The Business Case for Insights Discovery®
How to build a case that gets approved
Insights Discovery® has returned as much as £20 for every £1 invested, in a documented case study with Indeed.
In an independent study measuring real behaviour rather than how people felt on the day, learners at Solventum moved from adapting how they worked with colleagues 20% of the time to doing it 74% of the time. A single workshop still delivers its own standalone return: a shared language, better communication, and a working reference point the team keeps using long after the session ends.
If you already know Insights Discovery® is the right tool, this page gives you the evidence that turns that conviction into a case that gets approved, whether you are proposing one workshop this year or a fuller programme.
Why this is a harder sell than it should be
Most people who champion this internally are not struggling to believe in Insights Discovery. They are struggling to translate that belief into a case that lands well in a budget conversation. Three objections come up again and again:
- It sounds like a soft skills exercise. Colour language and personality profiling can sound abstract next to a budget line for sales training or compliance.
- The return is hard to measure. Without a number attached, the case rests on how people feel rather than what changed.
- We have done training before and it did not stick. A one off workshop with no follow through is a real and common experience, and a fair objection.
Each of these has a direct answer. The evidence sits below, organised around the five questions a budget holder is actually going to ask.
Five questions your budget holder will ask
1. Does it produce a measurable return?
£20 return for every £1 invested
The result came from combining the Insights profile with sustained use over time, what JTL calls return and learn, rather than treating the workshop as the finish line. That does not mean a single session is worth less on its own. A well facilitated workshop already gives a team a shared language and an immediate, practical shift in how people communicate. What return and learn describes is how that return keeps compounding the longer Insights Discovery® stays part of how a team works, which is worth knowing whether you are budgeting for one session or several.
It is also worth considering the cost of doing nothing. Poor communication, friction, disengagement and employee turnover already have a cost – even if it isn’t currently being measured.
2. Does it actually change behaviour?
Most workshop feedback stops at whether people enjoyed the day. Solventum, a fast growing organisation bringing new teams and new leaders together, wanted more than that. They ran a formal impact study measuring actual behaviour before and after Insights Discovery®, across 345 learners and 5 regions, with 124 people leaders included. Sixty six percent of learners left an open text comment. This was not a tick box exercise, people had things to say.
Three different questions, three different teams, the same story each time: people moved from occasionally thinking about how they worked with others, to making it a habit.
“You can’t AI your way into relationships. You need to use something like your knowledge and understanding of those colour preferences to build strong relationships and to manage the change so that we all stay resilient and can be adaptable”
Rhonda Hegland, Learning Business Partner, Solventum
Rhonda also makes an important point: Insights is not just about team building. It starts with individuals understanding themselves and adapting how they work with others. When everyone does that, the whole team works better.
3. Is it a credible psychometric?
Insights Discovery® is tested using the same reliability measure used across the psychometric industry, Cronbach’s Alpha, where a score of 0.7 or higher is considered reliable.
4. Will people actually engage with it, remember it and use it?
92% of delegates
are happy or very happy with their Insights Discovery® profile
Of clients surveyed who had been through both Insights Discovery® and MBTI, three out of four said they preferred Insights Discovery®.
“I’ve done Myers Briggs multiple times but there was something about it that really resonated and something that stuck so clearly to me as more powerful”
Holly Whitcomb, Learning and Development Manager, 3M
“I much prefer it to the other psychometrics as I feel it’s instantly memorable because it uses the four colours, so even if you don’t have a degree in psychology you can very quickly understand what it’s about”
Sheila Gordon, Training Academy Lead, Cornerstone
5. Do you have to invest in a big programme for it to be worthwhile?
No. Not every organisation can commit to a full learning journey in one go, and that is a completely reasonable place to start. A single, well facilitated Insights Discovery® workshop is a complete experience in its own right: your team leaves with a shared language, immediate clarity on how they work differently, and a practical tool they keep using.
The £20:£1 figure reflects what is possible with sustained investment over time. It is not a threshold you need to reach before one session becomes worthwhile, and it should not be read as a reason to wait until the budget for a fuller programme exists. Start with the workshop your budget allows this year, and build from there if and when you can.
