DISC Coaching Demo with Roel Schaart: Debriefing a DISC Assessment for Leadership Development

A person with a tendency more towards blue, more on the details, that will probably take 90 minutes. There's a reason that I do both the motivators and the DISC. And I'll give you an example.

Let's say a person has a very high dominant style. That means most likely very direct and straightforward, and he gets shit done very fast. Now, one of the motivators is called power. And power means, are you motivated to lead? Are you motivated to be in control?

And if they are out of sync, in a way it may cause internal conflict. For example, let's say you have high power in your behavior, so people see you as a leader, but your internal driver, your motivator, is low. Then you behave in a way that you actually don't like, and that could cause a potential conflict.

So, shall we show yours?

The DISC assessment came up quite a few times already in the interviews we are having here. So it's high time we have a closer look and really unpack it. What is the DISC assessment? What are the risks and the opportunities? And how can I use it in my coaching practice?

I'm Tobi from metaFox, and I explore all of these questions with my guest, Roel Schaart, a master certified coach. Let's go.

I support and explore their solutions. I have it very simple. Most of my clients do 12 months of coaching. Because in my experience something also pops up: mostly people start with a business goal, and then most of the time it ends in family, emotions and so on.

And it also gives a bit of an insight into what your internal drivers are. And yes, it's not the truth. It's like a city map. The city map itself is not the reality, it just gives a bit of a thought. And I use the report, which is quite extensive.

You will see, it's 60 pages. Hey, dear client, from that report, where do you see something that's important? Where do you see, hey, this is absolutely not fitting? And where do you see something where you would like to change, based upon whether it's true or not? And what I like about the DISC and motivators report is that it gives a bit of a direction regarding behavior at work, but also when people fall into stress.

But again, I always challenge the client. Hey, is it true? Does it fit? Where does it work? The DISC report is from the 1940s. And Mr. Marston, at that time, he wanted to understand four parts in communication. The first thing he wanted to understand is, is a person more a people person, or more a task person?

Is a person more into the bookkeeping, admin, or is the person more on stage or in sales? People versus task. The second direction is, is a person in communication very fast, or perhaps a bit slower and needing more time to make decisions? And again, there's no good or wrong. Some people are very fast, straight to the point, and some people need more time to think it through.

The third direction is, is a person very open or very guarded? What I mean is, my wife is actually very open. Put her somewhere in a group and in two minutes she knows everything about everyone. And vice versa. And the last direction is, is a person straight to the point, direct, or indirect, in between the lines.

And again, I emphasize this, there's no good or wrong. It gives a great overview of those directions. Built upon those directions are the DISC report and the motivators. I see an importance in the combination of those, I don't do them separately. Four styles, and we'll see it straight in your report.

The second style is called influential. And influential people often have high energy, very optimistic, very fast pace, very direct, very people oriented, but more about, hey, look at me.

I'm on stage, I'm the cool guy. So that is high yellow. The D is the color red. And we also need people with high influential, because they bring the energy into the room. They engage people. They are very optimistic, they see the future. They probably start lots of things at the same time, but they don't finish them.

They're very good team players. They have a lot of patience. What they don't like is change, they need more time. They are people persons, but on the slower part, so they're not on stage, let's go, let's do it. Very good at harmony and team play. Sometimes it happens, as you see in the report and also in the discussions, when people have a higher grade of stability, green, they're very patient, till a certain level.

People with high green are very good at hiding emotions. But at the instant turning moment, when it flips, people with high green are extremely straightforward, almost like a dominant person.

Now we come to the last one, and that stands for conscientious, color blue. People with high conscientiousness are very task oriented. They are slower in their pace. They are extremely good with details and quality. So mostly in quality management

you will probably see a higher grade of blue. They take things quite personally. If people give them negative feedback they think, oh, I did something wrong. So, for example, give a person with high dominance a PowerPoint,

three bullet points, very straightforward, but with three mistakes. The blue one will find the mistakes.

If a person tends to be more blue or more green, I go slower. If the person is more blue, I will provide more details and assurance. With green, I'm more patient. So you see, I'm speaking the language slightly in their color. And I notice that is an even better connection.

He was scoring a level of 99. It's just how much energy he puts into that particular style. And it showed that he had 99 at work, but also when he felt stress he acted in that particular dominant style. And I thought, oh man, how am I able to support my client in the best way, and how can I communicate with this client in the best way?

