Dave Tosh OBE

Boost Team Effectiveness with Insights Discovery

an image of insights colour blocks

First things first..

I’m regularly asked to run Insights Discovery workshops, to help improve team effectiveness. As you might expect, I’m more than willing to do so, but as part of the preparation, I’ll ask the following questions:

  • Why?
  • Who?
  • What do I need to be aware of?
  • What outcomes are sought?

I need to know why to understand the issues. All teams will have dominant and passive participants; individuals will have different perceptions of what is important; colleagues will display different preferences for how they work and interact; and geographically dispersed teams may not communicate well, or even at all!

I need to know who is in the team, what level the team operates at, who is new, who is long-serving and is the team multi-national.

I need to be aware of culture, values, roles, priorities and personalities.

I need to know what improved effectiveness means and where to focus.
a image of Dave

Raising awareness

I will then use the power of Insights Discovery to firstly raise individual team members’ self awareness of their own preferences for how they work, how they respond to existing and new challenges, their level of engagement, how they communicate and how they like to be communicated with. How often do we hold up a mirror to our psyche and examine it for all its positive and negative aspects??

Once self-awareness is established, we move on to social awareness, recognising difference, appreciating it for its value, understanding the impact we may have on others that see the world differently to us and accepting that diversity of experience, perception and preference is a real team strength.

a photo of insights wheel

Actions to improve effectiveness

When the team has come to terms with the benefit of respect, inclusion, empathy and difference, we explore, define and agree changes and actions to improve effectiveness. These might be how meetings are chaired, how tasks are allocated, how communication can be improved and how decisions are made. Often, we will conclude by agreeing a Team Charter which sets out how the more effective team will work, its culture, expectations, communication style and how collectively the members will support each other.

All of this is achieved through the Insights language of colour – a simple, pictorial representation of how individuals and team operate. The Insights colours provide a non-confrontational medium in which to recognise differences in preference, perception and style and how to make accommodating changes for greater effectiveness and cohesion.

a photo of number of people legs stood on the insights mat
It is simple, relational and delivers a powerful impact. Most significantly, it allows teams to talk and to develop.

If you are interested in your team becoming more effective, talk to us and we’d be happy to share our experience of Insights Discovery and working with many teams from all sectors and how this may help yours.