DISC Model

In 1928, William Marston published Emotions of Normal People, proposing four behavioural styles: Dominance (direct, results-driven), Influence (outgoing, relationship-focused), Steadiness (patient, supportive), Conscientiousness (analytical, quality-obsessed). Used for team building, sales, and leadership development ever since.

Unlike the Big Five — trait-based, validated, predictive — DISC is behaviour-based and self-reported. It is useful for communication styles. It is less predictive of performance. The value is simple: understanding how different styles prefer to communicate reduces friction. D-types want bullet points. S-types want context. The High-D who cuts off discussion to drive a decision is not being rude. They are being D. The High-C who requests a third round of analysis before committing is not stalling. They are being C.

Marston never built an assessment instrument. That came decades later — Walter Clarke's Activity Vector Analysis in the 1950s, John Geier's DiSC Personal Profile System in the 1970s, and eventually the modern DISC assessments used by an estimated 50 million people annually. There is no single standardised DISC test. Different publishers use different item pools, scoring methods, and normative samples. The Big Five has the NEO-PI-R. DISC has a marketplace.

The empirical case for DISC is thinner than its market penetration suggests. No meta-analysis demonstrates that DISC scores predict job performance with the consistency of Conscientiousness in the Big Five framework. Test-retest reliability varies widely across publishers.

Without a shared vocabulary for these differences, teams default to the assumption that people who behave differently are behaving wrong. DISC replaces moral judgment with stylistic awareness — and that substitution alone resolves a surprising percentage of workplace friction. The framework persists because it outperforms the Big Five on practical adoption. A manager can learn the four styles in thirty minutes and immediately start adjusting how they communicate. The Big Five takes longer, its five continuous dimensions are harder to hold in working memory, and its nuance makes rapid application in daily conversations harder. DISC trades precision for usability. In settings where the goal is better communication and team awareness rather than predictive hiring, that trade-off is worth it.

The core operational insight: people process information, make decisions, and respond to pressure differently based on their dominant behavioural style. A High-D wants the bottom line first — give them a ten-minute executive summary, not a forty-slide deck. A High-I wants energy and collaboration — put them in a room with others, not alone with a spreadsheet. A High-S wants stability and clear process — spring changes on them and they shut down. A High-C wants data and logic — emotional appeals register as noise. The best leaders do not communicate in their own style. They communicate in the listener's style.