Expanding your L&D palette: blowing open 4 misconceptions you may have about using new insights tools

Think back to the last time you were cooking a big meal for a group of friends or family.

We’ll wager that you probably had your favourite cookery book propped up in the corner (or perhaps your go-to recipe loaded up on your phone?), all your ingredients neatly laid out on the worktop, and various utensils from baking trays to mixing bowls standing to attention, ready to rise to the challenge.

You give the recipe one more scan, grab your metaphorical chef’s hat – and away you go.

You’re throwing ingredients together, whisking and mixing until your wrists are sore, and whizzing around your kitchen with a creative flair and gusto that would leave even Jamie Oliver nodding his head in approval.

Does this sound familiar? You can probably recall many times when you’ve literally stepped up to the plate to create a culinary masterpiece.

But have you ever had one of those moments during the process where you’ve paused and asked yourself – should I incorporate this particular ingredient into my dish?

Perhaps pondering things like…

• What if I accidentally use too much seasoning?
• Should I add more water or milk to loosen up my dough?
• What if I add too much baking powder?
• Should I throw in a bit of flour to thicken my sauce?

Do you recognise any of these potential misgivings?

We’re sure you’ll agree that there’s always times during the cooking process when we encounter stumbling blocks that stop us dead in our tracks – thrusting us into uncertainty about whether we’re using the right techniques, or are perhaps missing a culinary trick which could elevate our dish to a whole new level of deliciousness.

But have you ever encountered similar moments of uncertainty when you’ve considered expanding your L&D toolkit?

As a professional coach, you may already have one or two personality profiling tools tucked away in your pantry. Or you may have chosen to fly solo, using your own tools and techniques to help your people reach beyond their potential.

And when it comes to exploring additional ingredients to incorporate into your L&D dish, perhaps you’ve found yourself turning over similar (but less food-focused) questions in your head:

• Do I really need to add another tool into the mix?
• Is it really worth the investment?
• Will it add any genuine value to my current offering?
• What if its usefulness eventually runs out?

Sound familiar? If so, don’t panic – because we’ll be laying them to rest right here in this article, so you can give your L&D dish the Michelin-star treatment.

So without further ado, let’s start busting these common misconceptions you might have about expanding your L&D palette…

Misconception #1:

I don’t need another insights tool

If you use personality profiling tools like Myers-Briggs or DISCs, you’ll know that their defining feature is that they outline and categorise ‘above the waterline’ behaviours – the characteristics that we can clearly observe and recognise in ourselves and others.

And they do it very well.

These tools play a vital role in helping us to get a handle on our individual behaviours, so we can understand how to match ourselves more effectively to situations, get along better with others and be our most productive selves.

But this information alone is not enough to create peak performance or sustainable change.

While these tools are great at identifying and describing behaviours, they don’t tell us WHY we exhibit them. The root cause remains hidden.

It’s by understanding what drives us to act in certain ways that we can create real positive change – making better choices around our behaviours, so we can stay in Best Self. And avoid unproductive Shadow behaviours.

This is why PRINT® is the perfect condiment to enrich traditional personality profiling tools.

PRINT® unveils the Unconscious Motivators® behind our behaviours, so we get sight of the reasons why we might respond in particular ways to what’s happening around us.

It reveals why certain situations have us firing on all cylinders, and why some leave us feeling cold.

And why we click straight away with some people, and just can’t seem to get on with others.

Can you see how these tools can complement each other as if they were two peas in a pod?

Much like the two biscuits of a Jammie Dodger fitting together perfectly around the jammy centre – giving you a complete picture so you can learn to be the best version of yourself.

Or like adding that little extra pinch of seasoning to give your dish a whole new depth of deliciousness.

Imagine the insights that would be available to you if you used both types of tools with your people or clients, and the difference you could make for them.

It’s kind of like having a two-course meal – with even more food and flavour to go round!

Learn more about how PRINT® can lift up your L&D recipe to new heights here.

Misconception #2:

It’s not worth the expense

When it comes to adding new tools to your L&D pantry, you might be thinking, ‘is it really worth the expense? Will the value justify the investment?’

But what if we told you that 42% of a manager’s time is spent managing Shadow behaviour amongst their teams?

Or that more than 38% of performance issues are a result of Shadow behaviour?

Or – prepare for a shock – that 88% of employees on the receiving end of Shadow behaviour vow to ‘get even’ with the organisation?

It’s plain to see just how damaging an impact Shadow behaviour can have across organisations – perhaps even your own.

If you’re an in-house coach, have you noticed any instances where Shadow behaviour was blatantly being demonstrated within teams? What effect did you see it have on teamwork, performance, or productivity?

The thing with Shadow behaviour is that it’s a double-edged sword. It can affect employees on the ground, and leadership teams too.

This is why PRINT® in particular is so useful. Much like peeling back the layers of an onion – whilst traditional profiling tools are exceptionally useful in showing us our behaviours (both Best Self and Shadow), PRINT® can uncover the root cause of those behaviours so that we can understand why they’re happening and put steps in place to solve the issues behind them.

And by extension, figure out how we can stop them happening in the future – saving valuable time and money.

This is uniquely beneficial whether you’re a coach who works in-house or independently.

With the knowledge PRINT® gives you, you can quickly nip challenging issues in the bud and keep people and teams on track to achieve the best possible outcomes for them.

Making you an indispensable advisor to any organisation suffering from issues stemming from Shadow behaviours!

