Discovery Full Circle – A Case Study in Coaching
By Steve Thomson SYT Coaching and Development Ltd
We were approached early in 2009 by the Head of a Pharmaceutical Manufacturing facility. I had previously had contact with him as a coaching client, and as he had recently been promoted from another site to lead this facility in Scotland, he was looking at ways to improve the relationships and cooperation with his new Senior Team. The request he came up with was for some sort of ‘360 Team Day’.
Although I do use one or two standard 360 degree assessment tools, I am very keen on use of the Insights Discovery portfolio of products, and immediately thought of Insights Discovery Full Circle which I have used fairly extensively, although usually with a few
coaching clients at a time.
When marketing Discovery Full Circle we advise clients that it is better than a standard 360 tool and in fact do not refer to it as a 360 tool, as it is non-judgemental and based on the respondent’s view of the profile recipient’s preferences, however that should not preclude its use in similar circumstances.
I saw the advantages of working with the individuals over a period, as they would need to complete their Insights Discovery profiles first as a baseline and to gain an understanding of Discovery language in general terms, which would allow them to get more out of the
Team Day.
I should say that being a coach first and foremost, my tendency is to incorporate some 1:1 sessions which allow tailored and personalised discussions, along with the team/group element. Another advantage of this approach was that people were gradually introduced to a culture of more openness and sharing than before, which allowed the Discovery Full Circle exercise to be even more worthwhile.
The profile can be produced in named and anonymous formats and I generally encourage clients to go for the ‘Named’ option and have found from experience and client feedback that some of the followup conversations that they then initiate give even greater ongoing benefit to the exercise.
And so I proposed a three step process as follows:
- 17 x Insights Discovery 1:1 feedback/coaching sessions
- Team Day – incorporating aspects of an ‘Introduction to 'Discovery Day’ and aspects of relationship building from the Full Circle Learning Guide, e.g D4 Feedback Exercise/Relate Spider Diagram Exercise
The initial sessions started in June 2009, and the process was completed by the end of that year. It was pleasing to note that while on site latterly, the language of Discovery had been incorporated really quite well and that the learnings from the Team Day and integrated Discovery Full Circle exercise were still in evidence thanks in part to the ongoing nature of their Insights Discovery experience.
The HR Director’s comment on the process was:
I have been impressed with the speed at which we have seen improvements in the way our Senior Team understand each other and work together following the implementation of the Discovery Full Circle process.
As a result, the benefits to the Senior Team’s ways of working were clear.
At the start of 2010, there was a request to cascade the process further to the level 2 leaders, and approximately 40 further delegates have been going through the process during 2010.