This article was originally published in 2020. It has been updated in 2024 and republished to ensure our readers are provided with the most up-to-date insights.
In this blog series, we take a look at the similarities and differences of many employee assessment instruments and how you might use them – individually and together – to achieve your business and talent development needs. For this post, we discuss the DISC® and how it compares with Whole Brain® Thinking and the HBDI®.
Choosing the right employee assessment for your team or organisation can be confusing. Many instruments overlap in what they measure and how they’re used. We take a closer look at the DISC assessment and how it compares with Whole Brain® Thinking and the HBDI.
What is DISC?
The DISC assessment is a popular behavioural assessment tool that categorises individuals into four behavioural types: Dominance (D), Influence (I), Steadiness (S), and Conscientiousness (C). It is widely used in organisations for personal development, team building, and leadership training. The DISC assessment was developed based on the work of Dr. William Marston, an American psychologist. Marston was interested in understanding how normal (non-pathological) human emotions and behaviours could be categorised into different personality types based on observable behaviour. Marston did not develop an assessment tool himself. The DISC assessment as it is known today was later developed by others (there are several versions), most notably by industrial psychologist Walter Clarke in the 1950s.
The behavioural styles defined:
Dominance (D): Individuals with a high “D” score are typically direct, results-oriented, and assertive. They are often focused on achieving goals, solving problems, and overcoming challenges.
Influence (I): High “I” individuals are outgoing, enthusiastic, and persuasive. They are generally good at building relationships, influencing others, and creating a positive atmosphere.
Steadiness (S): Those with a high “S” score tend to be calm, patient, and supportive. They value consistency, cooperation, and teamwork, and are often seen as reliable and dependable.
Conscientiousness (C): High “C” individuals are detail-oriented, analytical, and methodical. They prioritise accuracy, quality, and careful planning, and often adhere strictly to rules and standards.
DISC is a popular employee assessment for understanding different styles, behaviours and perspectives and how we respond in different situations.
What is the HBDI?
The HBDI is a psychometric assessment designed to measure and describe people’s thinking preferences. Developed by Ned Herrmann in the 1970s, the HBDI identifies thinking or cognitive styles. It suggests that individuals have diverse thinking styles which can describe how they prefer to process information, solve problems, communicate and lead others.
The HBDI model divides thinking preferences into four distinct quadrants, each representing a different type of thinking. These quadrants (or model) is visualised as a circular diagram, with each quadrant representing a specific type of thinking:
Figure: Whole Brain® Thinking Model
A-Quadrant (Analytical Thinking):
- Focuses on logical reasoning, data analysis, and critical thinking.
- Prefers working with facts, figures, and quantitative information.
- Example activities: Problem-solving, financial analysis, technical tasks.
B-Quadrant (Sequential Thinking):
- Emphasises organised, step-by-step, and methodical approaches.
- Prefers structure, planning, and following procedures.
- Example activities: Project management, planning, implementation.
C-Quadrant (Interpersonal Thinking):
- Centres on emotional intelligence, empathy, and communication.
- Prefers working with people, building relationships, and collaboration.
- Example activities: Teamwork, teaching, customer service.
D-Quadrant (Holistic Thinking):
- Involves big-picture thinking, creativity, and innovation.
- Prefers brainstorming, strategic thinking, and conceptualising ideas.
- Example activities: Strategic planning, creative design, innovation.
The HBDI assessment shows the relative degree of preference for each of the four Whole Brain® Thinking quadrants. This profile helps individuals understand their preferred thinking styles (they can prefer one, two, three or four styles). It also identifies areas where they might feel less comfortable or require more effort to access. It can highlight individual preferences, comparative preferences in pairs and team preferences.
Figures: Individual HBDI preferences, comparative preferences of two people in their typical and under pressure state and a team preference map. https://herrmann.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360021406293-Accessing-and-Interpreting-the-HBDI-Reports-Samples-Included
The Whole Brain® Thinking model which sits behind the HBDI promotes the concept of Thinking Agility. This approach encourages individuals to develop and use all four quadrants of thinking, adapting their style to different situations and challenges. By understanding their own and others’ thinking preferences, individuals and teams can improve communication, problem-solving, and decision-making.
Note: Although both tools use colour to differentiate their constructs, there is no correlation between the colours of the DISC and the HBDI.
Similarities and differences between HBDI and DISC?
Both instruments operate with the space of personal and professional development, however, DiSC identifies your behaviour style, whereas HBDI identifies your thinking preferences.
Your thinking preferences can impact your behaviour, but also how you behave can be different to the way you prefer to think. For example; you can have a thinking preference that is very intuitive and interpersonal/ideas focussed, yet a behaviour style that is conscientious, with a detailed focus.
Another key difference between the two assessments is in the way it evaluates you. With a DISC profile, you will be provided with a report based on your single top behaviour style, so either: Dominance, Influence; Steadiness; Conscientiousness. This can lead to individuals feeling stereotyped or ‘boxed-in’ as the report is generated on a single ‘type’.
In the HBDI database we recognise that less than 5% of the population have a single dominant profile so the majority of our thinkers will have a report that identifies the diversity of how the combination of their Thinking Preferences plays out. Within the HBDI database it is less common to only have one preferred thinking quadrant.
Figure: Diverse thinking profiles
One of the challenges of a behaviour instrument is the possibility for individuals to mask and behave differently in diverse situations. The thinking style tool might help identify why behaviours are different based on the thinking preferences of an individual.
With any assessment, application can be a challenge. Getting people to create a new practice or behaviour based on insight from tools requires attention, focus and keeping the learning in the forefront of people’s busy days. When you have a methodology that frames the concepts the application and strategy steps become easier. Whole Brain® Thinking gives you a common language, method and framework for thinking about the world around you.
