As part of their pre-season training camp, the riders in the professional road cycling team, Slipstream, each took a DISC questionnaire, asking them multiple-choice questions about themselves.
DISC is a psychological profiling tool and is intended to divide people across four behaviour ‘types’, giving scores for dominance, influence, steadiness and compliance. The dominance and influence types make decisions more quickly and are described as dynamic and bold. But whereas dominant individuals tend to be more sceptical and logical, influential individuals are more empathetic and involve other people in their decisions.
The compliant group are also objective and logical, but more methodical than the dominant. The steady group are thoughtful, and people-focussed.
Slipstream manager Jonathan Vaughters said that the exercise had been an interesting insight into his riders personalities and was intended to make them think hard about how they could work together.
“We wanted to do something a little different. Bike racers are cynical, sarcastic and hard, and with these guys you have to do something interesting or you won't get their attention,” he said. “Everybody got something out of it.”
Vaughters wasn't surprised by the results of the tests but said, “My job is to figure out people's personalities and see where they fit.”
DISC profiling can only be carried out by fully trained individuals and Leadership Factory have been using the tool as a key part of our people development programmes. If you are interested in finding out more about DISC then please contact Brian Glennie at brian@leadershipfactory.co.uk