Getting the most out of your Insights Discovery Profiles

The Insights Discovery profile is a unique profile which is generated as a result of completing the online evaluator. The Insights Discovery profile have five available chapters, which are:

• Foundation Chapter
• Management Chapter
• Personal Achievement Chapter
• Effective Selling Chapter
• Interview Chapter

The foundation chapter is the core piece of the Insights Discovery profile, it includes elements such as personal style, interacting with others, decision making, strengths and weaknesses, communication, opposite types, blind spots and suggestions for development. The foundation chapter serves as a great foundation for both group sessions and individual coaching sessions. It improves self-awareness in individuals and also improves understanding of managers within their teams.

The foundation chapter can serve as an integral part of leadership development programmes. The management chapter addresses the following:

• Management Style
• Motivating
• Managing
• Ideal Environment

The personal achievement chapter includes the following:

1. Living on purpose
2. Creativity and goal setting
3. Learning Styles
4. The personal achievement chapter can be used as an integral part of Personal Effectiveness programmes and individual sections can be used to support development in specific topics.The Effective Selling Chapter addresses your personal selling style through your personal preferences, it also explores how your preferences show up through each part of the selling process. It is an invaluable tool for sales development programmesThe Interview Chapter is an ideal resource for stimulating a personal development plan, this one page chapter provides questions to challenge your own self-awareness. It is ideal for coaching sessions.There are plenty of activities you can do to increase your awareness of self and awareness of others.The Overview section is the best place to start in the profile, this covers personal style, interacting with others and decision making. The written part of this is obtained by individual’s personal preferences as answered by the online evaluator. To conduct a ‘face validity’ check, read the overview pages and underline any sentence or half sentence your completely disagree with, don’t get hung up on just one word, multiply the sentences you underline by 2% and subtract from 100.

   i.e. 2.5 sentences x 2% = 5%

   100% – 5% = 95% accuracy.

   Before you completely cross off statements you don’t agree with it is worth checking with other people whether they feel the statement accurately describes you, as the statement may represent a blind spot you don’t see yet others do.

   Tips on using your Insights Discovery profiles.

    1. Share your profiles with others.

   Share your profile with others, an exercise you could do it to get them to examine your profile and put a cross by strengths they see in you and weaknesses. You are then able to reflect on what other people see in you. This can be a very valuable tool, is enables people around you to understand you better and is a great basis for discussions of resolving conflicts in the future

   2. Share some of your communication tips

   With the people around you, share how you preferred to be communicated with, pick 3 ‘Do’s’ and 3 ‘Do Nots’ and discuss these with close colleagues or team members.

   3. Understand your ‘Opposite Type’

   Instead of focusing too much on ‘bad day’ behaviours of your opposite type, focus on ‘good day’ behaviours and try to emulate them. As these energies are generally lacking in your own personality, this is a great way to improve and grow and improve personal effectiveness.

   4. Discuss and address your blind spots.

   Your blind spots create a great place to start when it comes to self-development, discuss with a colleague, mentor or coach your blind spots and look at ways to acknowledge and address them.

   5. Don’t just file the profile away.

   The profile should be used as a living document that is used regularly. Don’t just file it away, keep re-visiting it and make it relevant to daily life and a starting point for self-development.

   Churchill Square Training & Development is a training consultancy specialising in using the Jungian Psychological Preferences namely Insights Discovery in self-awareness, leadership, sales and team development training. Contact Sue Lloyd at enquires@churchillsquareconsulting.co.uk or call 023 92 160840 to find out more.