DISC personality profiling and my related coaching experience

When I was invited to take part in a DISC Personality profile assessment used by The Juniper Co., I jumped at the chance, not least, to have the opportunity of some valuable one-to-one coaching from Nicki herself! I was intrigued; what might I learn that would help me understand myself better and potentially improve my approach to teamwork?

What is DISC?

DISC is a personality profiling tool that breaks our behavioural traits into four main categories – Dominance, Influence, Steadiness and Compliance. All of us display each of the traits, however, every individual has their own natural preferences, and everyone adapts according to different situations. This can be a helpful tool, since the more self-aware we are, the better prepared we can be in any given scenario, whether it be in everyday conversation or a discussion involving challenge or conflict. It can also help us to understand others’ personalities and how we might adapt to achieve mutually beneficial outcomes. We can only change our own behaviour, not other people’s, after all!

The assessment

The assessment itself is a fifteen-minute questionnaire. The premise is that you don’t spend too long on each question and answer the four multiple-choice options with the one which speaks most strongly to you. Some of the questions did make me think, as there were sometimes two options that resonated quite strongly. I endeavoured to be as authentic as possible and choose the instinctive response and not the response I would hope to make.

My report

Upon receiving my assessment report the next day, I was surprised at how detailed it is – 12 pages of insight about me! One of the most interesting and revealing features of the report are the graphs where we can see our ‘public self’ (mask), ‘private self’ (core) and ‘perceived self’ (mirror) scores, plotted side by side. My ‘public self’ shows that I tend to place too much time and emphasis on relationships and get distracted from the task at hand, which is something I need to be mindful of when I am working with others.

My coaching experience

At the start of our coaching call, Nicki introduced the concept of DISC, explaining that the assessment helps to determine the natural aptitudes of a person, which can then be explored and applied to a work situation, to identify the strengths and gaps within any team.

The DISC assessment highlights differences between the public and private self as important, since the private self can be instinctive, and any fluctuation between the two may mean that you need to adapt your response in certain work situations. For example, my ‘Steadiness’ or ‘S’ trait goes up a lot on my private self graph, compared to the others, meaning that I’ll often try to slow things down in order to understand and make a plan. Therefore, if a task is time critical, this could be a potential source of conflict, so it’s very helpful for me to be aware of this both in and outside of work.

Nicki explained that if each of us has a greater understanding of our own behaviours, we can have more empathy with our colleagues and create better working relationships. For this reason, The Juniper Co. uses DISC profiling in our personal development and leadership programmes We have found the process often reveals certain personal and inter-personal challenges for individuals and teams, and can lead to more open discussions about preference and stronger team cohesion. For a deeper insight into the DISC Personality System, take a listen to our DISC podcast by Nicki and Cathy, where they explore the process, as well as the benefits to an individual and a team.

My key learnings

The ’Growth Areas’ made a lot of sense to me and are helpful in pinpointing specific behaviours for me to work on. One challenge area for me is that I tend to be over-optimistic and could be more realistic on time required for certain tasks, along with needing to be more focused on the facts and details.

The aim to make my internal self more visible externally, is absolutely what I am going to concentrate on, alongside some mindfulness about how my profile works with other colleagues, so that we can optimise how we work as the Juniper team.

A key Juniperethos is that we are passionate about helping people to be the best version of themselves -- DISC is an excellent starting point.