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After recommending DISC at a local project management event, once of the attendees sent me an email that she'd found a free DISC test online and she had come up with the "Level" profile, where all her scores were equal.

Two questions?

Free? Really- I thought this was a licensed system.

Level? Is this a for real result? Even if you get all level, is it all 1s, 2s, 3s, 7s?

Joel

 

(Seems to be my week for posting to MT)

Smacquarrie's picture

You can easily find a "free" version of just about anything. You get what you pay for with these. I tend to run at a high A on one test. If I take the free ones I usually come in somwhere in the middle. With the dics profile I came in as DC. Take the free test results with a grain of salt.

altadel's picture
Licensee Badge

For what it's worth, the listing of DISC profiles in the back of the results I got when I took the inscape version through MT doesn't have a profile called 'Level', and none of the profiles really look level.

Scott Delinger

DISC: 5137

arthurb999's picture

Just pay for the good one from MT.  It's cheap.

stephenbooth_uk's picture

 I'd echo what SMACQUARRIE and ALTADEL said, you do get what you paid for.  I took a free test and was basically just given a numeric score (percentage for each stereotype) on a web page.  I took another one that cost me $25 (in 2008, prices may have changed since) and got a large PDF fiel giving an overview of how the resultsts were reached (how different question contributed), details of what each stereotype represented and how my score reflected on that (including keywords that would describe someone with my score levels), a detailed description of my profile and what that meant and briefer decriptions of other profiles and how to interact with them.

I guess a level DISC profile is possible although if I saw one I'd be thinking that there might be a problem with the test or how it was taken.  People tend to not be level, by nature we're specialists who tend to be one way or another, not both.  I'm also not sure I'd want to spend too long with someone who did have a completely flat profile.

I read an article today on BNET which looked briefly at DISC and Meyers-Briggs profiles.  The author was arguing that knowing your DISC profile and changing your behaviours are very different things.  I think he's missing the point.  The strength of knowing your profile, and that of people around you, is to know when your profile or that of someone around you is most applicable to a situation.  When you understand the profiles you can either guide tasks to the person most suited or emulate a profile more suited to the situation than your natural tendancies.  My I stereotype is as low as it can get but when I'm in a situation that needs High-I behaviours I can emulate the behaviours of High-Is.  It's difficult, I don't like it, I normally get a headache from the stress of acting in a way that's so alien to me (and I often feel slightly dirty afterwards :-) ) but I can just about do it. 

 Stephen

--

Skype: stephenbooth_uk  | DISC: 6137

"Start with the customer and work backwards, not with the tools and work forwards" - James Womack

 

AspirationM's picture

http://www.discusonline.com/UDISC/specsit.html

 

Compressed and over/under shifted profiles may be relevant.