Speaking the Same Language at the Top: How a Student Accommodation Leadership Team Unlocked Better Communication Through Insights Discovery
Introduction & Background
In student accommodation, the people at the top have to work as one team. Operations, IT, Maintenance and Learning & Development all affect what residents feel day to day. When one of these teams falls out of step with the others, residents notice it quickly.
That was the backdrop when a leading student accommodation provider came to Pebble People Development. A new leader had just taken over the management group. The company's Learning & Development Manager wanted to give the executive team a strong, shared starting point under its new leadership.
They asked us for something like Insights Discovery to help the team understand one another. In October 2026, Pebble facilitator Cameron delivered an Introduction to Insights Discovery workshop for the company's executive team.
The Challenges: Navigating Change Together
The team wasn't in crisis. But it was going through a change, and change is when good teams get the most from understanding each other.
A new leader at the helm: A change at the top shifts how a leadership team works. People needed a fast way to understand their new leader, and for the leader to understand them.
Specialists in separate lanes: Each member of the executive team owns a distinct area: Operations, IT, Maintenance, or L&D. That expertise is a strength. It can also mean each person sees problems, priorities and the "right" way to communicate from their own corner.
Communication under pressure: In the workshop, one theme came up again and again: how communication breaks down in meetings when people are stressed. Under pressure, people fall back on their natural styles. Without a shared language, that can leave colleagues feeling unheard, rushed or misunderstood.
Assumptions about each other: Many in the team had already decided what their own style, and their colleagues' styles, would be. Those assumptions risked hardening into labels before the team had a real framework to work from.
The Solution: An Introduction to Insights Discovery
The team was made up of experts who each led a different part of the business so it needed a common, easy-to-remember language for how each person prefers to think, decide and communicate. Insights Discovery gives a team exactly that - it’s the same approach that helped the middle managers at KDS Solutions build a common language across their engineering teams.
Insights Discovery uses four colour energies to describe a person's preferences: Fiery Red, Sunshine Yellow, Earth Green and Cool Blue. Before the workshop, each team member completed an online evaluator and received a personal profile.
On the day, Cameron ran our core Introduction to the Insights Discovery programme. The team got involved from the start and it was the hands-on activities that really landed:
The Insights card game: A lively, interactive way to explore the four colour energies. Participants started to spot their own preferences, and each other's, before seeing a single profile.
Walking the wheel: Team members stood on the giant Insights Discovery wheel to show where each of them sits. Seeing the whole team's spread on the floor made the differences, and how they complement each other, easy to see.
Revealing the personal profiles: This was the breakthrough moment - many people arrived sure of which colour they would be. Then they learned what the colour energies actually mean and their views began to change. When the profiles were handed out, the room had a real "aha" moment. People recognised themselves and saw their colleagues in a new light. Throughout the session, the team kept coming back to how to put this into practice: how to read each other's preferences and how to adapt their communication, especially in meetings when the pressure is on.
The Results:
The executive team left the workshop with a shared language and a much better understanding of how each colleague works.
Assumptions replaced with insight: Team members swapped their guesses about each other for a clear, evidence-based picture of everyone's preferences.
A shared language for a new chapter: Fiery Red, Sunshine Yellow, Earth Green and Cool Blue gave the team a simple, judgement-free way to talk about how they work. This is especially useful as they settle in under new leadership.
A clear view of meeting friction: The team named exactly where communication tends to break down under stress. That gave them practical ways to adapt how they share information, make decisions and challenge each other.
Respect across specialisms: Leaders from operations, IT, Maintenance and L&D gained a new respect for the different strengths each person brings.
Key Takeaways
Four Key Takeaways from Our Insights Discovery Workshop
Leadership change is the ideal time to invest in your team: Giving a team a shared framework early means less time lost to guesswork and misunderstanding.
Self-assessment has blind spots: Many in the team were sure they knew their colour before the workshop. Their profiles showed them something different. An objective tool like Insights Discovery replaces assumptions with real insight.
Doing beats telling: Activities like the card game and walking the wheel turn theory into shared moments that teams remember. They are what got this team talking. We saw the same thing with the team at Stepney Bank Stables, where hands-on sessions unlocked real team connection.
Pressure shows our preferences: Knowing how each colleague reacts under stress is one of the most practical results of Insights Discovery for any executive team that runs busy, high-stakes meetings.
Looking to the Future
A single workshop is only the start, so we're helping the team keep its new language alive. We are sharing ongoing "Keeping it Alive" communications to keep Insights Discovery front of mind in everyday work. The next step we're discussing is a Team Effectiveness workshop. It will build on the team's understanding of themselves and each other, and turn it into how they work together as a high-performing executive team.
Ready to Unlock Your Team’s Full Potential?
Is your leadership team going through change? Whether you have a new leader, a new structure or a team that needs to pull in the same direction, an Insights Discovery workshop is a great place to start.
Explore our solutions or get in touch with Pebble People Development to talk about your team.