In this enlightening episode, Coach Maura dives into the world of the DISC assessment—a tool decoding individual traits and preferences. With 15 years of coaching wisdom, Coach Maura sheds light on how DISC transforms team dynamics, enhances leadership, resolves conflicts, shapes personal branding, and boosts adaptability. It’s not just about knowing your style; it’s about making mindful choices in diverse settings.
Episode Transcript:
Sam Jayanti [00:00:07] Welcome to ideamix, Performance and Wellness, where world-leading coaches and scientists explain how their research can help you achieve your personal and professional goals faster. Hi, it’s Sam Jayanti, co-founder and CEO of ideamix coaching. Coaching has played an important role in my life. It’s helped me through my journey to become a powerful leader, mother, and wife. ideamix coaches help you increase your self-awareness, improve your problem-solving skills, and evolve your habits to achieve your goals. All things I’m grateful to have learned and done through my own coaching journey. Our easy one-minute assessment matches you with an ideamix coach that best fits your needs and values. Each ideamix coach is vetted and experienced and helps clients map and achieve their wellness professional and business goals. If you or someone you know could benefit from coaching, visit our website at www.theideamix.com. We also know that not everyone can invest in coaching right now, and that’s why we provide free coaching in our Coach Shorts episodes. If you think someone you know would benefit from it, please share our podcast with them. Thanks for listening and see you next time.
Jamie Kosmar [00:01:12] Welcome to Coaches to Know, a podcast short designed to help to demystify coaching and help you, our audience, understand coaching and how it can help you. I’m your host, Jamie, and today I’m here with Coach Maura to talk about the DISC assessment. Coach Maura has been coaching for nearly 15 years. She works at the intersection of business and culture, particularly in international people strategy and management consulting. She has spent 12 years living and working outside of the US. And in addition to her international experience, she holds an MBA and a degree in Cultural Anthropology. Her clients are culturally diverse, high achievers and leaders across a range of industries, as well as entrepreneurs and young professionals who want to work on leadership style, building their confidence and communication skills. Welcome, Coach Maura. Thank you for joining us here today. And we’ll just get right into it because we don’t have a lot of time. So today we’re here to talk about DISC assessment. Could you please share with us what is the DISC assessment and sort of what is the assessment based on?
Coach Maura [00:02:25] Absolutely. Thank you, jamie. Very excited to be here and talk to you about this tool, which is really impactful and something that has a lot of applications. So the DISC assessment is a behavioral tool. Like many right, we know of other behavioral tools. The DISC assessment is slightly different in that it’s a simple and effective way to identify inherent traits and preferences of individuals. So essentially what is your individual style? And it’s different than other assessments. For example there’s the MBTI which is more about your personality. The DISC is really looking at behavior, excuse me, observable behaviors. So the DISC looks at observable behaviors that are identified for yourself. It’s something that you can use to also look at behaviors and styles of others. And it can really be effective when used in relationships. So in a working group or with a team.
Jamie Kosmar [00:03:26] Amazing. Thank you for that introduction. So could you give us some of the sort of best use cases for the DISC assessment?
Coach Maura [00:03:37] Absolutely. I’m actually going to start with how it should not be used.
Jamie Kosmar [00:03:42] Okay. That’s great!
Coach Maura [00:03:43] Yeah. Different ways that, you know, behavioral tools and assessments are used, but the DISC is not the best one for would be something like hiring or performance. Because again, the DISC is about personal style. And we don’t want to sort of penalize someone for that because it’s essentially looking at your preferences. What the DISC can be used for, and it’s really an excellent tool for, is building your self-awareness. Again, identifying what your priorities are, your style, your preferences, and when used in a group, it can be really powerful for team building, leadership effectiveness. The DISC is something that can be used to harness trust and establish empathy, either individually or collectively. It’s something that can be used as a powerful tool in conflict resolution. Again, kind of building out what it is that different people lean on, right, or kind of default to. When used individually, you can talk about. You can use it to talk about your personal branding, you know, what is it that defines my style and how does that impact how I show up in my leadership brand? And it’s really effective with international collaboration. Again, identifying different styles, um, something that can be used in developing adaptability. Right. And the variable sort of complex environment that we find ourselves in today. So quite a variety of tools, both individually. Uh, sorry, excuse me, a variety of applications, both individually and collectively.
Jamie Kosmar [00:05:17] That’s very interesting and amazing. All the different sort of variable use cases. You know, I’ve always tended to think about this because something that would be great for using in a team setting, but it’s actually interesting to hear about how an individual can use it to build awareness about their own style and their personal branding. Can it be used in the sense of helping an individual not just understand who they are, but in order to maybe help with behavior change? Maybe they want to develop certain preferences and certain ways.