And I thought, okay, high D, high dominance, means very fast, no bullshit. So I didn't ask, hey, how was the weekend? Because he didn't care. He was here in the coaching to get results very fast, no bullshit, and willing to take risk. That means I could also be very direct, dominant, very direct. So I could say, hey Tobi, you have not done what we said at the end of our last session.

So this seems to be wasting my time. We set up a next call, and what you wanted to do, you told yourself you would do. And I know it's a bit of a gray zone regarding the ICF core competencies. For this client it was extremely powerful, and he went extremely fast in realizing his goals.

With others I really slow down, make sure that the steps are certain, that it's all good.

Do you face clients who already say, yeah, I know I'm a very red guy, and I'm also annoyed by these blue people? Is that a theme that comes up?

Maybe even not looking at the report. His behavior at work, what would be the best behavior at work to support his team in the best way? His type of clients, or his family? It normally fits with the DISC report, but I'm very careful not to put people in boxes, and that they don't put themselves in boxes. It's just a model.

So there are many models, and from a solution-focused point of view, if the client can see something that is helpful for him or her, it's great. But I don't say, oh, you need to do this because you are this. And I know I'm combining two, three streams. One is the solution focus stream, where everything is in, let's say, exploration with your clients.

What's there is available. There's no problem in such a way, it's solution focused, it's exploring together. And then another methodology, almost, from the forties, where if you're not careful you can put people in boxes. And still, I think, for me it works to do both.

And now we have a language for that. Of course this language is very simple, it's just four colors. And people now speak in this, oh, it's his blue language. That's also a step in evolution. And I think from there, with societal knowledge increasing, we can also come to a more nuanced language, and possibly a map that is even more detailed to describe the world.

And in that sense it's great that clients now come to you, they take the DISC, and they already know, they have already heard the model and might have some idea of their preference before.

The other way of thinking is, people like to put themselves in boxes. We all have those wearables that measure heart rate and all that stuff, because we want to learn, we want to see where we are, which box we want to put ourselves in. So there are a lot of tests, and people love tests in a way, because they want to understand which box they are in.

I filled out the DISC itself. What I did there was, I was asked the question, which of these adjectives appeals most to you? And then I had a set of four adjectives and I selected the most appealing and the least appealing.

That was the entire DISC assessment, a bunch of these questions. And then the motivators assessment. What I did there was ranking statements. For example, there was, which news article headline seems most interesting? And then

ranking up to 10 statements like, this is the most attractive, this is the second most attractive, and so on.

A person with a tendency more towards blue, more on the details, that will probably take 90 minutes. In most cases. It's not set in stone, but that's most likely how it happens. There's a reason that I do both the motivators and the DISC. And I'll give you an example. Let's say, I'll show you in the report.

Let's say a person has a very high dominant style. That means most likely very direct and straightforward, and he gets shit done very fast. Now, one of the motivators is called power. And power means, are you motivated to lead? Are you motivated to be in control?

And if they are out of sync, in a way it may cause internal conflict. For example, let's say you have high power in your behavior, so people see you as a leader, but your internal driver, your motivator, is low. Then you behave in a way that you actually don't like, and that could cause a potential conflict.

Or the other way around, you have a very high internal drive to lead a team, to be in control and to push things forward, but your behavior doesn't show it.

That means your internal drive is high but it doesn't show. And that could also be a conflict, because people don't see you as a leader. There are interesting combinations that I discuss with the clients. And even more interesting when we do a group snapshot, that means everyone in a certain team. I had a financial company in Dubai, the leadership team, we had 10 people.

So, shall we show yours?

a way of leaning more into my natural style?

snapshot of your behavior and your internal drivers. I'll scroll down and show you how the report has been set up. There are three parts, one, two and three. Showing a bit about you, your behavior, your internal motivators, that's part one. Then there's the second part, more the connection with others and how it all works.

So there are three parts. I go now to page four, that is a bit of an overview, a summary of how it all works. As I said before, no good or wrong, there are four directions, the fast and the slow and so on, and that's based upon different colors. You see here certain words that may be applicable to the different styles.

For example, a person with higher dominance is most likely more decisive. A person who is very influential is very charming, very confident and very talkative. Steadiness, very patient, more relaxed. And then blue shows more compliant, it should go the way it should go, and so on.

