We asked three of our valued Insights Partners across the globe:
What are the main organisational challenges or trends you’re seeing among your clients in 2025, how are companies using Insights Discovery to solve these challenges, and what barriers must they overcome to get there?
On a macro level, managing hybrid teams and advancing technology are two themes that consistently come up among business leaders.
Day-to-day, companies need help with dysfunctional teams, managing conflict, difficult conversations, challenging perceptions and tackling personal blind spots.
Let’s hear what our partners had to say…
CEO of The Colour Works, Andy has nearly two decades of experience in senior L&D roles, leading organisational development across sectors including finance, public safety and innovation. He combines commercial focus with a deep understanding of what drives people and performance.
Team communication/conflict
“… We ask organisations: what’s the real reason you’ve come to us? We unpick the early conversations to find a whole range of power struggles, interpersonal conflicts and performance issues. We ask people to be honest with us about what they want to achieve.”
Approaching difficult conversations
“… We help people recognise the different value sets their colleagues may have and encourage them to start conversations by stating exactly how each person is feeling, allowing people to communicate in their preferred style … then accentuate the positive and reduce the negative.
We use Insights Discovery to unpick why some leaders are opposed to each other’s way of working. An example might be action-oriented Fiery Red energy appearing impatient with Cool Blue’s need for more preparation time, more detail or testing of a new concept … Over several months, we mediate and facilitate the group’s movement towards shared goals. Sometimes, the only common ground is the colour energies! We start by talking about the differences in colour energy preferences … then we move into what it takes to create psychological safety and allow vulnerability ...”
Resistance points
“At first, some people don’t want to engage or change their position on things ... people resist any attempt to change the status quo because it didn’t work for them before. So we link purpose and values to these conversations. It’s an opportunity to create a cultural shift and … a strong sense of belonging. We pre-empt the possible objections. We focus on investing in better collaboration.”
Organisations commonly work with us because they have dysfunctional teams, where they wonder why things aren’t working, or they have a new team and want to know how to bring people together. Sometimes it’s about learning how to navigate difficult conversations.
Founder of Robert Cass & Associates, Robert is a team effectiveness coach with over 20 years of experience, specialising in interpersonal communication coaching with individuals and teams, workshop facilitation and keynote speaking.
Conflicting styles
“… The main issue is communication styles. I’ve witnessed situations recently where everything’s being handled with Fiery Red behaviour, when it would be more helpful if the team dialled up their (calmer) Earth Green energy. We helped them see that part of the challenges they are experiencing is a direct result of overusing their Fiery Red energy, so the team are afraid to speak up. We used Insights Discovery and the common language of colour to overlay a framework that helped rebuild the team and encourage people to speak more openly and ask for support.”
Breaking down work silos
“One of the more nuanced problems we see is the divisional or functional silos that take effect when a company gets beyond 150 employees … Communication starts to get difficult because incidental conversations become less easy. Unless organisations have the infrastructure in place that allows them to remain aligned as a large group of individuals … time and money can be wasted through misunderstandings and breakdowns in communication.
This can lead to cultural unrest and poor employee satisfaction, because if people are passionate about what they do and it gets taken away (due to the expanding workforce and changing roles) or priorities change, it has a huge negative impact … Such changes need careful, respectful communication.”
The tricky dance of returning to work and hybrid working
“Many organisations face challenges in bringing people back because everyone’s been conditioned to believe they can work effectively from home. We often see a real struggle over ‘bargaining power’. Some companies pressure employees to do what they need them to do. In other cases, it’s the employees who seem to have the upper hand, and companies worry about losing good talent.
A really hard thing that’s not spoken about enough is hybrid working. Even with good messaging tools, you can’t beat the in-person human interactions where you can see body language and read the room, especially for workshops and similar group gatherings. And in a hybrid setting, it’s extremely hard to keep remote people engaged in the call, particularly if the majority are physically in the room. It’s a difficult balancing act to get participation levels right.”
The challenges of advanced technology
“People have many theories and beliefs about what AI will do and how it will do it. Some look at it from a ‘how’s it going to impact us’ viewpoint, and others focus more on the opportunity. Many organisations are still at the stage of simply working out how to use AI and what conditions are or should be around their employees’ use of it.
