How to Boost Team Development with a DISC Assessment

Business productivity doesn’t happen by chance, and it doesn’t happen simply by getting your employees to work harder than everyone else. The secret to productivity lies in high-performing teams.

Just as a soccer manager will look at a range of skills and personalities when fielding a team of 11, so does a successful business. But how can you discover people’s strengths and help those teams thrive? A DISC assessment is one option. Here, we’ll explain this assessment tool and how it can help you transform your team development strategy.

What Is the DISC Personality Test?

DISC is a popular HR tool used with teams. It measures behavior, work styles, and personality types. DISC stands for the four personality types measured using the tool:

D (Dominance)

Dominance personalities are good at asserting themselves. They are confident and goal-orientated in their work.

I (Influence)

Influence personalities can persuade others to change their way of thinking. They have excellent social skills and are open with others.

S (Steadiness)

Steadiness team members are reliable, cooperative, and sincere. They can be depended on in a team setting.

C (Compliance)

Compliance oriented personalities are organized and can work accurately and to a high-quality standard. They often have lots of expertise to share.

Why the DISC Assessment Exists

Knowing the behaviors and personalities is a real asset for companies. It gives you an insight that’s hard to match in a one-on-one setting. You’ll get objective data on:

How that person prefers to work
Their approach to handling group conflict
Their communication style

This will help you craft a more effective management approach, like creating balanced teams with personalities that complement one another. The result is an organization with high-performance teams that don’t run the risk of falling into disarray or arguments. That, in turn, means a more harmonious work culture and a happier workforce.

The DISC Assessment: Understanding Strengths and Weaknesses

As a framework, the DISC assessment does more than help you put together teams. It also enables you to establish each team member’s strengths and weaknesses. Let’s look at some of the main ones.

Dominance

Individuals with Dominance personalities can be a powerful asset to any team. They have some valuable strengths, including:

They are great project leaders
They tend to push the team to get results

But Dominance individuals also have some weaknesses. It’s important to understand these and how these traits will work in a team setting:

They can often come across as impatient
Sometimes, their assertiveness can spill over into insensitivity toward others

Negative traits don’t necessarily mean that a person isn’t right for a project. However, any manager must use this knowledge to ensure the team harnesses its strengths and isn’t hindered by weaknesses.

Influence

Influence team members love working with people. So, there are evident advantages to having them on a team. Here are some of their strengths:

Influence people have excellent communication skills and can motivate others
They can boost morale and use their natural persuasive skills to encourage team harmony

So what are the downsides to an Influence personality style? Here are some of the main ones:

Influencers aren’t always detail-orientated
They may not thrive in data-driven work that requires precision

Knowing these weaknesses is helpful because you can clearly balance this personality style with someone with the opposite traits. When you do that, you have a more effective and productive team.

Steadiness

You can think of Steadiness as someone carefully steering a ship through choppy waters. A Steadiness personality is reliable and can work in a team in several ways:

They are highly sincere and cooperative, and they will build a sense of trust in any team
They tend to be thoughtful and help forge strong relationships within a team

These advantages come with a few downsides. Here are some of the typical weaknesses you’ll find with a Steadiness personality:

Though dependable, they may be resistant to change
They can be slow to adapt to a fast-paced project

These weaknesses show that personality traits shape not only team harmony but also project performance. You also need to ensure that personalities match the style and pace of a project.

Compliance

If every team needs a detail person, you’ll find that in someone with the Compliance trait. These individuals have several strengths:

They are highly organized and can help structure a team with systems and processes
Their attention to detail means they can ensure a high standard of work on any team

So, what are the downsides of this trait? Here are two worth mentioning:

The attention to detail can come across as critical, which could impact team harmony
Adherence to detail can be a challenge in a fast-paced project that demands immediate decisions

You’ll always need to weigh your priorities when putting together a team to ensure you get a balance of people and a good fit for the project or department. Only then will you make the most of DISC assessments.

Using DISC in Your Team Building Strategies

Every team needs a development strategy; a DISC assessment can help you. It enables you to bring together diverse personalities in a way that works to people’s strengths and creates a synergy in team performance.

It allows you to achieve a more dynamic and adaptable team for any project or department in your organization. Here are some of the most valuable ways you can apply this methodology to your teams:

Assigning Roles

A team with balanced skill sets gets better results, as the team is more likely to maximize its natural strengths. DISC helps with that. A Dominant personality may be the perfect option for a team lead role. In contrast, an Influential personality could be excellent in a client-facing role.

Assigning Tasks

Strengths will also help you delegate different tasks to each team member. Someone with the stability trait could benefit from longer-term, critical tasks requiring a reliable team member. Analytical tasks could be perfect for a Conscientiousness personality type.

Team Communication

DISC can help your team create a communication approach that works for everyone. For example, if your team lead has a Dominant personality type, you can focus on training in supportive and empathetic communication approaches.

Team Feedback

When you give feedback on performance to a team member, you need to use the most effective approach. As DISC assessments show, that approach will differ based on personality types. A Steadiness personality type, for example, prefers a supportive, non-confrontational feedback approach.

Managing Conflict

Every team faces conflict at some point, even in high-performing teams. How you manage that is important, and DISC assessments can give you some much-needed guidance. They could help you pinpoint the problem, like miscommunication between different personality types, and find a suitable solution.

Sometimes, that could mean mediation to help resolve a more serious conflict. Here, you could use an Influential personality type, known for their relationship-building skills, to act as a mediator.

Measuring Team Performance Improvement

Team development can only happen if you have an objective way to measure performance continually. DISC insights will help you look at how personality traits shape team outcomes. Here are some steps to measure performance based on DISC personalities:

Create performance roles based on personality type
Use personality types to measure team members’ contribution to the team
Assess how each team member adapts to the team’s needs based on their traits
Provide constructive feedback according to each team member’s DISC assessment

Here is an example of how this might work on an actual project. You may set a goal for a Dominance personality to lead two projects as a team, and measure their contribution by how effectively they lead and motivate that team.

For adaptability, you might measure a Dominance personality in terms of how well they take charge of a team during a crisis, and you’d give feedback to them with direct, results-based comments about their performance.

Continued Development

Of course, team development isn’t a one-off activity. It’s about continued monitoring and training. Here’s how the DISC assessment can help with that.

You can craft training programs to help team members develop some of their weaker skills. Feedback from team assessments can help you spot the areas that need the most work.

You can also consider training development programs and career progression plans to help maximize people’s natural strengths, like a leadership program for those who score highly as a Dominance personality. You can also create training programs centered around DISC assessment so team members understand each other’s personality types.

Knowing behavior types can help any team member work better with others, as they will understand more about that person’s strengths and weaknesses and how to get the best performance from them.

Using a DISC Assessment to Boost Team Development

High-performing teams can be a tremendous asset to any business. However, your employees are individuals and taking personality traits into account matters. A DISC assessment is a powerful tool in that respect and can help you optimize any team.

Success Performance Solutions can help you get started with our DISC profile testing. We’re a trusted, leading provider of assessment tools for small and mid-size companies. Schedule a demo with us today.