Now, having said that, the next page is a good understanding that some styles support each other and some styles may go into potential conflict. For example, if both are a task person, so a dominant person is also a task person, but on the bigger picture, and an admin person is most likely more in the detail.

So on the task level they're actually supportive of each other. They need to be careful, because the dominant person is way faster and the blue person needs more time. And the blue person is probably more in the detail, and the red person is more on the higher vision. But on the task level they are supportive.

We also see that with the S and the I, they're both very much on people. However, the S person tends to be a bit slower and more patient and more about team, and the I person is more about themselves, more energy and faster. But on the people side they both have that connection. We see the same with C and S.

They're a bit indirect and also slower compared with people with high S and high I. And the D and I people are very fast and very direct, so that works, also very supportive of each other. However, there are also styles that may go into potential conflict. And what we often see is a person with a very dominant style, direct, straightforward, going very fast,

and then this person talks to a person who needs more time. He's open, the person with D is actually not so open. So all four directions are in contrast with each other. The person with D is fast, direct, task oriented and very guarded, they don't show their cards.

And the person with I is of course the opposite. Please be careful that there is no black and white. The colors are on a scale of zero to 100. It's not, oh, you are red, so you are very direct. If you are on the 50 percent level, you may not put that energy in, you can go either way.

The same with the S. The C and the I are also opposites. I is very fast, very direct, very people oriented and very open. And the C is actually in all those four the opposite. But again, it depends on the level of energy they put into that particular style.

And what I like to explore with the client is, hey, would it be useful to go into this part? Have you seen any of those examples at work or at home? Is this helpful? Would you like to go there? So the session is really a coaching session as such.

It's not, oh, this is your red, that means this.

They adapt in a different environment. And natural is almost their core DNA, if you can say that. It's when they fall back into stress moments. You go into an office and you adapt in a way that you serve the clients in the best way, and when you feel stressed you may act differently.

Which we see here. We see a very high I, and we also see an above average D. It seems that you have a lot of energy. It seems that you may be very optimistic, starting many things at the same time.

And you support a team with direction, a vision, getting stuff done. What I also see is that you may tend to be less patient, and you do not put energy at work into quality and details. So I would say, this is almost like a salesperson. A salesperson has a lot of energy, wants to close, good connection, wants to step on the gas pedal and say, hey, let's close this contract now, it's about time. You may want to have support from your back office team regarding admin and details.

And if you do team meetings and connect with the team, you may want to have a look at your patience level. Can you give me some insight on that one?

And how I also try to design my work environment is that I work a lot with breakouts, or try to keep meetings small, so that there's a higher share of interaction. Especially for my sake, but also for everyone else's sake, I assume people are similar to me, assuming that a good meeting is a meeting where the share of engagement, the share of contribution, the ratio of speaking versus listening, is relatively high.

Now let's look at your natural style. It seems, based upon the report, and again, push back, that when you experience stress, could it be possible that you tend to be a bit more direct and a bit more pushy?

knowing that I also have these tendencies to be impatient with decision making, especially when we are in a rush.

Like, we need to get somewhere, and I tend to have little patience. Another one where I see this relatively high blue is in liking structure and the sense of control, and that I do have in my natural tendency when it is about, I don't know, cleaning up my desk in order to feel more at ease with the world. At the same time, what I can see very well if I compare the adaptive versus the natural style, is that you mentioned earlier that people with a high share of blue preference tend to see the mistakes.

I think oftentimes, when interacting with colleagues or reviewing work, I do see the mistakes and it pains me. But I have also learned, from being in the other person's shoes, that there's no benefit in pointing out all the little details that I see. Let's actually keep focused on the bigger picture in this conversation and have the detailed review towards the end.

Let's first talk about the big points. So I think there I see very well that I have a relatively high share of blue in my natural style, which I then adapted, because I learned, also through painful experience, that there's a benefit in tuning it down.

You also see that the S drops below 20. And they are really enhancing each other, so high dominance and a very low S, low patience, gets you done fast. You may want to have a look at yourself: what happens with the team if you are in this state, because you expect it done quickly, you also expect high quality.

You are more focused on, let's move forward, and you may forget the team and get pushback.

In reality you cannot always get both, or you can rarely get both. You see it already in my language, how I can hardly bear it. And that is of course what makes me suffer on the one hand, but also then what makes the team suffer, because I become a less nice person if I'm frustrated with the lack of

quality.

