Why PPSS

PPSS or the Personal Profile System® Software is designed to provide information about how a person’s style is lived out in different areas of their experience. It is built on the time-honored, four-factor model, DISC. It extends the basic DISC style information into many areas of practical self-management and management of others. It uses clearly defined behavioral language expressed in a descriptive and respectful manner. It gives people the “language” they need to discuss their behavioral style, the style of others and the style expectations of a particular role or environment.

PPSS has several components: the Personal Profile System® (PPS), the Role Behavior Analysis™ and the IPPS®. The PPS includes supplemental reports: How to Manage This Person, How this Person Tends to Manage, How to Create a Positive Relationship with this Person, How this Person Relates to People and the Environment, This Person’s Natural Approach to Selling and How to Manage this Person in a Sales Environment. PPSS also includes several comparison options: compare two or more people, compare two or more roles, compare a role and a person. The IPPS feature of PPSS provides 360º feedback by allowing five people to give feedback on how they see someone’s style.

PPSS is available as PC software with online response capability or through Inscape Publishing, Inc.’s online EPIC delivery system. PPSS is published by Inscape Publishing, Inc and sold through authorized distributors.

History of PPSS

As authorized distributors of CLC Gary Little and Pamela Cole both used Personal Profile System® (the famous “blue paper profile”) in their consulting and training practices. Although they lived in different parts of the country and had different businesses with different areas of concentration, they often met at Performax (one of the former names of Inscape Publishing, Inc.) during the 1980s and dreamed about how technology could make the DiSC® information much more accessible. Both being “geeks” at heart, they had a vision of a day when all the information collected in the DiSC® archives could be delivered in an easy to use format.

It was their good fortune to be having these wishful thinking sessions right at the beginning of the PC age. Both Gary and Pamela had a background in designing information systems so this was natural for them to think about. Gary had actually had quite an extensive career in data processing before he moved to the lucrative recruiting business. It was a boom market for computer professionals and Gary did quite well as a “headhunter”. Pamela had moved into the training end of the business after deciding the time and travel demands of the consulting industry didn’t suit her lifestyle.

In 1990 Gary decided to pursue the idea of DiSC software more aggressively. He approached the president of Performax and suggested the idea. No one at Performax really thought there was a market for a software product. They were convinced that the world really preferred to receive information on paper. Gary was told if he wanted to go ahead and do it for “sweat equity” he had their permission to use the intellectual property in his software. As soon as he got the “go ahead”, Gary called his good friend and colleague, Pamela, and asked if she would be interested in writing the content and helping with the design. Lew Russell, VP of International at Performax was assigned the task of managing this duo of “wild ducks”. Without Lew this product would probably not
have been accomplished.

And as they say: “the rest is history”. The first version of the software was released at a distributor event in June 1990 whose participants were very enthusiastic about the success potential of this product. However they had to overcome some significant challenges. Gary and Pamela had made some critical design decisions in the development of this product. First of all, it would require a computer with a hard drive. Secondly, it required an HP laser printer. Most of the potential distributors not only didn’t have a computer but also had an aversion to technology. And those who had computers had Macintosh and didn’t like the idea of moving to a PC and the software only came in a PC version. Surprisingly, the distributors quickly overcame these challenges and Pamela and Gary were off to design product #2.

The first product had been called the “work” version of the PPS software. At that time Performax (now Carlson Learning Company) had a line of DiSC products for applications in the family so Pamela decided to write a version for “social” applications, which was released in January 1991 along with a version for Sales applications. This was a time of great productivity for Carlson Learning Company. Two training course were developed with video and participant materials, DiSC Management Strategies (DMS) and DiSC Sales Strategies (DSS). Both of these courses used the PPSS software.

PPSS was off and running despite many technical challenges with printer drivers and the hardware device (dongle) known as the codelock. The software used electronic usages called “clicks” and click sales were rising rapidly. By the end of the second year clicks sales were over a million a year.

CLC’s international partners wanted a stake in this lucrative game as well. The first partner to embark upon the daunting process of translation was our Mexican partner, John Fischer. And shortly after that our Danish partner Per Kauffman followed suit. Then all the partners from Europe and Scandinavia wanted products in their languages. Gary and Pamela produced Spanish, Danish, Italian, Swedish, Norwegian and German by the end of 1992. (There are currently 20 language versions) And of course our Australian partner, Keith Ayers jumped into the game without even waiting for the Australian version!

Our international partners also wanted a product they could use for selection and recruiting so Pamela and Gary created a version of the product called “Selection Decision Support Software” (SDSS) which was released in January of 1993.

The incredible thing is these were all DOS products with a limited graphical user interface. The software was basically a report generator with simple input and output interfaces. But Microsoft® was pushing their Windows™ product hard. And even though the “powers that be” at CLC were convinced that there would never be corporate users of Windows™, Gary and Pamela pushed ahead to develop a Windows™ version of the product.

Pamela also undertook the process of revalidating the Personal Profile System (PPS). As the person responsible for writing all the content of the interpretive reports, she had become increasing uncomfortable with the lack of research information in the CLC archives. There was a lot of folklore and anecdotal evidence but not much true research. After requesting PPSS data from active distributors who were using the product, she compiled a large sample and did some psychometric analysis. It was clear that the scales needed to be revised and the validity improved by changing and adding items to the response form. Pamela brought this information to the then president of CLC, Tom Ritchey who made the brave decision to move forward with revalidation. It was a risky move because the “Blue Profile” was the sacred cow and the cash cow!

The revalidation of the PPS was conducted in the fall of 1993 by Pamela and the professional research firm that had been contracted to gather the right mix for the sample. The PPS was completely revised, response items were added, scales were changed, and new segment numbers were created. And PPS2800 was launched in January 1994.

Of course, changing the flagship product meant all the other products that were tied to the paper profile had to be changed. It took the entire next year to complete the changes in all the related products and by then PPSS Windows™ was ready to be launched.

PPSSW was a radical departure from the DOS report generator. For the first time, people could look at their data onscreen and do comparisons “on the fly”. Unfortunately, much of the user community still used it as a report generator. Although this was an improvement because now any printer that had Windows™ could be used. Most organizations still had the software installed on the desktop computer of an administrative person who entered the data and ran the reports. Many distributors provided this service to the clients.

The vision of a Just-in-time Desktop Coach” would have to wait until more people had PCs and more of those PCs were laptops. Pamela and Gary still carried the message to anyone who would listen that the information needed to be alive and dynamic not a report that was read once and filed away. Keith Ayers saw the vision of the Desktop Coach and wanted to introduce it to all his clients in Australia. He had a mature market of DiSC “believers” who wanted to make it accessible as needed. Being the early adopter that he is, Keith approached us and asked if we could make a version that people could use to view their data without the full system and the hardware device. And, lo, the “Reader Version” (using the model of Adobe Acrobat) was created, allowing anyone to view their data onscreen and browse all of the information.

In addition to wanting changes in how the interpretive information was delivered people started requesting alternative methods for responding. Using a paper form no longer met the needs of many so an online response capacity was built. This is a simple Internet delivered interface which allows anyone with access to the Internet to respond online. The software is still used to process the data into the final output which is delivered either as a print product or as a PDF file. More recently, Inscape has built a delivery platform (EPIC) for all of their products including DiSC PPSS. PPSS is now available on EPIC in 22 languages.

Gary continues to diligently work on the international language versions and Pamela tours internationally sharing the vision of “Just-in-Time Desktop Coach” with audiences of professionals looking for tools to make their self-management and relationship with others easier to understand and apply.