Article: How well do you know your employees?

A Brand Reachout InitiativeLearning & Development

How well do you know your employees?

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Fiery Red, Sunshine Yellow, Earth Green, or Cool Blue: People are all a mix of these diverse energies, but one of these will be their natural home. By recognizing their natural homes leaders can get a step ahead in designing for better organizational productivity and business outcomes.
How well do you know your employees?

“Every advance… of mankind has been connected with an advance in self awareness.”

Carl Jung

Only by truly understanding how you like to work and learn, why that is, how others perceive you, the true value that you bring, and how you could develop better working relationships, can you really know what steps to take in your personal development journey. But it’s how you like to learn that’s key here. One size fits all approach no longer works, especially in learning and development. Each and every employee has its own sets of unique needs and styles. 

For L&D managers and talent leaders it often becomes challenging to identify these unique styles. But with better insights and a deeper understanding, they can design a more relevant development journey for the entire workforce. 

Here’s one way to look at it:

The Insights Discovery model teaches that everyone is a mix of what we call the four color energies, but that one of these will be our natural home, whether that’s Fiery Red, Sunshine Yellow, Earth Green or Cool Blue energy. And each of these color energies also has a preference for how they most like to learn. So let’s explore more about these color energies:

Fiery Red learning

If you lead with Fiery Red energy, you are task focused, direct and determined, and you’ll want to know upfront why you should take time out of your busy week to focus on your own development.

What will get you going in a learning sense is seeing the solid impact of what you learn, being able to quickly apply the theory, and being able to access the relevant information right when you need it, with no waiting.

Sunshine Yellow learning

Sunshine Yellow energy is sociable, chatty, open and Extraverted. If this is your preference, you’ll be thrilled to take time out of the office to hang with your colleagues and dig deeper into what’s going on in your team.

Your enthusiasm for sharing might overpower the room a little, so make sure you leave having listened and learned. You’ll enjoy interactive learning; videos, activities and exercises that keep the learning alive later.

Earth Green learning

Earth Green energy is focused on what’s best for the people in the team. You’ll want to make sure that everyone in the room is comfortable with the conversations that are going on, and you probably won’t want to be forced to share your truths on the spot.

For you, having access to the learning later will help the lessons sink in, give you time to reflect quietly on your own personal journey, and do some follow-up learning at your own pace, in a place that’s most comfortable for you.

Cool Blue learning

Cool Blue energy needs to be won over by credibility, authority, and proven validity behind the lessons (so it’s just as well that we’ve got that in spades). You may feel sceptical to begin with, and will want to skip past the icebreakers to get to the meaty stuff. But once the logic behind the learning is clear, you’ll just want to dig deep into the learning to maximize the time you’re spending.

You’ll be assuaged by having access to some of the learning upfront so that you can do your own research and think of some penetrating questions for the facilitator.

So which energies remind you of which colleagues? 

As you read through the diverse energies you are dealing with when designing their growth journeys, you know how important it is to be aware of this diversity around you. If you recognize that everyone is different, from the way they take their coffee to the way they prefer to learn, you’re already a step ahead in designing for better organizational productivity and business outcomes.

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Topics: Learning & Development, #Discover&Lead

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