May 29, 2024
October 9, 2026
Editorial Disclaimer
This content is published for general information and editorial purposes only. It does not constitute financial, investment, or legal advice, nor should it be relied upon as such. Any mention of companies, platforms, or services does not imply endorsement or recommendation. We are not affiliated with, nor do we accept responsibility for, any third-party entities referenced. Financial markets and company circumstances can change rapidly. Readers should perform their own independent research and seek professional advice before making any financial or investment decisions.
You have booked the away day, the team is split between people who never stop talking and people who never start, and someone in HR has suggested a personality workshop. Then the questions arrive. Should it be MBTI, DISC or Insights Discovery? Do you need a certified practitioner? And will anyone remember their colour a month later? This guide compares the main options side by side, explains how 16 Jung types and 4 colour training brings the two most popular languages together, and shows how to make sure the investment changes how your team actually works.
16 Jung types and 4 colour training: A short course that teaches managers, HR teams and coaches to read two personality models at once. The 16 types describe how someone takes in information and makes decisions, while the four colours (red, yellow, green and blue) give the team a quick, visual shorthand for working styles.
Both models trace back to Carl Jung, whose 1921 book Psychological Types introduced the ideas of introversion, extraversion and the core mental functions. MBTI turned his thinking into 16 four-letter types. Colour models, including Insights Discovery, simplified it into four energies. Training in both lets you use the detail when you need it and the shorthand when you do not.
Most team problems are not skills problems. They are communication problems that look like performance problems. A detail-driven analyst and a fast-moving salesperson can both be excellent at their jobs and still drive each other up the wall every Monday morning.
Management is where this matters most. Gallup's research on managers found that managers account for at least 70% of the variance in employee engagement across business units. A manager who understands why one person wants the headline and another wants the spreadsheet will get more from both of them.
In my coaching work the same pattern turns up again and again. Business owners assume a slow sale or a stuck project means they need more leads or more people. Far more often the real issue sits inside the team: unclear roles, mismatched styles and nobody saying what they actually think.
I learned this the expensive way. I once handed my podcast process to a VA with eight clear steps. By the time I looked again it had grown to 53 steps, and that misunderstanding cost me around £10,000. Neither of us was bad at our job. I had abdicated rather than delegated, and we had never talked about how each of us liked to work. Personality training is one of the quickest ways to get that conversation started before it costs you money.
The three best-known names approach the same goal from different directions. Here is how they stack up against a combined Jung types and colours approach.
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator sorts people into 16 types across four preference pairs: extraversion or introversion, sensing or intuition, thinking or feeling, and judging or perceiving. It is rich and widely recognised, which is why it remains popular for leadership and career development. The drawback for smaller organisations is the route to running it yourself, which goes through a formal certification programme.
It also attracts criticism. Psychologist David Pittenger's review of the research reported that as many as half of people receive a different type when they retake the test within weeks. That does not make it useless, but it is a good reason to treat any type as a starting point for conversation, not a fixed label.
DISC grew out of William Moulton Marston's 1928 book Emotions of Normal People. It describes observable behaviour across four styles: Dominance, Influence, Steadiness and Conscientiousness. Because it focuses on behaviour rather than inner preference, it is popular in sales and line management.
The catch is that DISC is not one product. Dozens of publishers sell their own versions, so quality and depth vary a great deal. If you choose DISC, check who built the questionnaire and how it has been tested.
Insights Discovery takes Jung's ideas and presents them as four colour energies. The colours are memorable, the reports are polished and the workshops tend to land well. Many organisations still have people who can tell you their colour years after the session.
The trade-off is cost and control. Running it in-house typically means a formal accreditation route and licence fees, which add up quickly for a growing business.
A combined model gives each person a 16-type profile and a colour profile from a single questionnaire. For a team that already knows the colour language, it adds depth without starting again. For a team that is new to all of this, it offers the simple version for day-to-day use and the detailed version for coaching conversations.
Whichever model you pick, the course matters as much as the questionnaire. A strong practitioner course covers four things:
TestGroup's 16 Jung Types and 4 colour training is a good example of the compact end of the market. It is a two-hour live online session for up to 24 people from one organisation, covering the 16 types, the four colours or both, with a personality test and team report for each participant. TestGroup reports that around 250,000 people complete its assessments every year, in 20 languages.
Compare that with multi-day certification routes and the difference in time away from the business is significant. For a small or growing company, two hours is far easier to protect in the diary than several days.
Start with the outcome, not the model. A brave goal for a team session is specific: fewer handover mistakes between sales and delivery, shorter meetings, or a new manager who understands her team within a month. "Better communication" is not a goal.
Then work through these questions:
If you want to go deeper on the individual models first, read our guides on using the 16 Jung personality types in business and the Bridge Personality 4 colour model.
The biggest risk with any personality workshop is that it becomes a fun afternoon and nothing else. People enjoy finding out they are "a red" and then go back to working exactly as before.
Make it stick by building the language into the way the business runs. Put each person's colour on the team board. Use the team report when you plan who leads a client project. Bring it into one-to-ones, so feedback is framed around style rather than personality clashes. Our guide to management colours covers practical ways to do this day to day.
It also pays off in sales. In the 6-Step Sales Formula I teach, the Fact Find and Feel Find steps depend on reading the person in front of you. A blue buyer wants the numbers and the process before they will talk about the outcome. A red buyer wants the outcome in the first two minutes. Knowing the difference changes how you pitch, and often how much you can confidently charge.
Finally, measure it. I give each quarter one theme and protect it for 90 days, and a personality programme deserves the same focus. As I ask my clients: "If you do that one thing for 90 days, do you think your business will get better or worse?" Go back to the goal you set at the start and check it at the end of the quarter. If handovers are cleaner and meetings shorter, the training worked. If not, look at how the language is being used, not just at the model.
MBTI gives depth, DISC focuses on behaviour and Insights Discovery makes the colours memorable. A combined 16 Jung types and 4 colour approach gives you both the detail and the shorthand from one questionnaire, often with far less time away from the business. Pick the outcome first, choose the model that fits the team you already have, and build the language into everyday work so it lasts longer than the workshop. For more on building a team and business that works for you, grab a free signed copy of Take Your Shot.
MBTI describes inner preferences and sorts people into 16 types, while DISC describes observable behaviour across four styles. MBTI suits self-awareness and development work, and DISC is often used in sales and line management.
Insights Discovery is one well-known colour model based on Jung's work. Other providers offer their own four-colour models, sometimes combined with the 16 Jung types in a single report.
It depends on the provider. Some, such as MBTI and Insights Discovery, require formal certification or accreditation, while others offer short qualifying courses or let you use reports without certification.
Course length varies by provider. Compact online courses can run in around two hours, while formal certification programmes for other models can take several days.
Yes, as one input alongside interviews, references and skills assessments. Use them to guide better interview questions and onboarding, never as the only reason to hire or reject someone.