The business case in five numbers
- £20 back for every £1 invested — the return Indeed achieved by embedding Insights Discovery® and sustaining it over time
- 20% to 74% — how often learners adapted their communication with colleagues, before and after Insights Discovery®, in the Solventum study
- 345 learners across 5 regions — the size of the independent study measuring real behaviour change, not satisfaction
- 92% — the proportion of JTL delegates happy or very happy with their Insights Discovery® profile
- 3 in 4 — the proportion of clients who had used both Insights Discovery® and MBTI, and preferred Insights Discovery®
What JTL sees that a generic proposal will not tell you
The business cases that succeed internally are rarely the ones that lead with the profile itself. They lead with a specific, named problem the leadership team already agrees exists: meetings that overrun, decisions that stall, a particular working relationship that keeps causing friction, and only then introduce Insights Discovery® as the mechanism for solving it.
Champions who present it as a capability investment tied to that named problem get approved far more often than champions who present it as a training day.
Why JTL specifically
Insights Discovery® is licensed by Insights Learning and Development and delivered by accredited partners, so the choice most buyers are actually making is not which tool, it is which partner will deliver it well and make it stick. The evidence above spans two very different organisations: a business embedding Insights Discovery® into ongoing culture change at Indeed, and a fast growing company at Solventum using it to bring new teams and new leaders together quickly.
Both got these results because of how the programme was run, not the profile alone. JTL has delivered this approach for organisations including Cadogan Tate, British Council, Allied Bakeries, The Wine Society, First Milk, and Forthglade.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the ROI of Insights Discovery® training.
The £20 return figure is real, but it is worth knowing what kind of return it is. Some of it is direct cost saved, and some of it is capacity released, time people get back rather than pounds returned to a budget line. If your finance team wants a cash only figure, isolate the direct cost items in your own numbers using the calculator below rather than relying on the headline figure alone.
How do we know behaviour actually changed, not just how people felt on the day?
The Solventum study was independent research the client commissioned itself, not a JTL survey, and it measured what people said they did differently, not how they rated the day. Worth being upfront that this is self reported behaviour rather than third party observation, which is a fair point to flag if it comes up in your own case. See the full breakdown above for all three measures and the sample size.
How do I present this to my finance team.
Open with the named business problem it solves, not the tool. Use the reliability and preference data to answer whether Insights Discovery® itself is credible. Then use the return and learn narrative to answer why this time will be different from past training that did not stick.
Is Insights Discovery® evidence based.
Yes, in two separate senses. It is statistically reliable, tested against the same industry standard as MBTI and DISC, see the comparison above. And it is behaviourally proven, the Solventum study measured real changes in what people did, not just what they thought of the day. Few tools in this space can point to both.
How is JTL’s approach different from a one off training day.
The Insights Discovery® tool itself is the same wherever you buy it, the licence is standardised. What differs is delivery: how well the workshop is facilitated, and whether anything happens afterwards to keep the learning alive. Return and learn is JTL’s answer to the second part, and it is an added layer, not something you have to buy before a single workshop is worthwhile.
Is a single workshop worth doing if we cannot commit to more right now
Yes, see question 5 above for the full answer. In short, there is no threshold to clear first, start with what your budget allows this year.
Try it with your own numbers
Do I need exact numbers to use it?
No. A rough estimate is enough to get started, you can tighten it up as you go.
Will it always show a positive return?
No, and that is deliberate. If the numbers do not stack up, the calculator will say so honestly, the same way the evidence on this page does.
How long does it take?
About two minutes, a little longer if you want to compare a few scenarios.
What do I get at the end?
An estimated annual cost, a potential return, and a payback period you can take straight into your own budget conversation.
Want the numbers built around your own team
Everything above is real evidence from real clients, but it is not your organisation, your sector, or your budget. Get in touch and JTL will put together a personalised ROI picture, built around your team size, your goals, and the specific case you need to make, so you can walk into that conversation with the evidence already on your side.
The calculator above is the quick self serve step. This closing section is for the fuller, personalised version once someone wants to go deeper, for example through a conversation with Angela or the team.