Over the years of facilitating and coaching I have had questions like – “Are there more D Styles in the US as Americans seem such confident people?” or “Do Italians have a bias towards the i style as they seem so dramatic and energised?”.
Of course, these are all interesting perceptions to explore, but they are also myths that need busting – DiSC research found that although there are some differences in behaviours across cultures, in practical terms these are not significant.
When I started using Everything DiSC over 10 years ago, when I was asked a ‘challenging’ question I would feel the need to justify the credibility of the tool and would defend it by regurgitating research and bamboozling participants with stats on scale reliabilities and intercorrelations! However, these days I take a breath and remind myself that the key objective of Everything DiSC is to get people to open up and to talk, and the true power of Everything DiSC is in the ‘dialogue’ and not ‘diagnosis’. I would like my participants to see Everything DiSC as a life tool, a catalyst to encourage non-judgemental and curious discussion about one another.
To help understand the impact on DiSC and culture (or other questions around the reliability of Everything DiSC) I have shared below some data, stats, information, and ‘sentences’ I like to use. I have also included published research papers that some people may appreciate reading.
- Everything DiSC is used by 8,000,000+ participants in 130,000+ organisations in over 70 countries worldwide
- Everything DiSC has a 95% satisfaction rating among organisations
- Everything DiSC has a 90% accuracy rating from learners around the globe
- Everything DiSC focus is to help us understand, appreciate and maximise cognitive diversity
- Everything DiSC promotes true diversity and inclusion – helping individuals understand one another regardless of their culture, heritage, gender, sexual orientation, and education
- Everything DiSC is available in many different languages and every language is validated before launch, for example, English is validated on an English-speaking population, the Spanish version is validated on a Spanish-speaking population. There is very little difference when we look at populations that speak the same language
- In a sample of 26,703 U.S. adults, some differences were found across heritage, gender & education but in practical terms these are not large or significant
- Everything DiSC Theory & Research
- Research Report for Adaptive Testing
We can conclude, no psychometric tool is 100% reliable or perfectly valid – we are measuring complex and adaptable humans after-all – but that Everything DiSC is a tried, tested and proven behavioural assessment that can be used confidently with people across the world, regardless of their culture, heritage, education or gender.
Contact us today to learn more about how Everything DiSC could help you. Open and In-House Everything DiSC Facilitator Training programmes are available – upskill yourself or your HR/L&D team. Chat with one of our Everything DiSC Facilitators who could help you introduce DiSC into your organisation- 01527 888946.
Heidi Blakeway is Managing Director of the Fruitful Group – a Leadership and Team Performance business that helps individuals and teams be at their best. We also develop other Learning & Development professionals and give them the tools to do this including our new Team Coaching tool. For more information about us and our solutions visit our site here.