Businesses also need to have difficult conversations around integrity and ethics where use of customer data and risk of security breaches are concerned. There are many positives around AI, like removing the need for more admin and opening up new parts of people’s roles. It’s a fascinating landscape, but it’s a significant challenge.”
Organisations typically approach us to help transform the way they work … We use Insights Discovery as a foundation to help improve their interactions.
Founder of Light Up Learning & Development, Gerben is a leading expert on Insights Discovery for teams, leadership and resilience. He’s known nationally and internationally as an experienced L&D coach, consultant and keynote speaker.
Team effectiveness
“Organisations come to us mainly for team effectiveness and leadership programmes, and both of those interact with each other and often involve individual coaching sessions too. They ask us how to understand their teams better and make them more effective. We work with them to show how teams can become an ecosystem, not an ego-system!
They sometimes wonder why someone in their team is being so difficult, or how to navigate the very different perceptions held by several generations in the workplace. We remind them that diversity is about getting to know each other and yourself, and learning why something is so important to someone, whether that’s about working part-time, being part of a group or using AI. One person might want to know how to use AI to ask questions, the other might want to know how to use AI to run their company!”
Leadership
“Leaders come to us wondering: how can I relate to what my demanding clients want, what my profit-seeking organisation wants and what my psychological safety-seeking colleagues want, all at the same time? They ask, how can they deliver? How can they flex their style to all those audiences?
We need to be more aware of our reactions, including our reactions to feedback … We help people reflect and bring them back to why they’re reacting in this way. We dive into what’s happening, explore their levels of resilience and flexing, and of knowing who they are and where they stand.
We help people redefine leadership … We explore ‘soft leadership’. You need strength and vulnerability as a leader. We help leaders realise that it’s OK to say, for example: ‘I don’t know how AI will affect us, but what I DO want us to do as a team is this.’ People respect the clarity.
We also ask: what kind of leader do you want to be? Some say they want to manage a team and get results. Others say they want to create a safe climate for their colleagues and to be able to adapt to all the changes around them. We help leaders follow their path without losing the connection with the team.”
Intergenerational challenges
“It’s really about understanding and appreciating diversity. What makes you happy is an important question! Older generations talk about work, the middle generation talks about work-life balance, and the younger generation talks about life balance, and view work as only a part of the picture. They might be more inclined to say: what do I love and how can I monetise it?
Older colleagues might say: we have a job to do. Younger colleagues might say: yes, we do, but I don’t feel like doing it. We say: let’s discuss it as a team. Maybe we can reach an understanding to get everyone to agree. We’re not looking to get votes one way or another. Either way, the discussion is part of the learning. The exercise is an exercise in itself!”
Blind spots
“80% of organisations we work with come to us saying: my team needs to be more effective, or proactive, or we need to resolve conflict and stop having such long meetings. We help them recognise how their own behaviour might be landing for others and … help them see that when they say … if only my colleagues would do this, they could turn that into: can I perhaps change my own behaviour?
Different colour energies can feel challenging. Fiery Red’s determination to meet a deadline might mean they don’t hear ‘we probably can’t meet it’ from more hesitant Earth Green energy, as the ‘No’ it was intended to be. Our perceptions of ‘no’ can be very different.”
Overcoming resistance
“Whenever people show resistance to exploring personality profiling and want to see the data around the effectiveness of tools like Insights Discovery, they’re often holding on to something. Then they see the data, and they’re confronted with reality. We work with them to ask: ‘Can I learn something about the other person?’ We explore how great it would be to influence others and we explore how, to do that, you need to influence yourself first.
Sometimes people think Insights Discovery is about assessment, and they ask: ‘Am I doing it right?’ Of course, it’s never about that. It’s about using all four colour energies to suit a situation. It’s also about learning how to recognise your third or fourth colour energy as much as your more dominant ones.”
Saying no is perfectly OK. We sometimes just need to communicate it more effectively. We also need to know our blind spots and weak points and appreciate that others may have a strong need for more detail or accuracy (e.g. Cool Blue energy), or for more overt personal recognition (e.g. Sunshine Yellow energy) …
Insights Discovery is an L&D training system that creates high-performing teams by enhancing awareness and workplace relationships. Using a memorable four-colour model to illustrate different behavioural styles, it creates a common language that connects colleagues across geographical and cultural boundaries, fostering collaboration, driving productivity and transforming workplaces.