Coach Maura [00:05:55] Absolutely. So what you get when you go through the 15 minute, 15 question DISC assessment, um, is essentially an identification of your preferences and again, your style. So that would be D, I, C or S right. Um, and I can run through that quickly and then talk about how that might tie into your personal brand. Great. So the D profile is really, stands for dominant. So it’s someone who’s really tends to be direct, firm, strong willed, forceful also tends to be very result oriented. Right. So really going for it. I stands for influence. This is someone who tends to be outgoing, enthusiastic, optimistic, high spirited. Right. There are people that you, you know, are great in kind of a collaborative group setting to get the energy up, etc.. S stands for steadiness. These are people who tend to be even tempered. Accommodating. Patient. Humble. Tactful. Again, really important when you’re talking about negotiations. Right. Or something similar. And C is about being conscientious. Right. So these people tend to be more analytical, reserved, precise, systematic. Right. Great people to have when you’re talking about anything analytical, process oriented, data driven, etc.. So you can see how D, I, S, C, these different you know, different preferences and different styles can actually be really effective and really powerful in different settings, right in different roles, right on different types of of work or projects. And one of the key principles of the DISC assessment is that, number one, all of these are equally valuable. And number two is that everyone is a blend of all four of these styles. So what you get as a result of your preference is what can be referred to as sort of your home base, if you will. Right. Your kind of default and you are also a combination of the other preferences in there. And I think when it comes to personal brand, knowing what your home base is, knowing what your kind of default is, is the really important thing to raise your self awareness so that you can make choices about how you want to show up in different settings. Because the other part of this is knowing that you can adapt and flex to the other preferences, or the other styles will really help you as well. Right? So if you’re in a situation where you tend, you know, you need to have. A bit more tact, right? Or maybe it’s something that’s a really sensitive relationship. Having that S– that steadiness factor– go up will really help you with your brand and really help you in your with your performance. And similarly, if there’s something that just needs to be driven through and get done and, you know, get over the finish line, you know, the inverse, that D component, you know, being able to flex, that is something that will also really help you and may actually support your team as well. So I think when it comes to personal brand, knowing your style, your preference and knowing how you can adapt and flex using the other preferences, preferences and styles, is really how to leverage that, um, to, to increase the impact wherever you are.
Jamie Kosmar [00:09:10] That’s amazing and it’s an amazing description. I love this idea that we are actually a blend of all four of these, that we have elements of that, but then you sort of just have a default, maybe like a default mode of operating. I imagine that coaching is a place where if you, let’s say you’re naturally one of these, let’s say you’re naturally dominant, but you need a situation where you need to slow down and, and be the steady presence, the green or, so is that a situation where coaching can help you sort of develop that ability to adapt?
Coach Maura [00:09:48] Absolutely. Absolutely. One of the greatest gifts of coaching is self-awareness. Because once you become aware of your blindspots or aware of kind of different elements of your style that you maybe, you know, don’t use all the time or aren’t fully kind of in touch with, you can then make different choices or conscientious choices, at least about how you want to show up. Right. So absolutely, coaching as a way to kind of not just delve into, you know, what is my style, but also what are the other styles here, right? How can I adapt? How can I connect in with, you know, the different motivations, the different fears or limitations? The other styles that can benefit me and can benefit my team and those around me. Mhm.
Jamie Kosmar [00:10:37] That’s that’s amazing. That’s a great, great summary of how coaching can really support that sort of that flexibility. Just one final question here because we’re almost out of time. You know, there are there are a lot of different assessments out there, and one of the things that we are seeking to do is really educate our audience about the different assessments and how they can help them. So I imagine you’re you have an, a wide array of choices that you could have chosen to get certified in. So why is it that you chose to get certified in DISC? What was it about this assessment that you found sort of most impactful in the work that you do?
Coach Maura [00:11:20] Absolutely right. There are a number of assessments out there. No shortage.
Jamie Kosmar [00:11:25] Yeah.
Coach Maura [00:11:26] And they all serve a slightly different purpose. And I was drawn to the DISC. I mean countless different assessments myself. I was drawn to DISC as a as kind of a starting point for my own certifications, largely because it is simple, it’s fairly intuitive, and therefore it’s easy to remember. It’s… You can apply it to so many different setting things, and, and it fits a variety of different environments. As I said, individual team and in a team setting. There’s a great Ben Franklin quote where he says, “tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.” And I think involving teams in the DISC assessment is incredibly impactful. Getting them to stand up if they’re together, move around. Talk about what the implications of this are. And even virtually I’m debriefing a team next week. And we’re going to be doing breakout rooms. And then we’re going to be utilizing the chat and, you know, other tools, backgrounds, etc., to really involve everybody and, and really cement this learning. So I think the DISC is accessible, it’s memorable and it’s impactful.
Jamie Kosmar [00:12:42] Wonderful. And on on that note, you know, I’m going to say thank you, Coach Maura, for sharing your insight into the DISC assessment today and to our audience: if you would like to work with Coach Maura or one of our other qualified coaches, please visit us at www.theideamix.com. Thank you for listening.
Narrator [00:13:04] Thanks for listening. Please subscribe wherever you listen and leave us a review. Find your ideal coach at www.theideamix.com. Special thanks to our producer, Martin Milewski and singer songwriter Doug Allen.