EP244: How to Actually Use Insights Discovery in Your Organization
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(The notes below are only a brief bullet point summary of what is discussed in the podcast. Be sure to listen to get all of the goodness! If you would like a full transcription of the episode, please send an email to angie@angie-robinson.com.)
Last episode, I talked about all the different workshops and programming available through Insights Discovery — the point being that Insights is way more than the personality profile most people associate it with. The profile is the foundation. It's the starting point. But stopping there is actually a big miss.
This week I wanted to answer the question that naturally follows: okay, then now what? How do you actually use this in your organization?
I'll be honest — this is a tough question to answer simply, because the ways to use Insights are quite frankly endless. But we have to start somewhere.
Start With the Goal, Not the Tool
When someone asks me this question, my question back is always: what is the goal? What are you hoping to get out of this — individually, as a team, or organization-wide? What's the business reason?
Sometimes it's as simple as enhancing self-awareness so communication improves. Sometimes there's a specific team dynamic that needs attention. Sometimes there's a leadership gap, or leaders who aren't quite getting the results they want. It might be about elevating performance that's already strong. It might be part of a larger leadership development program, a culture initiative, or a sales push. It might be tied to a merger, a restructure, or some other organizational change. Or it might be entirely individual — understanding your own leadership identity, your strengths, your areas of opportunity.
The goal determines the shape of the program. Not the other way around. We figure out the goal first, and then we determine how Insights — along with other programming — fits in to reach it.
There isn't one right entry point for a tool like Insights. It could be the individual level, the team level, or the whole organization. Any of these can be a legitimate starting place, depending on what's actually going on. You can even start at the org level without ever having done an individual profile first. You can embed the language and knowledge of Insights without using profiles at all — it's not quite as deep or as personal, but it's absolutely possible.
Wherever you start, the underpinning is the same: the basic foundational understanding of perception, self-awareness, and the color energies this tool is built on. That grounding almost always includes the individual profile.
Starting With the Individual
This path is for someone who wants deeper self-understanding — working on their own effectiveness or their own leadership. And to be clear, this isn't reserved for people in formal leadership roles. I do this often with intact teams, individual contributors, and people who may want to become leaders someday. Really, it's for anyone who wants a deeper understanding of themselves.
The natural entry point is Intro to Discovery — the foundational workshop, including the individual profile. From there, there's the Self-Aware Leader and Insights Discovery Transformational Leader (IDTL) profile, a separate profile for people already in leadership roles who want to deepen their awareness through the lens of the eight dimensions of leadership. There's also Managing Self for Performance, which translates self-knowledge into daily effectiveness, and Thriving Through Change, which looks at how you personally respond to change based on your makeup and communication preferences.
Starting as an individual is good for personal clarity — getting clear on your character and mindset, which ties directly into what I talk about as my Three Keys to Leadership Magic. The profile itself provides a mirror. But the real work is the next layer: what do you think about what you see? Almost every time I coach someone through their profile, I hear one of two reactions — "yes, that sounds just like me, and I love that, I could leverage that even more," or "ugh, I don't like that" or "people must think this about me." That reaction is huge. It's a window into whether the way you're thinking about yourself is helpful or unhelpful, and that's work we can take further.
After some work at the individual level, a natural next step is the Discovery Full Circle Profile — essentially 360-degree feedback on how you're actually landing with other people. That can also be a great transition into team-level work.
Starting With the Team
This entry point is great for any intact team with a specific dynamic — friction, miscommunication, some dysfunction, a brand-new team still learning how to work together, or even a high-functioning team that wants to get even better.
It always starts with Intro to Discovery. From there, the natural next step is Discovering Team Effectiveness, which starts with the team's collective color energy makeup and applies a framework across four areas: focus, flow, climate, and process. It's essentially a diagnostic tool — how is the team doing in each of these areas, based on collective profiles, goals, and purpose? From there, we can name what's working, where the misses are, and what the next steps look like.
This is a strong choice for teams that need a shared language fast, or a concrete read on what's actually happening beneath the surface. And for leadership teams specifically, this path can extend into Discovering Leadership Effectiveness.
Starting With the Whole Organization
Here too, the starting point is Intro to Discovery — most often rolled out team by team, department by department. This approach is especially valuable during a restructure, a merger, or a period of fast growth, or simply when you want a shared, culture-wide language.
There's also Insights Explore, which I didn't cover much in the last episode — a digital version of Insights designed for larger groups of frontline staff, like a manufacturing plant or any setting with a large frontline workforce. It's a more bite-sized, scalable format that still helps a group build stronger relationships and improve how they interact, without requiring the full program for everyone.
From there, organizations often layer in additional pieces — Thriving Through Change or Managing Self for Performance across the whole organization, team-specific work like Discovering Team Effectiveness, or individual engagements for specific needs. Sometimes it's function-specific, like Discovering Sales Effectiveness for a sales team.
Starting at the organizational level is really about speed and reach — getting a shared language into a large group quickly — and then layering in more targeted work from there.
None of This Is Sequential
I know the options can feel overwhelming, because quite frankly, the possibilities are close to infinite. There's no right or wrong entry point — only possibility. The solution isn't cookie-cutter. It's whatever actually matches what you're trying to solve right now, and I genuinely love that about this work.
Nothing here is mutually exclusive, and nothing is strictly sequential. Individual, team, and organizational work can happen in any order, and they often loop back onto each other.
So even with all that possibility, it comes back to one thing: name the actual goal first. That single step does more to determine the right starting point than knowing the full menu of programs ever will.
Where to Start
If you've never experienced Insights before, I have a free download on my website where you can discover your own personality preferences — not the full profile, but enough to get a flavor and a sense of your possible color energy order. You'll find it at angie-robinson.com under the Resources tab.
And if you're seriously considering bringing Insights Discovery into your organization and want to see what a full profile actually looks like, I'd be happy to walk you through one. Set up a call with me, and we'll talk through it.
Wherever you're starting — as an individual, a team, or an organization — let's start with a conversation about the goal. I'm here to help you get there.
What Do You Think?
How could investing in Insights® Discovery impact you, your team and your organization?
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