This is the second article in a series that addresses the numerous questions we’ve received about how the Strength Deployment Inventory (SDI) compares to other workplace personality assessments. This installment looks at the original DISC concept, which is the basis for multiple variations on the theme of DISC assessments. The first article covered the MBTI.

Fundamentally, DISC is a way of categorizing human behavior based on two variables: whether an environment is perceived as stressful or non-stressful, and whether a person responds to that perception in an assertive or non-assertive manner.

DISC is a public-domain concept, and assessments from a wide range of providers may use different words that spell DISC. The original version from William Marston was:

1. Dominance: behavior that results from responding assertively to a stressful environment. You may also hear this called directive, driver, or other D-words.
2. Inducement: behavior that results from responding non-assertively to a non-stressful environment. You will most frequently hear this called Influence.
3. Submission: behavior that results from responding non-assertively to a stressful environment. You will most frequently hear this called Steadiness.
4. Compliance: behavior that results from responding non-assertively to a non-stressful environment. You will most frequently hear this called Conscientiousness.

The central idea behind DISC is that you can understand and predict changes in behavior based on changes in the environment. For example, a super-villain and a super-hero would see committing crimes and fighting crimes as a stressful environment to which they respond assertively. So if Wonder Woman and a villain were working in the same context, they would be competing for dominance. But if Wonder Woman captured the villain with her lasso of truth, the villain might begin to respond non-assertively to the stressful environment, which would be Submission. And after the villain is captured, Wonder Woman might respond non-assertively to a non-stressful environment, or in other words, in a compliant or conscientious manner. So we could say that Wonder Woman is Dominant in some situations, but Conscientious in others. It would be wrong to say that she is always D, or always C.

By the way, Marston, the originator of the DISC concept, created the character Wonder Woman. He also created the lie detector—the machine that measures stress responses via changes in diastolic and systolic blood pressure. Marston seemed to be primarily interested in understanding changes in behavior in changing circumstances.

Since then, many DISC assessment publishers have claimed that DISC is a personality assessment, while others claim that it remains a behavioral assessment. In general, most experts agree personality is stable and consistent over time and across situations, while behavior is variable given that it is a product of choices (which can be influenced by personality) and environment.

The SDI (based on Elias Porter’s theory of relationship awareness) provides four independent but connected views of a person, two of which are about personality, and two about behavior at work.

Personality:

• The Motivational Value System is one of seven types when things are going well and people feel best about themselves and their relationships. It shows how three primary motives blend or integrate in each person.
• The Conflict Sequence is one of 13 types when things aren’t going well and people experience conflict with others.

Behavior:

• The Strengths Portrait shows how a set of 28 strengths are prioritized in working relationships, from most likely to deploy, to least likely to deploy.
• The Overdone Strengths Portrait shows how those 28 strengths appear when they are overdone in terms of frequency, duration, intensity, and context.

When DISC is considered as a personality assessment, it does so from a behavioral perspective. But the SDI views personality as a system of strivings for self-worth, so the SDI view of personality is informed by motives in relationships.

The most intuitive method of attempting to connect the SDI and DISC is to compare the four SDI behavioral styles (Blue, Red, Green, and Hub strengths) with the four DISC categories. And while the descriptions of Red strengths in the SDI do tend to align conceptually with the D-type behaviors in DISC, the remaining connections are not so clear. This is because DISC and SDI measure different things. For example, Steadiness in DISC is often described as a person who is consistent and reliable, but also a person who is concerned about the feelings of others. Steadiness has elements that align with both Blue and Green categories of behavior—or perhaps that align instead with the Blue-Green (Cautious-Supporting) Motivational Value System.

While the SDI and DISC can be used effectively together, it’s rare to see them side-by-side in a training environment because the connections between the two tend to cause confusion in learners. The best way to make the connection is with the SDI’s anchor-buoy analogy, where the anchor is stable personality and the buoy is variable behavior. DISC is basically like a second view of the buoy (behavior) from a different perspective.

In summary, DISC, at its foundation, is a behavioral assessment. In contrast, the SDI is a personality assessment that illuminates the way people make behavioral choices to fulfill their underlying motives.

Want to learn more? Download the complete SDI Comparison Guide.