Insights Discovery
The value on getting insights into others
I had just started in my role as a Development Specialist at Nationwide Building Society. I sat with my new manager for our first 1-1 and he asked me to describe how I preferred to work and I had no language to use to easily describe it. I threw out some suggestions but there was no real coherency to them.
He brought to life some examples of how he worked naturally. Such as offering critique before praise and preferring to talk through problems rather than focussing on deep, solo thinking.
Through that first conversation, I understood immediately where we might work well together and where challenges might exist … which proved to be absolutely spot on.
My preferences are much more geared to engaging with people, seeing what’s gone well and offering praise and support. Coupled with, like him, gaining energy from the interaction and involvement with others.
We worked together in a range of roles over the next 17 years and we built on the understanding from that initial conversation. Luckily, having that language to hand, we could quickly use the framework to help us understand where our frustrations lay, without it feeling like a blame activity.
The framework we started with was Myers Briggs Type Indicator (based on Jungs type theory) which I became qualified to use and regularly used as part of team effectiveness sessions and coaching.
However, as much as I valued the framework, I was also aware that people soon forgot the ‘letter combination’ (ENTP vs ENFJ) which signified their preferences.
Plus, although they could readily pinpoint preferences when broken down, having 16 different combinations seemed to be pretty unwieldy for most to put into practical application.
A few years on, I was introduced to Insights Discovery, which is based on the same Jungian theory. I loved how easy it was to quickly spot people’s typical energy patterns and preferences and it became simple to start building more effective relationships as a result.
I became a qualified Insights practitioner almost 20 years ago and quickly realised that with THIS approach, people could remember and crucially still use, their knowledge years later.
The model has amazing power in its simplicity to describe different observable patterns of behaviour. Of course, it doesn’t answer everything – we’re all unique human beings after all.
It’s not designed to forever stereotype you, or put you in a box, more to give you the language and understanding of why you may approach things one way, and a colleague / friend / partner can approach in a completely different one.
The Insights Discovery four colour model
The model at its simplest is based on 4 colours. Each representing a specific and readily identifiable range of characteristics and behaviours.
We’re all a blend of all 4 colour energies, however usually we’ll find some are more dominant or natural to us than others, or that there are one or two that we’re less likely to use.
There’s no one right colour blend to be, each have their strengths and watchouts. All preferences are equally valuable and important. All add value to the team.
The intent is for the model to help us quickly understand ourselves and our impact AND understand others so we can adapt / flex our approach to get better results.
It’s not designed to change you, but to highlight areas where you can adapt your approach to get the best out of working with and communicating to others.
See it as a starting point and a way to help you understand more about working collaboratively, it’s not designed to describe or define everything about us.
What the Insights Discovery colours mean
The colour quadrants are created by combining your preferences in 2 different areas.
- Where you get energy: either from Introversion (inside you) or Extraversion (from others). It’s not about sociability or social confidence
- How you prefer to make decisions: either from Thinking (logic and rationale) or Feeling (relationship based). It’s not a measure of IQ or Emotional Intelligence.
Red is the combination of Extraverted and Thinking preferences.
Yellow is the combination of Extraverted and Feeling preferences.
Green is the combination of Introverted and Feeling preferences.
Blue is the combination of Introverted and Thinking preferences.
Use cases for Insights Discovery
If it involves communication or relationships in any way, Insights is a fantastic tool to support.
It helps new team leaders to quickly get to know how to get the best from their team members, quickly spot potential areas of conflict, where there may be blind spots in the team.
It helps team members to understand why their colleagues might feel ‘difficult’ to work with and crucially what they can take ownership of to change the situation. This tends to be fast-tracked when they’ve been through Insights Discovery workshops together, or shared their preferences openly, using something like a ‘Manual of Me’.
It helps project teams to understand better what communication style their stakeholders might respond to best.
We’ve worked with teams large and small to help them better understand themselves and their colleagues and shift their performance as a result. Insights creates a shared language – super memorable and actionable.
In fact, it’s so valuable, we include it in our Lead programme as standard and strongly recommend it in our Collaboration and Influence programme as an optional extra.
If you’d like to get some Insights magic into your workplace, get in touch and we’ll chat through what you want to achieve and recommend options for you.