Why does a DISC certification make sense?

In simple words, “TO STAND OUT“.

Why should i get certified? This is the topmost question on a person’s mind when they call to enquire about our certification on DISC.

I can relate to that question because I myself was asking myself the same thing from around 2005. I in fact was asking a more fundamental question : In a cluttered market how do I stand out? Since every trainer was doing the same kinds of programs how would a prospective client differentiate.

That question started me on a journey to see what should I specialize in. As I share my journey, you might see the value for yourself in getting certified in DISC .

I started looking around and observed that those senior to me in this space seemed to be having tons of certifications. Hmm I thought, maybe certifications are required. I also noticed that having a certification in psychometric assessments seemed to put you a step above the rest. In fact a conversation with a senior where he stated, “You can decide to drive a nail in with your hand but isn’t a hammer a better idea. ” made up my mind. Now I was shopping for a psychometric tool that I could specialize in.

In 2005 at ICFAI Business School, it was decided to conduct the 16 PF on all the students. We had 1200 in the Gurgaon campus. So we had about 150 at a time in the computer lab to take the test which was well over an hr. I had to invigilate so I remember. The test had, I don’t know exactly, 100-200 questions. However, the worst was yet to come. 16 PF can be analysed only by a master’s in psychology. On our campus we had 2 psychologists and 1200 students. 1:600 is not a good ratio to do any sort of counselling. So we had a set of concerned students and harassed psychologists.

Immediately, at IBS we started looking at other tests. And it is then that we considered DISC. I could relate to the profile as it was very similar to a profile that I had been using myself in my sales career since 1998.

However, my search didn’t stop. MBTI was the buzzword so I asked a consultant to conduct a workshop based on MBTI for our team at IKH. Well, my issue here was that after the assessment I knew my type INTJ and had read a full page on my type (which by the way isn’t very easy to comprehend) and now knew that under stress I clean drawers (i.e. use my sensing side) but didn’t know how can I improve my productivity. Therefore, I thought,” MBTI is very complex. It is very popular for leadership circles but if I can’t use the assessment report to enhance myself, how will I use it with others.”

DISC on the other hand was intuitive and comprehend-able. It was uncannily accurate. It seemed to be the right assessment to specialize in. So, I went on in 2008 to get certified on DISC from Thomas International. We were really excited about our new tool and at that time were working on how to use it in the retail industry. Well, the truth is the business imperatives in the retail industry meant Rs1800 was out of bounds for them. We tried looking at some way we could cater to our clients needs, but Thomas International could only give us the graphs for Rs 600/-. How would we get each store manager (because on the ground they do a lot of emergency recruiting) to understand the graphs. This wasn’t working out.

In 2009, we were contacted by Fin-Pro who put us in contact with Jukka Sappinen, CEO Extended DISC. In the first meeting he said we can customize the report for your clients based on the volume you require. Yippeee. Extended DISC had found a fan. We immediately got certified in the Extended DISC System. After successfully tailoring it for our retail clients we decided to deepen our relationship with Extended DISC as it was a superior DISC based product which is unique in its comprehensiveness, flexibility, action ability and simplicity.

We went on to become their official partners in India. We today certify people on the Extended DISC system, sell the Extended DISC reports as well as do a lot of DISC based workshops.

DISC is the differentiator in our workshops whether it is communication skills or leadership skills.

We found that Extended DISC fulfilled our needs and I am sure you too will find Extended DISC a suitable framework to work with.

Contributed by: Lovely Kumar, Chief Projects, Larks Learning

For more information about our training and coaching programs please contact at lovely@larkslearning.com or 91-9899108659