What happens during an Insights Discovery session?
Have you ever looked through a website such as ours and thought “but what actually happens in a session like this?”. The world of coaching and consulting can be perceived as vague. Many broad terms and alluring promises of improvement are given, whilst often only an indistinct picture of what is on offer is provided. As an organization, you want to feel confident that your money is being invested wisely. We know this means that you need clarity on what our team development and business coaching entails.
This is our first in a series of articles, aimed to increase transparency surrounding what we offer at Tree Trunk Partners. We’ll take you through the process of Insights Discovery, start to finish, so that you can understand how this will create tangible benefits for you, your team and your company.
Prior to your session, whether that be a team coaching or one-to-one debrief, you’ll be emailed the Insights Discovery online evaluator. This takes 15-20 minutes to complete and involves ranking statements from least to most like you. The results are processed through the Insights psychometric tool to produce a report that demonstrates an understanding of your working style.
There’s a lot of information to unpack in these reports so before receiving your personal profile, we’ll share background context and discuss how to interpret your results. It’s important for you to understand what you’re reading about yourself, and also handy for us if you’re not overwhelmed before the day’s started!
We begin with an overview of how our brains perceive situations differently, the methodology behind Insights and an explanation of the colour energy preferences in your profile. In a team scenario, this may be the morning section of your interactive workshop.
Interactive exercises used during a workshop
Ladder of Inference model
There are a variety of exercises that include responding to videos and discussing which details people observe and those that are commonly missed. The Ladder of Inference is a model developed by psychologist Chris Argyris and we use this to explain how individuals frame – and therefore ultimately react – differently to the same event. This concept was used to create the Insights Discovery methodology which translates the science into an accessible tool.
Next we reach the part everyone’s drawn in by – the colours. Within the Insights framework, character attributes are grouped into four colour energies – cool blue, fiery red, sunshine yellow and earth green. We’re all a mixture of these colours but we have preferences that come out in the way we handle certain scenarios.
Insights Discovery Colour Energies
Within each colour, there are further typologies that we consider:
- Where do you get your energy from?
- What is your preferred process for decision making?
- How do you take in information?
It’s emphasised that colours are only a part of your personality and that it is possible to learn skills with your non-preference colour energies. Insights Discovery is not about grouping people into ‘good’ or ‘bad’ personality types or relating attributes to their ability. Colour energies are how we visualize and react to a situation – in a workplace environment, a team with a combination of energies can bring a lot to the table.
This element is crucial when discussing how to capitalize on strengths and improve dynamics within a team. We conceptualize solutions to areas that are lacking in cohesive teamwork. For example, how could a blue and a yellow personality best collaborate on running a project?
At this stage, everybody receives a printed copy of their full Insights Discovery personal profile. Each team member reads their overview to ensure validity. If there are any major concerns on a profile, this person will be given the chance to redo the questionnaire. This is discussed on an individual basis but it’s important to us that everybody benefits from the coaching so we check for anomalies before continuing.
You’ll be given the chance to read the full report which has a comprehensive breakdown split into categories including strengths and weaknesses, value to the team, communications, management, suggestions for development and time management.
The final pages contain infographics demonstrating your colour dynamics. This part’s easier to understand once you’ve got your own Insights Discovery report in front of you! Essentially you’ll learn more about where you fall on the 72 Type Wheel – a powerful tool that can be used to develop strategies to increase your productivity and performance at work.
Example of a colour energy split from an Insights Discovery profile
Insights Discovery 72 Type Wheel
Activities in the afternoon session, or remaining coaching days, vary depending on which Insights Discovery training you have chosen. All will build on the concepts above and utilize yours and your team’s colour profiles within group exercises and facilitated discussions.
As the first, and largest, official distributor of Insights Discovery in Switzerland, Tree Trunk Partners has spent over a decade helping individuals and teams understand and value their unique styles, and implement strategies for realizing their full potential.
Sources: https://treetrunk.ch/ and https://www.insights.com/
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