Case Study

Live and Learn: Adding value and enhancing their proposition to customers

Live and Learn is a professional learning and development consultancy founded by Lisa Kitchen, Learning and Development Director and Jay Dhillon, Strategic Director. The business helps professionals advance their careers through training and coaching in including leadership, sales, HR, communications and wellbeing.

Live and Learn

Employees

11-50

Industry

Professional Services

Country

United Kingdom

Solution

Behaviour (PPA)

Emotional Intelligence (TEIQue)

Engage

The Challenge

With the pandemic and then the recession leading many companies to shift focus from recruitment to upskilling existing staff, Learning and Development Director Lisa Kitchen and her company Live and Learn have their work cut out. Despite this challenging context, Lisa is able to rely on the high validity of Thomas assessments. Her team’s expertise in applying psychometrics in a professional coaching context provide Live and Learn’s clients with transformational insights into the psychological dynamics behind successful business outcomes.

Lisa has a longstanding awareness and belief in the Thomas assessments. She says, “I first came across Thomas when my husband worked for the insurance company Aviva. They used Thomas as part of their recruitment process and he talked me through ‘DISC’ theory, which I thought was really exciting. Then I went to work for Livewell Health Clubs and was given bespoke training on how to use DISC profiling to sell within the fitness industry. I recognised the theory and it resonated, and I became very passionate about everything DISC and knew it worked. When I decided to set up Live and Learn, we saw the value of psychometrics and it made perfect sense that the first psychometric tool we introduced was the Thomas Behaviour assessment. The rest is history.”

The Solution

Live and Learn use Thomas assessments to add value to their offering, enhancing their proposition to customers and the training that they receive. Lisa explains, “We mainly use psychometrics as a training tool. At the moment, we are only scratching the surface of what we know psychometrics have the potential to do. When customers book training in various subjects, we offer psychometrics as an optional value add on that journey. When we use it, it is so impactful. DISC works especially well with our advanced communication skills course and our Management and leadership courses.”

“We have accreditation In Thomas’ Behaviour, Emotional Intelligence and Engage assessments and our next step is to gain accreditation in the Aptitude and Personality assessments. As we came out of lockdown, we started to offer three month and six-month coaching packages. If customers opt for the six-month package, they receive a free psychometric assessment, which adds huge value to the coaching journey. If we are approached by an organisation with an employee who, for instance, lacks confidence and needs some coaching around assertiveness, or Sales, or communication, the Thomas Behaviour assessment allows us to start that journey with some key talking points. From there, we work with them to identify what impact their communication or behaviours might be having. That works beautifully.”

The Results

Using Thomas psychometrics, Live and Learn is able to offer their clients deep insights into the behavioural dynamics that shape their workplaces, facilitating a deeper awareness of interpersonal relationships, motivation and potential. Lisa says, “When we use Thomas assessments, they bring significant benefits for us and our customers. As an example, one of our biggest clients decided to profile their board members for a team day. We did something quite bespoke for them in that we profiled everybody and then revealed the results to everyone individually. They were given their reports to read during a coffee break.

Then we brought them back together and explained DISC theory and that we had compiled all their profiles in a Team report to give them visibility of the team’s dimensions. We walked them through their Team report – the team’s strengths and limitations – and what the balance of profiles meant for the team. In the afternoon, we ran a facilitated discussion about how the report findings could help the organisation move forward with its strategic plan for the next five years. Following the training, the client requested Emotional Intelligence reports so that they could layer those insights with their Behavioural profiles. They really see the value in Thomas.”