It provides an organising principle for understanding and addressing different kinds of interpersonal or business challenges. The HBDI gives you the insight to understand yourself and others, in addition to a framework for analysing, defining and applying shifts and changes in your thinking (and, by extension, behaviour).
For these reasons, Whole Brain® Thinking and the HBDI are often appealing to organisations that want to directly link the strategic work that talent management, L&D, OD or HR is doing with tangible business outcomes.
Although it may appear conflicting to work with employees using two different assessments there are some complementary ways these tools can be used together.
Using the assessments as complementary tools
Using the HBDI and DISC together can provide a comprehensive understanding of an individual’s strengths, thinking and behavioural preferences, which can be incredibly valuable in personal development, leadership coaching, and team effectiveness.
Recruitment to onboarding
The DISC profile can be used in the recruitment process to understand candidate behaviour, assess how behavioural styles align to the demands of the role and provide insights into possible job performance. For example, someone with high Conscientiousness (C) might be well-suited for roles requiring attention to detail and adherence to rules.
The HBDI can not be used in the recruitment process as there is no ‘ideal’ profile and we know that individuals can adopt Thinking Agility to operate in styles they may not prefer. The HBDI complements DiSC in that you can recruit for desired behaviours but then recognise how those behaviours may manifest differently based on the diverse thinking of employees.
Let’s share an example. An emergency service provider was recruiting employees to go into life and death emergency situations based on a preferred high D (dominance style). They wanted behaviour that was high results-orientated, valued efficiency and those who can prioritise quickly with decisive action. However, these stakeholders worked in pairs and this meant they were clashing and conflicting because they had highly competitive behaviour styles.
The HBDI was introduced to explore the differences (and similarities) in how these stakeholders made decisions about the emergency situation they were facing. They recognised that even with the same behaviour style, two people could think quite differently about client care and decision making. They used the Whole Brain® model to understand these differences which turned the competitive behaviour into complementary behaviour when dealing with emergencies.
Figure: Whole Brain® Decision Making
Comprehensive Personal Development
Coaches can use DISC to help clients understand their behavioural tendencies and how they interact with others. HBDI can complement this by exploring how clients prefer to think and make decisions, providing a holistic view of their cognitive and behavioural patterns. This combined approach can help clients develop self-awareness, identify areas for growth, and implement strategies that align with both their behaviour and thinking styles.
For example, a client might score high in Conscientiousness (C) on DISC, indicating they are detail-oriented and methodical. HBDI might reveal that they also have a strong preference for Analytical thinking, which could suggest a tendency to overanalyse or get bogged down in details. A coach could help the client develop strategies to balance their need for detail with a broader perspective, possibly by encouraging more Imaginative or Interpersonal thinking approaches.
Team Dynamics
DISC can help identify the behavioural styles of team members, such as who is more dominant, influential, steady, or conscientious. HBDI, on the other hand, can provide insights into how team members prefer to think, process information, and solve problems. By combining these insights, teams can understand both the “how” and the “why” behind interactions, leading to more effective collaboration.
Leadership
DiSC can help identify a leader’s natural behavioural tendencies, such as how they influence others or handle challenges. HBDI can complement this by providing insights into the leader’s thinking style, such as whether they approach problems logically, creatively, or relationally. Together, these tools can guide leaders in understanding their strengths and areas for growth, both in terms of behaviour and cognitive approach.
Tips for using HBDI and DISC together
Because DISC and the HBDI both fall in the corporate assessment category and use the same colours to describe different constructs here are some things to keep in mind to ensure HBDI and DISC co-exist positively:
- Understand that they are different assessment measures. HBDI measures thinking preferences as opposed to the behavioural style that DISC measures.
- DISC identifies your primary (single) behaviour style, HBDI identifies your degree of preference for each quadrant (e.g a preference code of 2211 or 1111)
- Be aware that there could be some confusion if you use them together because both models use colours as identifiers (e.g, the colour blue means different things).
- Be explicit upfront with participants about the differences and why you are using one or the other and recognise that behaviour and thinking can manifest differently.
- Encourage participants to look at the patterns of similarity between the two profiles. Have them review the language and descriptors of preferences and behaviours.
Participants who’ve already taken DISC (or HBDI) are very quick to pick up the additional assessment and begin making their own comparisons.
They typically find (and report) value in both tools and appreciate the distinctions, and they can begin to see, define and act on what can be done for greater efficiency, effectiveness and impact.
When facilitated well, by an experienced practitioner, this combination of assessments can provide a positive impact to your people’s development initiatives.
What tool should I use?
In summary, both the HBDI and DISC are valuable tools, each with its own strengths and focus.
HBDI focuses on cognitive preferences and thinking styles, exploring how people prefer to think, learn, and process information. It looks at the mental processes behind behaviours and decision-making. DISC focuses on behavioural tendencies, exploring how people behave in different situations, particularly in their interactions with others. It is more about outward behaviour than internal cognitive processes.
Remember, the uses, purposes and outcomes of each tool are different.
In general, the lifespan and long-term impact of a DISC implementation is limited to learning more about self, others and teams through behaviour. Beyond that, it’s difficult to scale DISC for bigger organisational initiatives.
The HBDI assessment is based on the Whole Brain® Thinking methodology, which is more than just a lens for insight about self, others and teams; it can be used for more strategic applications, such as decision-making, problem-solving, delegating, creative and strategic thinking, and many other areas. A lot of organisations use Whole Brain® Thinking and the HBDI as a foundation for changing culture because Whole Brain® Thinking provides a framework and roadmap to create a common language.
This common language can be the basis for all the important business conversations we need to tackle – not just people issues, but issues of process, profit and possibilities as well.