There’s a risk, with any psychometric tool, that it just becomes an exercise in “navel gazing”.
Of course, the participants will gain many interesting new insights into their own personality from this self-reflection.
But giving employees greater self-awareness is not, in itself, much of a business case for investing in Insights Discovery.
The magic begins when you use Insights Discovery to directly support your organisation’s strategic aims.
Here are just three ways we’ve use Insights Discovery to support businesses’ wider goals.
Insights Discovery for effective leadership
Much of our leadership development work focuses on the styles and skills of leadership. But, of course, this is hugely influenced by the individual leader’s personal preferences and approach.
When creating programmes of leadership development, whether across an organisation or in individual coaching sessions, Insights Discovery is a common starting point.
For example, Insights Discovery is used extensively and globally in CGG. Working in partnership with us, they expanded its use as part of their Transformational Leadership Programme (TLP) to enable the participants to include Insights Discovery in their personal development plans.
When a leader better understands their own Colour Energies, it can help them acknowledge their natural tendencies and identify where personal development would be beneficial.
It’s also enormously helpful to us, because it allows us to tailor the ongoing programme or coaching to each individual’s personality mix. It also enables us to support and guide the leader in the creation and consolidation of their own personal development plan, which they refer to and use throughout the programme.
As a result, it becomes easier to develop the leadership traits which are essential to drive forward personal and organisational performance.
One of the experienced managers on CGG’s TLP, which includes Insights Discovery, told us:
Thank you very much for the time and effort you have put in to running the TLP course this year.
It has been a turbulent year for me both professionally and personally, alongside a global pandemic thrown in for good measure, so I have found the TLP a good anchor point and monthly check-in to keep myself focused and grounded.
Not only this, but it has also helped my personal development immensely and I look forward to putting into action many of the things we have discussed (I have already implemented many changes and will continue to do so).
Insights Discovery for team productivity
Developing high performance teams naturally requires a certain amount of understanding between team members. Insights Discovery is an excellent starting point for developing these relationships.
In 2020 Ericsson approached us to support the formation of a new team; to speed the development of positive relationships between team members and help them to ‘hit the ground running’.
Insights Discovery created a perfect foundation for this work. It helped the members of the new team to better understand their own blend of personality traits and those of their new colleagues.
Most importantly, it enabled us to identify where there were risks to the performance of the new team and opportunities for them to excel. This information provided the team’s leader with a valuable insight into how to develop the team for optimal performance.
The individual learnings from Insights Discovery were then consolidated during a team workshop. This incorporated teambuilding activities, which we then used to reflect back how each individual’s Colour Energies had influenced their behaviour.
The result was a new team who began their journey with a high level of trust and understanding, giving them the foundation to become highly productive and effective.
Read more about our work with Ericsson.
Insights Discovery for improved client relationships
We’re not suggesting that you ask all of your clients to undertake an Insights Discovery analysis (though never say never!). However, it can be a key part of equipping your customer-facing employees to develop better client relationships.
This year we worked with SPSE (Siemens Process Systems Engineering) to do just that. They were keen to support their Technical Consultants to move from a purely transactional relationship with their clients to “trusted advisor” status.
They wanted to form closer working relationships to enable more proactive client management and increase the opportunities for additional sales to existing clients.
We started the programme of work with Insights Discovery. Our focus was on giving the participants a greater understanding of their own styles of working and how these might differ from those of their clients.
The learnings from the Insights Discovery analysis then informed the continuing individual development. For example, we explored how each Technical Consultant’s personal value proposition could be advantageous when dealing with client. And how their natural approach might need to be adapted for specific people.
I’ve gained awareness of how to develop better client relationships and more confidence in talking to clients about my work and challenges.
Read more about our work with SPSE.
Dovetail people development with your strategic objectives
Our mission is to inspire and equip people to develop, perform and achieve.
These three aims are equally balanced; we don’t believe in development for development’s sake. Developing your people should be a strategically focused undertaking, streamlined with your overall goals and with clearly defined deliverables.
Get in touch and let’s define how strategic people development could benefit your organisation. Call us on 01444 702 701 or email info@changeformation.co.uk.