Team development

Discovery Full Circle: A new, psychologically safe take on 360s

Insights went back to the drawing board and created a whole new 360 experience...

 

Traditional 360s, where learners compare their self perception to how others (usually supervisors and peers) perceive them, have always had good intentions.

No other system can empower focused development like a 360, so by the 2000s, they had become a corporate staple.

But somewhere among unprepared peers providing low-value feedback and outdated notions of competency-based best-in-class profiling, the true intention of the 360-feedback system was lost.

As a result, the corporate world stepped back from the 360 in the 2010s.

But hindsight is 20/20, and today we can see that, as an industry, we may have thrown the baby out with the bathwater...

After all, the insights gained from a well-executed 360 process are invaluable and to date, there’s been nothing that can replicate that incredible depth of feedback.

Until now.

DFC blog 1

 

How Insights fixed the360

How Insights fixed the 360 with a totally
different approach


At Insights, we’re in the business of helping people understand themselves and others. And if anyone could reconsider and revitalise the 360 assessment – recognising its power to enhance team dynamics and improve collaboration – it was us.

In 2024, we set out to do exactly that.

Our goal: Develop a full-circle feedback system that, rather than filling learners with apprehension, inspired them with curiosity, affirmation and even excitement. This system had to glean valuable results from an L&D perspective, and it had to feel good for people to experience.

We knew, intuitively, that if we wanted people to begin the journey of accepting open feedback, we needed to pave the road with psychological safety. That idea became our North Star.

Discovery Full Circle explores personality preferences (instead of competencies)

Traditional 360 assessments measure role-based competencies. Things like the ability to strategise, effectively communicate or manage time.

Receiving feedback is rarely pleasant (the myth of ‘constructive feedback’ is pervasive) and when employees are assessed by others based on competencies, the outcome can be brutal.

No wonder employees feel vulnerable; if someone scores low on a competency critical to their role, they’re bound to find themselves in an awkward position.

Explore personality preferences

 

The solution

The solution


At Insights, we don’t “assess”, and we don’t look at competencies; we look at personality types.

Insights Discovery Full Circle’s approach explores how a learner perceives their own personality-based preferences and compares that to how others perceive the learner’s personality-based preferences.

Personality preferences do not come with judgment. All personality types are capable, competent and valued in the workplace, and knowing what people value is an important part of collaborating well.

Discovery Full Circle uses the (non-judgmental) language of colour energies

Discovery Full Circle is the intuitive next step to Insights Discovery, Insights flagship programme that helps people understand themselves and others using the language of colour energies. These colours describe personality types in an easy-to-remember system.

Because there’s no judgment around colour energies, and each colour energy is valued in the workplace, the dreaded 360 ‘blind spot’ between how we see ourselves vs how others see us, need not be negative.

In fact, varying perceptions of our personality are just as likely to lead to a positive discovery.

Discovery Full Circle

 

“I always thought I was demanding at work (Fiery Red on a bad day), but turns out my reports see me as diplomatic (Earth Green on a good day)…”


“I was afraid I was getting too bogged down in analysis when I was stressed (Cool Blue on a bad day), but my reports actually perceive me as more collaborative than I thought I was (Sunshine Yellow on a good day)”

Although the Insights Discovery framework acknowledges bad-day or over-use of certain colour energies, awareness helps us dial up certain energies and dial down certain energies in response to the situation we’re in and the people we’re surrounded by. So over-use of a colour energy can be quickly mitigated, provided the learner has awareness of it.

Organisations must ‘be ready’ to use Discovery Full Circle (it’s not a given)

Feedback is valuable and powerful, but it’s easy to forget that as humans, we are all sensitive to what others think of us. And feedback, when given in an unsafe environment, is fraught with apprehension.  
 
That’s why accredited Insights Discovery and Discovery Full Circle facilitators must complete a readiness assessment on organisations. This looks at the organisation’s ability to create the right conditions of empathy and psychological safety before the programme begins.

Those organisations that have already experienced Insights Discovery likely enjoy the right conditions to introduce Discovery Full Circle. But for those using Insights for the first time, a little leg work might be necessary to ensure the right levels of awareness and understanding are present.

This step protects the integrity of the programme and creates the psychological safety necessary for an effective full-circle feedback process that fully engages and empowers people.

Organizations must be ready

 

An equal focus on empowering contributors and learners

In the not-so-distant past, one of the main detractors from 360 programme was the varying quality of contributor feedback.

Exploring personality preferences instead of assessing competencies goes a long way to eliminating the possibility of low-quality feedback (think: passive aggressive low scores or unrealistically positive scores across the board) – and Insights has taken things a step further.

Discovery Full Circle includes detailed guides for BOTH the learner and the contributors chosen by the learner to provide feedback.
Those contributors who, in the past, may have been hesitant to share an opinion (or a little too eager) must complete a workbook to ensure they understand their role and are empowered to provide the highest quality feedback possible.

The workbook also helps them understand how their feedback will be used and reinforces that feedback is provided and received in a psychologically safe environment where all perspectives are valued and appreciated.
Powering learners

Focused development that creates real transformation in organisations

In true 360 fashion, we return to the start of this article, and those good intentions that even competency-based traditional 360s had: To empower focused development in people in such a way as to have the biggest possible impact on their organisations.

But when it comes to responsible execution, it’s only in today’s age, with the importance of empathy and psychological safety becoming a quantifiable part of business, that L&D professionals can finally leverage a product like Discovery Full Circle to its best advantage.

And the advantages are profound for those organisations willing to give Discovery Full Circle a try.

They include accelerating strategic collaboration, improving team performance and cohesion and supporting diversity, equality, inclusion and belonging initiatives across the board.