Keep DiSC in learners’ minds
Moving from “one and done” to “return and learn.”
One of the biggest challenges for a trainer is finding ways to keep the training in the minds of the participants after you’ve left them. How can you keep reminding them of what they learned? How can you ask them to continue using their new skills or new learning?
Online engagement
Many people who have taken an Everything DiSC® assessment can be given access to two different online platforms that help keep learners engaged. Both MyEverythingDiSC™ and the newer Catalyst™ platforms provide learners continuous access to their profiles, to basic information about DiSC, and the ability to compare their styles to that of colleagues. Many trainers assign style comparisons or additional review between sessions. These sites are great to return to before meeting with a new colleague or your manager or direct report(s). Over 70% of learners are returning to the Catalyst platform to learn more, review their style, get communication tips, or compare with others in their organization.
Learn more about these platforms:
Visibility
If learners share a physical or virtual workspace, encourage them to post their styles or their Everything DiSC Workplace® Style Guides.
In our office, we have our Style Guides posted by our desks. We have team style posters up around the office to keep DiSC top of mind.
Encourage team members to use DiSC-style virtual backgrounds or add their style to their display name.
Find posters, worksheets, and more at DiSC downloadable assets.
Managers and team leaders can keep DiSC visible by sharing stories about how they recently used DiSC in their work or day-to-day activities. For greater engagement, they can occasionally share articles on issues of communication, emotional intelligence, leadership, or whatever was brought up by your learners during training or during any needs assessment you conducted.
We have a collection of DiSC activities that aren't all found in the facilitation kits.
Scheduled reviews
There are a few obvious times when returning to your Everything DiSC profiles will be useful: when forming a new team, before a performance review or feedback session, during onboarding a new employee, when planning a celebration, before kicking off a new project, or when facing a major change or conflict. Review how people prefer to work, to get feedback, to get recognition, etc.
Consider scheduling a short follow-up training session a few weeks after your first. Ask participants to send you questions about Everything DiSC or how to apply it. Review notes from the initial session for topics in which they showed interest.
To direct learners back to their own reports, you can send out a link reminder to the Catalyst platform or offer to resend a link to their report.
Here are some prompting questions to consider:
Any Everything DiSC profile
- What do you want colleagues to know about you and your DiSC style? Friends? Family?
- What information is available in your DiSC profile that you use to describe your priorities and preferences? Where would it be helpful to share these?
- Have you become better at some of the challenges a person with your style often faces?
- Is there anything in your profile you could benefit from sharing with your team or your leaders today?
- How could you use information in your profile today?
Agile EQ profiles
Refer learners to specific sections or pages of their report.
Strengths and needs: Ask learners to review their needs. They can find these on Catalyst at Home > Agile EQ > My EQ Strengths or under “My EQ Snapshot” on page 8 of the PDF report. Ask:
- Are your needs being met?
- What steps could you take to get your needs better met?
Developing EQ: Refer learners either to Catalyst at Home > Agile EQ > Develop your EQ or pages 15–26, “Becoming more Agile,” on the paper profile. Ask:
- Are you getting better at practicing behaviors and mindsets outside your comfort zone?
- What are you noticing about your own mindsets and how you make choices?
- What mindsets do you anticipate using later today or tomorrow?
- What’s something you want to try this week? How will you get feedback about how well you’re doing?
Product Conflict profiles
Refer to page 10 and ask learners to again reflect on a recent conflict and how their knowledge of DiSC made it more productive. Refer to page 21 and ask learners how having a few days to integrate their learning has influenced how they’d fill out that page today.
Destructive responses: Refer learners to page 11 of their report. Ask:
- Have you engaged in any of these types of responses in the past week?
- Have you successfully avoided or stepped away from any of these types of responses in the past week?
- What thoughts have you been able to reframe lately?
Management profiles
Directing and delegating: They can find these on Catalyst at Home > Management > Direct and delegate, or on pages 7–11 of their traditional report. Ask:
- What challenges have you been facing recently regarding directing and delegating?
- How can you apply tips from these pages?
- How have you improved your delegating skills since our training?
Motivation: They can find these on Catalyst at Home > Management > Motivation, or on pages 12–16 of their report. Ask:
- How are your employees responding to the environment you’ve helped create?
- How are you using your knowledge of DiSC styles when rewarding individuals and teams?
Discussion questions
To build an ongoing culture of DiSC at your organization, take a few minutes at the beginning or end of your regular meetings to pose a DiSC-related discussion question. For ideas, see 30+ Team-Building Questions for After a Training.
Quick team activities
Before or near the end of a meeting run these short exercises (written from facilitator to learners).
- Pick a customer or client and try to determine their style based on what you know about them. What clues were you looking for?
- Let's revisit the (D, Di, iD, i, iS, Si, S, SC, CS, C, CD, DC) DiSC style. How have you needed to use or stretch to that style this week?
- What activity or action have you done this week that reflects your DiSC style?
- Pick a different DiSC style than your own. How might you best communicate with someone of that style in an email, a phone call, or a video chat?
- List three priorities from one of the Everything DiSC maps. Can you guess which style or styles they apply to? For example, stability, reliability, and dependability are all priorities for the S style (but from Workplace, Management, and Sales profiles).
- Do one of the activities suggested in the QuikDiSC® Card Deck. Choose a card you think is your greatest strength. Share how that strength has caused you a problem at one time or another.
Additional sessions
Sometimes your first session is spent with learners focused on their own styles and learning the DiSC model. Why not add another session focused on people-reading or on group dynamics? There's a 30-minute people-reading module in the Everything DiSC Workplace Facilitation Kit. The Everything DiSC Group Culture or Facilitator Report can be very helpful as they present the group's style and offer discussion questions about the implications of the group’s tendencies.
Go deeper into Agile EQ with these videos on YouTube: Understanding Emotional Intelligence with DiSC® or Developing Emotional Intelligence with DiSC®.
Provide a link so learners can read about their DiSC leadership style. How about a leadership-themed book club at your workplace using The Work of Leaders book?
Consider asking learners if there are topics that they'd like to focus on or discuss in the future. If several topics are suggested, have them vote for three. Offer to work with the program sponsor to schedule a time and/or place for these reaction groups to meet. You can offer them topical resources and/or facilitation.
Consider conducting training focused on a new profile from the Everything DiSC application suite. We recommend Everything DiSC Agile EQ for any group. Perhaps you'll want to improve everyone's leadership skills with Everything DiSC Work of Leaders, or their sales or management or conflict skills with other available profiles.
Several of our clients have put their people through more than one DiSC profile experience. But sometimes instead of offering another Everything DiSC profile, they will use The Five Behaviors Team Development which includes a review of DiSC. Already having a shared grounding in the Everything DiSC model can accelerate progress toward building more cohesive teams.
Everything DiSC application suite
The Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team suite
Keeping DiSC in your learner's mind requires planning and creativity. We encourage trainers to consider what happens after the training while they are planning their session(s).
