I have just finished my first week at Jarrold Training as a temporary worker in administration. It didn’t take long to understand how welcoming and engaging this company is. On my second day, I started to hear a lot of talking about colours – and not with reference to the walls, but to people!

Elliot and Matt, two of the trainers who I have been working with, one day described me as ‘having a preference for Yellow-Green’. I looked at my clothes, and I wasn’t wearing a Norwich City Football Club shirt. That’s when they explained to me what Insights Discovery is: based on the work of Carl Jung. The profiling provides significant information on what your attitude towards work is. I said that this tool was very interesting and useful for self-awareness, and Elliot offered me the opportunity to receive a professional session with my own Insight Discovery profile.

At first, I was a little surprised that Jarrold Training decided to invest in me, but I understood that in this business it is crucial to understand who you work with and how to boost their personal development. Being a member of the team, I shouldn’t have been surprised that they would live by their mantra of ‘Learn, Develop, Be Brilliant’.

After conducting an online test of 25 questions, what I received was an incredibly accurate definition of myself: my strengths and weaknesses; what value I can bring to any company; my blind spots and how the company where I was working could have promoted my development. Elliot trained me to understand how the Jungian categories, recognizable in four main colours, could be mixed in each person to describe their behaviour, and how businesses can use this tool to manage their staff efficiently. But also, how their staff can become more aware of themselves and their skills with respect to the workplace.

“This is not only for WEIRD people”, Elliot said.

“What do you mean?”, I asked.

“Western Educated Industrialised Rich and Democratic”, Elliot explained, thinking that he wasn’t the first one to have called me that. “It can at first come across as psychobabble only relevant to studies in a university setting. Sometimes called WEIRD.’

“Oh. I see. It is a deeper, human psychology,’ I replied. ‘If I went to a farm in rural Botswana, there’s a good chance that the person in charge would have a prevailing red energy.”

I have worked for various companies in the past, and I thought it would have been helpful to have done this before.

I truly believe that any business that would like to actively encourage the harmony of the working environment, the efficient combination of their employees’ skills and their own self-awareness, should implement the Insight Discovery Profile tool.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention that I was really a Yellow-Green type. Elliot and Matt were right. They had ‘read’ my personality by interacting with me and I am predominantly a Feeling Function leading with Extraversion…now, does that sound WEIRD?

Watch this video about Insight Discovery team effectiveness 

Ivana