MBA Career Services
Answering: Who Am I?

As part of a special workshop, IESE’s Career Services Department helped MBA students answer fundamental questions about themselves, in order to use that self-knowledge for more effective results, better teamwork and better delivery in their future careers. We talk to Andrew Lothian, chief executive of Insights Learning and Development, about the workshop he led on campus, and how asking questions about self adds value across organizations.

How did you come to develop Insights?
I was an MBA myself at the tender age of 22, which was pretty young at the time. And in my journey to find my voice, I felt banking was the place that I wanted to be. So I put my heart and soul into getting a prestigious job with Rothschild Bank in the City of London. But, as in many things, the universe will send you signals. When you’re in a place that you’re not supposed to be, the universe turns up the volume, and if you don’t listen, it turns up the volume a bit more until you get the message. So, I started on this journey in 1989, along with my father, Andi Lothian Sr. We simply had a vision that we could help people go through some of the experiences that we had, and understand more about what they bring to the world.

Can you describe your system?
The Insights Discovery system uses, as its entry point, a system of four color energies.

The first is “Fiery Red,” for people who are focused on the bottom line, fast-paced, make it happen, who do it; “Sunshine Yellow,” for people who are engaging and talkative; “Earth Green,” those who are caring, encouraging, stable; and “Cool Blue,” those who are analytical, cautious, precise.

We believe the visual nature of color, plus the graphical depiction of these typologies on a wheel, make the concepts more accessible and quicker to absorb. Handling it this way also allows for different proportions of preferences within an individual to be represented, highlighting those preferences along a continuum in order to honor mobility and dynamics of type.

In addition, our system is very pragmatic. Discovery is not just about describing you, not just what or who you are, but what do you do with who you are? So, rather than just talking about abstract concepts, we compile a comprehensive, personal 40-page Discovery profile for each individual, containing information on personal style, communication style, management style, blind spots and development areas. This helps people to ground what they’re going to do with this information.

What did you do during your IESE workshop with the MBA students?
What we did at IESE is ask a number of key questions. The first one is the question that everyone asks themselves unconsciously: “Who am I?” In leadership, as in life, the idea of self-understanding is central and critical. Carl Jung said that all self-improvement begins with self-understanding. He also said, “There is no cure, and no improving of the world, that does not begin with the individual him or herself.” So our starting point is: “Who am I? What do I bring to the world? What are my strengths? My possible weaknesses?” And that’s important for MBA students: to understand that the gifts that they bring can be different from the gifts that others bring - and that’s okay.

The second question is: “Can I understand why others are different from me? Why others have different expectations, different desires, different needs, different motivations?” For MBAs, in the world of work, their success will be partly determined by how good they are, technically, in their chosen specialty, but a great measure will be determined by how well they will get along with other people, how effective they will be at motivating and inspiring others, or to influence others to their way of thinking. It’s been said that you don’t get in life what you want, you get what you negotiate. That ability to interact effectively with others is critical.

The third key question is: “What do we do with that? How do I combine what I have with what others have for more effective results, better teamwork, better delivery?” In the context of these MBAs, moving into the world of their future careers, understanding how organizations are culturally different from one another, and how they might fit with organizational cultures, is a key part of the “what do I do with that” question.

What are the advantages of your system over others?
While some tools will help you understand more about yourself, there’s a sense that they are labeling you as an individual. Kierkegaard said, when you label me, you negate me. So, it’s important that we’re talking about a dynamic system. We need to recognize that each individual is unique. There are 72 sub-types represented on our wheel, compared to 16 for other systems, which we feel makes our system expanding rather than limiting.

So, self-understanding is important, but then the application is: how do I bring myself to the world? What are the implications of my preferred style, of my preferred way of doing things, for other people? And that’s sometimes where some systems fall down. They’ll help with the self-understanding bit, but not with how these two different types interact and how we can get the most out of these interactions. That’s one of the pieces that we work on.

How have people responded to these ideas, and have you seen people become more or less open since you started?
Generally, I think now there’s awareness in organizations that people truly are the key asset, the key resource for an organization. In banking, for example, I think organizations are beginning to realize that there will always be another bank with a bigger pay package that will take good people away. So, understanding what it is that inspires and motivates people, what it is that gives people a sense of belonging and community and spirit, that becomes more and more important. There’s a very pragmatic reason for looking at people development as a fundamental business prerequisite. I think people are more receptive to these ideas rather than less.

What do you say to people who feel this is “soft stuff” that’s not going to help the organization?
Sure, there are some who say, “How does this add to the bottom line?” But one of the reasons it adds to the bottom line is that, if we can create an environment in our organizations where people are fulfilled, and are doing things that motivate and inspire them, and get on well with others, we will add to the bottom line. Some of the research says that the primary reason that people leave organizations is because of their relationship with their direct supervisor or leader. So, if the leaders in organizations have poor relationships with the people they work with, people leave – that’s one of the most expensive things that can happen in an organization. There’s real bottom-line impact for this.

Does the Insights typology apply across cultures?
These concepts do apply across cultures. In India, for example, there’s the idea of the five great elements – the pancha maha butha – which are fire, air, earth and water. That’s also essentially Fiery Red, Sunshine Yellow, Earth Green and Cool Blue. The fifth element is Aakash – or the ether – what Jung might have called the Collective Unconscious. I was recently working in South Africa, where the issue of color is a very important one. And after one of the events, a gentleman came up to me and said, “Andy, thank you, you’re helping us to use color to move beyond color.”

So, the color that we talk about is the rainbow of personality type, the rainbow of preferences. The lesson is that underneath whatever the cultural façade, as individuals, there are many parallels and similarities.

How do you see your business developing in future?
We began in the U.K., and spent the first few years of our business focused there. North America is now a very big market for us. We’re finding that organizations around the world really want to do well by doing good. Part of that is how do we do good in individuals. With Enron, WorldCom, Sarbanes-Oxley and all the things that have gone out of that, there’s a sense in organizations that we’re looking for spirit, we’re looking for good basic values of civility and community. And so, in North America particularly, there’s that desire, so that’s a big market for us. Our work, however, spreads across the boundaries of language and culture. The cross-cultural work we are able to do in organizations around the world and in many languages is very exciting.

That focus on ethical values and social responsibility very much fits with IESE’s philosophy of business education...
Profit is important - no question. But we often talk about the juxtaposition of profit and purpose, or of strategy and spirit. Yes, we need profitability. But usually the purpose of an organization is something different, and we need to re-engage people with that, re-engage people with the question, as we started the interview, who am I, who are you and how do we apply our gifts to serve our own purposes and the purpose of the organization. It’s very values-driven.

Ultimately, we started this business out of a quest for purpose. Realizing purpose is to do with finding your own, unique voice. The question that MBA students, indeed all of us, should consider is, “Can we truly find our voice?” By “voice,” I mean, those things that we’re here on the planet to do. And when we do, can we create, for ourselves and others, the environment that will allow us to use that voice authentically, rather than having to conform to the demands and needs of a faceless organization?