environment and what that might look like to others.

Build A Stronger Team

When teams take a DiSC course together they’ll get insights into what each person might prioritize. DiSC can help decipher work patterns that have been causing conflict and teach teams how to better engage with one another for results. Strengthen your team dynamic by understanding each other through a tool like DiSC.

Reduce Conflict & Build Trust

By understanding different work styles and the underlying priorities each teammate might have, you can adjust how you approach projects and develop a better relationship. For example, if someone is a Steadiness style, they might start to shut down when they feel rushed on something. By understanding that, a more urgency-focused style like Dominant can see where they are butting heads and suggest a timeline that works for everyone.

Register for An Upcoming DiSC Course

Archbright University offers two DiSC-based courses in our public classes and can also bring these courses into your office or virtually for your entire team. Building with DiSC^® focuses on individual contributors, understanding your style, and how to work with others. Managing with DiSC^® is for leaders who want to better understand their work style, their teams, and creating a successful team dynamic.

Find a Public Class →

Inquire About a Private Class →