I have maybe a disconnect with the team and so on. And then it's something we can explore.

So, natural and adaptive.

So let me go step by step. The scoring, also from zero to 100, is just how much energy you put into that particular motivator. So for example, you put a lot of energy into high theory, understanding how it works. You don't put a lot of energy into aesthetics. So it sounds to me, or it shows me, you are more a functional person.

It should work, but you probably don't spend hours and hours on colors and shapes and making it nice. I see a smile on your face. What's going on?

had to learn, okay, let's first discuss how this coaching tool actually works, and let's do the colors later. And we have enough people on the team who worry about the colors.

three in the ranking, like a winning team, most likely have the most effect on how you behave.

So let me give you an example. It seems that you do not put a lot of energy into following the rules. I'll give you an example, I have a bit of the same. I used to live in a little town near Bremen, and there was a roundabout. It is still a roundabout, but the roundabout is out of the center.

So when I go up the street there's a roundabout up north, but actually it's completely useless. I always go up the street, straight to the left, turning into the street where I lived.

Now, I have a low regulatory score. So, if you had been visiting my home in the past, would you follow the roundabout, or would you go straight into the street?

one of the worst arguments I had with my wife was about going off the path when hiking in the Romanian mountains, when I would say, look, I can see everything that's going on here. If we can just switch from this path to that path, going off track for a little bit, we can see everything.

From my perspective

there was no danger. But my wife was very much, no, you don't know the mountains, this path is here for a reason, we follow the path. And I'm saying, it doesn't make sense.

but it also has quite an effect on what you do. So could it be possible that you're really motivated to understand how things work?

And those, one, two, three, most likely have quite a lot of effect on how you behave.

It doesn't have that much effect on your behavior. So could it be possible that you're actually good at both? You can be individualistic, making your own label on it, and you just gave me an example about, hey, other people can decide the color, and also follow the group. Correct?

Economics is also a bit of the same, in the middle, slightly more. If people have very high economics, that means everything they do needs to get a return on investment. And that can be money, that can also be an emotion or a good feeling.

You see a, let's say, average dominance with the ranking seven, so it may not have that much effect, and you have a slightly above average behavior on your dominance. So they are perfect together. Low regulatory is often a combination that I see with entrepreneurs and business owners, finding other tweaks to get it done.

I can see that it's a good prompt for a coaching conversation.

But indeed, I like that you give pushback, that's exactly what I would like to see in a coaching session. Okay, I'll scroll down a bit. Page number nine is based upon all the styles combined. It says, hey, the style that you have, all the combination, D, I and S and C and so on, is dynamo.

Let's have a look. Personal direction: use the power of influence to direct people to positive action. If I sense you and the way you talk and the way you do things, I see a lot of this, positivity, direct action and so on. Build on your business strengths, will be more a mover and shaker, using a variety of methods and influencing behavior towards. That's what I see.

Is there anything from this overview where you say, hey, this is absolutely nonsense?

In this realm I can really see this personal direction and strengths offer that is mentioned here. That really makes a lot of sense if I look at my personal history.

natural and adaptive. And if you see the other people, it's a great way to do group discussions. Hey, how do you see it, is this helpful, and so on. So you are in the assertive, persuasive arena here. And what I would say is, hey, where would you like to get support, for example from a bookkeeper, or more an admin person helping you with the details?

So here are a couple of don'ts and dos. Let's see if it fits. If we are in your team: stay on track, hit the major point first and then get to the main point quickly. Don't stick rigidly to the agenda, that's a don't. Does it sound correct?

I think there's again this sort of adapted versus natural, where I know it makes sense to not always follow the agenda and to respond to the immediate need. That's, I think, also a developmental area I worked on only recently. And yet I like agendas naturally, I would say. So I see here again that this don't is a bit derived from my adapted style, in a way. And my true preference, to make me feel at ease, might actually be different.

people do certain things, they are driven by themselves or they're driven by others. They are, let's say, followers. Again, no good or wrong.

And what we see here, the orange one is the natural and the purple one is your adaptive. And we see also the length of the bar, which shows more effect on that particular driver, self-driven. So what we see here is that it seems you're very self-driven. The population, however, is more on the others-driven side.

