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Speaking the same language: how Insights Discovery brought our sites and HQ closer together

Thu, 22 Oct 2026 08:41:33 GMT

Shifting from Us and Them to We.

Anyone who has worked in a multi-site real estate business will recognise the gap. On one side, the site teams: running buildings day to day, looking after residents and customers, solving whatever the morning throws at them. On the other, head office: finance, asset management, marketing, operations support, all working to longer timelines and bigger-picture targets.

Both sides want the same thing. A well-run property, happy customers, a business that performs. But they don't always hear each other. A request from HQ lands on site as a demand. A site team's pushback reads at head office as resistance. Nobody is wrong, and yet the friction builds.

This is the story of how we used Insights Discovery to give everyone a common language, and why I believe it became one of the foundations of an engagement score of over 82%.

The challenge

We were a growing real estate business with 50+ sites and a central HQ team. As we grew, I noticed that most of our people challenges weren't about capability or commitment. Our people were good at their jobs and cared about doing them well.

The friction was about style. Site teams moved at pace and valued quick, practical answers. Some HQ colleagues needed detail and time to think before committing. Others wanted to talk ideas through out loud. Emails were misread, meetings went round in circles, and small misunderstandings took far too much energy to resolve.

We didn't need another policy. We needed a way for people to understand each other.

Why Insights Discovery

Insights Discovery is a psychometric tool rooted in Carl Jung's work on personality. It describes behavioural preferences through four colour energies:

Fiery Red – direct, driven and focused on results
Sunshine Yellow – enthusiastic, sociable and full of ideas
Earth Green – supportive, considerate and focused on relationships
Cool Blue – thoughtful, precise and keen to understand the detail

What drew me to it was its simplicity. Everyone has all four energies; we simply lean on some more than others. There are no good or bad colours, which made it feel safe and strengths-based rather than a test people could pass or fail.

Just as importantly, the language was easy to carry. You could use it in a board meeting or in a quick conversation on site between viewings and maintenance calls, and it meant the same thing in both places.

How we introduced it

We started with the leadership team. If leaders didn't model it, nobody else would. Seeing senior colleagues talk openly about their own preferences, and their blind spots, gave everyone else permission to do the same.
We mixed site and HQ teams in the same sessions. This was deliberate. Some of the most valuable moments came when a site manager and a finance colleague realised why their conversations kept stalling, and that it had nothing to do with either of them being difficult.
Everyone received a personal profile. People took time to reflect on their own style before exploring how it played out with others.
We kept it practical. Sessions focused on real situations people faced: handing over a building issue, presenting a budget, giving feedback, running a team meeting.

Keeping it alive

A workshop on its own changes very little. The real value came from weaving the language into everyday working life.

Building colour energies into team meetings and one-to-ones
Using it during onboarding so new starters joined the conversation from day one
Encouraging HQ teams to adapt how they briefed sites - leading with the headline for some, the detail for others
Referring back to it when tension surfaced, so conflict could be talked about without blame

What changed

The most noticeable shift was in how people spoke to each other. It became normal to hear things like "I'm leading with my red today, can we get to the decision?" or "Could you send me the detail first so I can think it through?" Those small requests took the heat out of situations that might once have escalated.

Site and HQ teams began to see each other's perspectives rather than each other's frustrations. Misunderstandings were resolved faster. Meetings became more productive. People felt more understood, and more able to be themselves at work.

Our employee engagement rose to over 82%. I want to be honest here: Insights Discovery didn't achieve that on its own. It sat alongside other initiatives such as leadership development, internal communications, recognition. But it gave us the shared foundation everything else was built on.

What I'd share with other leaders

Start at the top. Leaders modelling the language makes it real.
Bring different teams together. The breakthroughs happen between groups, not within them.
Treat it as a language, not a label. The aim is understanding, never putting people in boxes.
Build it into everyday rhythms. If it only lives in a workshop, it will fade.
Connect it to the work. Show how it helps with the real conversations people have every day.

A final thought

In a multi site business, so much depends on people working well across distance -between buildings, between functions, between the front line and head office. When people understand each other, they perform better and enjoy their work more. That is what I care about most.

If you're seeing friction between your sites and your central teams or you’d simply like to elevate communications within your team, I'd love to have a conversation about what might help.

Change never lands the same way for everyone

Mon, 12 Oct 2026 09:10:28 GMT

What three workshops with a global insurance business taught me about leading people through transformation

When you’re the one leading a change, it’s easy to assume everyone else is seeing it the way you do. You’ve been in the planning meetings, you understand the reasons, and you can picture where it’s all heading. For your team, it can feel very different.

That idea was at the heart of a three-workshop programme I’ve just finished with the finance and change leadership team of a global insurance business. They’re in the middle of a major transformation, with two cohorts and leaders spread across several countries. Over three weeks we used Insights Discovery to help them lead that change in a way that works for the people around them, not just for themselves.

Starting with ourselves

Before you can bring anyone else with you, you need to understand how you respond to change. Some of us want the facts and the detail before we commit. Some want to get moving and sort the rest out later. Some need to know everyone’s OK, and some are already excited about what’s next.

Insights Discovery gives leaders a simple, shared language for those differences. In the first session we explored each person’s colour energies and mapped the whole team onto a team wheel. Seeing where everyone sat, and where the gaps were, sparked some really honest conversations about how each of us shows up when things get uncertain.

Bringing others with you

The second session moved from “me” to “them”. We used the Bridges transition model to look at the emotional journey people go through during change: from endings, through the uncertain neutral zone, and into new beginnings.

One idea really landed with the group. Leaders usually start that journey long before everyone else. By the time a leader has made peace with a change and is ready to move forward, their managers may still be in the middle of it and their teams may only just be starting. It isn’t resistance, it’s timing. Knowing that changes how you communicate.

We also talked about ambiguity, which is unavoidable in any transformation. A simple approach the group found useful was being clear about three things in every update: what we know, what we don’t know yet, and what happens next. It doesn’t remove the uncertainty, but it gives people something to hold on to.

Sustaining momentum

The final session looked beyond go-live, because that’s often when the energy drops. In small groups, leaders described what success would actually look like six months on: what they’d see, what they’d hear and how it would feel, both for their own teams and for the wider business. The answers were thoughtful and very human. Alongside better processes and systems, they talked about trust, clarity, motivated teams and a sense that the hard work had been worth it.

To finish, the groups built their own shared leadership charter: ten commitments they’re holding themselves to as the transformation continues. A few that have really stayed with me:

Talk to people in a way that works for them, not just for you.
Make time for real conversations, not just scheduled updates.
Celebrate the effort people put in, not just the end result.

None of these is complicated. But they’re the things that slip first when leaders are busy, and they make the biggest difference to how change feels for everyone else.

What I’m taking away

My favourite part of this work is watching leaders shift from “how do I see this?” to “how do I bring someone with me who sees it completely differently?” Insights Discovery helps start that conversation. The real value comes from applying it to the change people are actually living through.

Leading a team through change and wondering how to bring everyone with you? Get in touch with Talent Impact. I’d love to chat about how we could help.