Case Study: Brian & the Multiple DISC Adaptations
Case Study Focus:
DISC Assessment
Significant Behavioral Adaptations in all four Dimensions
Brian had previously worked as a business consultant and had been in sales. He started seeing a life coach because he was going through a severe custody battle and had a criminal record from his youth, so Brian was under a tremendous amount of stress. At the time, he wasn’t interested in going to therapy to do difficult inner work.
He had taken a DISC assessment before but with a provider that did not provide results on adaptations. Brian could feel his adaptations but didn’t understand what was happening. He felt like his whole life was in chaos and needed help navigating. So Brian took TTI’s version of the DISC assessment and got insight he had never received before.
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According to TTI, a shift of 10 points or more is significant. I regularly see one or two areas of adaptation on a DISC report, but I had never seen this before: Brian had significant adaptations in every single dimension of DISC.
I explained to him that both DISC dimensions that deal with people — I and S — dropped down in his adaptations. Both dimensions dealing with processing — D and C — increased in his adaptations. He was withdrawing from relationships and focusing more on processing and making decisions. At the time, I didn’t yet know he was in a custody battle, and these results made me initially wonder if he had perhaps started a new job that required a whole way of working.
What I noticed next about his DISC assessment is that his C (32) crossed the energy line (50) in his adapted behaviors (52). The greatest fear for someone with a heightened C is making a mistake. In a professional situation, this could look like a fear of getting fired, but the high C resulted from the custody battle for Brian. He was being cautious and afraid to take risks. With the D (79) adapting up six points (85), it told part of the story of Brian’s adaptation into trying to solve problems.
His S (28) dropped in his adapted behaviors (18). This told me he was pulling away from established relationships, feeling impatient, and wanting things to move faster. His I (66) also dropped down to a 55. This told me he was less trusting than he usually was and less optimistic about people in general. Brian was pulling himself away from social interaction and relationships.
From these adaptations, I asked Brian each of these questions:
D adapting up: Are you feeling pressure to be more assertive than usual? What’s causing you to feel like a decision needs to be made? Or a problem needs to be solved?
I adapting down: Are you feeling less trusting than usual? What is causing you to engage less with others? Do you feel more pessimistic than normal?
S adapting down: Are you feeling more impatient than usual? Do you want things to go faster? Are you feeling external pressure to move faster?
C adapting up: Do you feel more pressure than usual to get things right and avoid making mistakes? Do you feel like you’ve been walking on eggshells?
Brian was baffled that I knew to ask him these questions — I was able to get to the heart of what he was experiencing all just from looking at this one page of his DISC report, and he immediately saw so much more value from coaching. It was not just the situation with the custody battle externally. He also questioned himself internally due to his criminal history. Every direction he turned, something was putting pressure on him, with the constant unknown hanging over his head about whether he would get custody of his kids.
In the end, Brian did get custody of his kids and was able to understand and address how he was showing up differently under stress. The insight from his DISC assessment helped significantly shorten the discovery stage with his coach. Given the urgency of his situation, this was incredibly valuable.