Understanding Human Behaviour with Extended DISC

In my experience most people say they can sum up a person pretty quickly, and for first impressions, most probably can. So why do I have so many clients disappointed with who they recruited and surprised when their first impression don't work out? 

Did they misread that person? Did the context of working with the person change so much that behaviours changed radically? Or do some underlying behaviours only reveal themselves under pressure?

Learning to 'speed read' people is handy, but using an international tool like Extended DISC goes into a whole new realm.

Extended DISC© is an on-line, 12-minute system to support business and personal behavioural growth. It's easy to complete, easy to read, clear in its interpretation, and flexible enough to target any discipline from arts through sales, accounting, engineering, management and more. 

The assessments are used in recruitment, 360 degree reviews, career growth opportunities, promotions, team analysis, career reviews, coaching, mentoring, and skills development.

The process is used world-wide in several languages by managers, individuals and HR Departments, recruiters, couples and life coaches.

The assessments highlight business skills that might need development, can assist when team culture is an issue and help determine the suitability of new roles or promotions within an organisation. They are especially clever in helping to determine both  a person's natural style, and the style to which they adapt under pressure (often in the workplace). Invariably, in connection with clever questions, the reports can lead to the illumination of what skills might be on a 'development list' to fill a role. 

Extended DISC© is not the same as the traditional DISC product. The only similarity is the basic behavioural theory, which dates back to the 1920s, but that is where the similarities end. Extended DISC© recognises combinations of various percentages of the four basic traits in generating the Personal Analysis Report and it has a number of other practical and powerful reports available in the system. It measures unconscious behaviour and compares it with the conscious adjusted behavioural style, allowing the measurement of emotions.

We can then look at the emotions being communicated by the respondent at the time of completion of the questionnaire, their stress levels, uncertainty of their role, insecurity, frustration, pressure to change, etc. It also enables the report to define the influence of the present environment on the respondent’s motivation as far as certain needs are concerned. This is vital information for the person as well as the organisation.

Furthermore, it is extremely difficult to cheat using the Extended DISC© System. Regular DISC programs can (and often are) answered by the respondent in the way they believe the person reading the report would like them to answer. This is because the emphasis is on the conscious adjusted behavioural style. On the other hand, we know when someone has tried to beat the Extended DISC© System. The assessment will likely be invalid, showing mirror profiles, or a tight Profile II or an over-shift in Profile II. Detecting when a regular DISC report is inaccurate is extremely difficult.

It's frequently used across all disciplines, but let's take just sales as an example. If a company has identified that it needs 'goal oriented hunters', then hiring caring, heartfelt, 'steady' personalities might be a mistake. If a company needs excellent account managers, hiring very fast-moving logical, critical and disciplined personality types might be just as big a mistake. A medical company who needs sales people will typically need different temperaments from sales people selling services. Extended DISC© can pinpoint candidates more likely to succeed. It cleverly sorts types and styles. The same example of clearly seeing differences can be applied to all disciplines of business and team fits.