And if you’re still not convinced, what if we told you that PRINT® has helped various organisations around the world to:

• Improve team engagement scores and profit by 30%?
• Salvage a multimillion-dollar sales contract?
• Improve financial performance by 54%?
• Significantly reduce turnover and lost manager time – resulting in an annual cost saving of up to $27 million?

Sounds pretty tasty, doesn’t it?

If these few stats have whet your appetite, check out our case studies to see how having these insights has transformed how coaches like you work with their clients or teams.

Misconception #3:

A new profiling tool might not add any value to my current offering

We’ve already mentioned how adding PRINT® to your L&D pantry can give you a whole new depth of insight into what makes people tick, than you perhaps never considered possible.

But perhaps you’re wondering – how does it actually achieve this? Where does its real value lie?

What makes PRINT® tick?

The answer is deliciously simple. PRINT® is underpinned by a super-clever algorithm, that asks you a series of questions until it is 100% certain it has your PRINT® profile down to a tee.

No two people take the same survey – because each new question is based on how you have answered previously. Meaning each individual gets a totally tailored experience.

But it goes further than that.

The psychological framework that informs PRINT’s insights can have a real tasty impact beyond helping us to create peak performance.

It can help us to fundamentally transform our health and well-being too.

Let us explain…

The principle benefit of PRINT® is that it can help us identify our unproductive Shadow behaviours and create strategies to avoid them, and stay in Best Self.

Shadow behaviour is most noticeable during those times where things just don’t seem to go right, we can’t muster the motivation to get things done, or we are easily frustrated, anxious, or moody.

But it also creates two competing situations in our brain that impact our health and wellbeing.

The first is that Shadow behaviour stimulates the release of Cortisol and Adrenaline (the body’s stress response).

Long-term activation of these chemicals can lead to significant health problems, from depression to digestive issues.

Meaning someone who doesn’t have the knowledge to avoid Shadow behaviours is more at risk than someone who does.

But just as your Best Self behaviours are a result of your Unconscious Motivators® being satisfied – so are your Shadow behaviours. Shadow behaviours just satisfy them in an unproductive, potentially damaging way.

This might be good for our Unconscious Motivators®, but it’s not very helpful to ourselves or the people around us. The trouble is, having our Unconscious Motivators® satisfied in any way creates positive neurological charge, which the brain is hardwired to reward.

Meaning Shadow behaviour is easier to revert to – even though it’s more destructive and damaging overall.

You might be able to see now why having awareness and understanding of your potential Shadow behaviours, and being able to manage them to stay in Best Self, is helpful and beneficial on multiple levels.

We’re not saying traditional profiling tools aren’t worthwhile. They make a great hors d’oeuvre.

But PRINT® can take their insights one step further – so you have all the ingredients you need to create lasting positive change in others.

Misconception #4:

Insights tools aren’t practical to implement in the workplace over the long-term

You may have previously experienced tools that are rather static in the information they provide, in that it can be difficult to build on the insights.

As we’ve already discussed, traditional personality profiling tools give us a good indication as to how we typically respond to things, and how we can make compromises to build better relationships with others.

But they don’t teach us how we can fundamentally alter our behaviours.

Only how we can work with them.

And there’s also a common misconception attached to these types of tools that they’re only really beneficial during team-development days – and after this point, their usefulness starts to wear off.

Again, they make a great starter dish – but the information they give is somewhat finite in nature.

Where PRINT® adds a new level of flavour is that its insights can be used time and again as we encounter new situations, new people (each with their own PRINT® profiles) and new challenges. Each one a chance to learn and grow, by adapting our strategies to stay in Best Self.

The starting point for PRINT® is a Discovery workshop, where participants receive their unique PRINT® report and are guided through a series of learning exercises to discover how they can get the most out of the insights uncovered.

They get a taste for potential performance blockers, as well as areas where they are best placed to thrive.

And learn how to apply their Best Self strategies in real-life scenarios.

This approach may be familiar to you if you use other personality profiling tools. And you might wonder what you can get out of PRINT® beyond this point.

The good thing is (and what you may have picked up on) is that PRINT’s usefulness doesn’t run dry there.

If you’re an in-house coach, you can take the insights from this initial Discovery session and infuse them into your organisation, so that they have an ongoing influence on both individuals and teams.

And if you’re an independent coach, you can apply your understanding of your own Unconscious Motivators® in practice to build better rapport and relationships with your clients – to increase your influence and achieve better results.

Scenarios where PRINT® is especially appetising when used over the long-term are:

• Increasing individual and team productivity
• Improving interpersonal communication
• Building high-performance leadership
• Creating change capability
• Attracting and retaining culture-fit talent
• Delivering effective career development

And these insights aren’t just useful during certain situations on an ad-hoc basis.

They can be applied in the day-to-day – helping individuals to make better choices around their behaviours and influencing every course of action or decision, so they can consciously achieve more fruitful outcomes.

We know the decision to spice up your L&D recipe book can be a daunting one.

But hopefully we’ve laid to rest some of the concerns you may have about branching out into new territory with insights tools – and made you more confident as to the rich value and benefits they can offer you as a coach.

But if your appetite’s still not kicked in and you have other questions or queries about blending PRINT® into your L&D mix, our Michelle will be more than happy step up to the plate to shine some reassuring light. Why not drop her an email over on michelle.l@discoveryourprint.co.uk?

Check out our previous blog, Food for thought: focusing on both the topping and the base to bring your L&D dish to life, here.