You need to tell them what to do, they need a guideline, et cetera. Why is this important? Because most people may not understand. You are self-driven, adaptive and natural, and most people are here.

more conscious of the potential pitfalls that you have in development cooperation. And I think actually this could also offer an explanation: that I'm very much above average in being self-driven. And I expect

others to be the same as me. I'm self-driven.

Great insight, absolutely spot on.

There's one slight part of the population that is more directive and compulsive, okay, let's do it, without thinking. So here you have this part of the population that fits your behavior, but the big chunk need more details and are actually not as quick as you are.

So be aware that when you go, you may want to check in with the team to see if they're still with you. Given the time, I'd like to scroll down a little bit. There's still a lot of detail in these pages, and I'm talking about page number 20, actually almost from 25, that talks about even more detail regarding the internal drivers.

I always say, from all those pages, go through the report and highlight just one line. Don't go into detail, but scroll it, and I would say go with three questions. Is this important for you? Is this total nonsense, you think, hey, that's not me? And is this something that you'd like to work on with me as your coach?

The fun part, however, is part number three.

But if you speak the language locally it's even better. And you will see, okay, if I have a client and my client is, let's say, high dominance, how can I communicate with this person? I like change, personal choice, I want results, I go fast, that's how I want to communicate. If I talk to a more stability person, then I need to show proof.

I need to show interest in the person, not only the task at hand. Very important. The person with green needs more assurance, that it is all right, take your time, it'll be the right decision for you. And with blue I need to really do my homework. If I have a flyer and I want to discuss a potential solution for my client, and my client has a tendency for blue, I need to be better at doing my job. I need to be really focused on the details and quality, and I need to be absolutely perfect. If there were mistakes, then the client is disconnecting. If I would ask you as a client, what was one thing that stood out, and one thing that you'd like to work on?

sense to treat others how they want to be treated.

And that is what this

invites you to do. And where I also see the learning for me, because I've done many, many tests. I worked with MBTI in the very early days of my personal development journey.

I have worked a lot in the last years, so a lot

my communication towards them.

They're all perfect. And it's how you use it. You have a hammer. It's just an overview. It's a great opportunity to start a coaching conversation. And again, I'm aware that I put the solution-focused mindset into a box thinking mindset, but for me it works perfectly fine.

And I would explore with you those little things to explore in a coaching session, besides your other goals that you have, business, family, communication and so on. Always in a partnering way. And it depends on the client, because it's quite extensive, as said. Is there anything else, having seen the report and based upon the discussion we have, that he or she would like to do with it?

That's it in a nutshell. I do offer it to teams, because it gives more insight into the whole team connection. I offer it because I'm an accredited DISC trainer. And what that means is, people can get themselves certified and then get their own DISC portal and help their clients or their staff.

For the first five people, I can offer you 10 percent discount on the total package. And I'd also like to offer your audience, one is the complimentary DISC report,

which is free. They can use it, and if they say, hey, that's very interesting, I'd like to get the full extensive version combined with, let's say, a 90 minute coaching.

I use it with coaches for certification, with clients for exploring their behavior, and with teams to get a bit of an understanding of their communication together.

And I can also reach out if I say I want to even become certified with DISC, then I can reach out to you, Roel.

Awesome.

friction-filled conversation just this weekend. Maybe that could be an explanation. And what

could I do now to connect better next time with these sorts of people.

How would you notice the difference in yourself? What would be the benefit for the team? So, pure solution-focused coaching approach.

Thanks so much.

People like to be put in boxes, funny enough, they like to get certainty, oh, I'm here and here. So that's a bit of the paradox. I find my style helpful for me and my clients, and that's also why I get certain types of clients and I don't get other types of clients, because they fit with me.

Roel left a small present for all of you. In the show notes you'll find a link to the official but free DISC assessment, with a report that's a bit more advanced than the usual free test. So check it out. For Roel's second closing piece of advice, develop your own coaching style, I find his own story the best example of living this.

For more than 10 years he has facilitated and coached in the Tony Robbins universe. Today he's a master certified coach with the ICF. This journey is what he shared on our last episode, the making of Roel Schaart. So if you haven't yet, go back to that one. I found it quite an entertaining ride between what coaching means in different bubbles, and how he, and maybe we, can pick the best of both worlds.

That's it for today. Thanks for being part of the Making of a Coach. I'm Tobi from metaFox. All the best until next week ## [i=362]

and bye bye.