This case shows how an understanding of talent can evolve from individual insight into a shared way of working. It created a team with high psychological safety, strong engagement, and low employee turnover, while also providing a stronger foundation for both development and recruitment.

The Challange

We were a team at IKEA when we first started working with TT38. We knew each other through our day-to-day work, but we did not know each other’s talents, strengths, or the areas of attention that came with them. If we were later to use TT38 to strengthen teams and recruit effectively, we first needed to understand how it worked ourselves.

The Process

We went through the entire process ourselves, from start to finish, before later offering it to others:

Individual Assessment and Feedback

Everyone on the team completed a TT38 assessment and received a personal feedback session on the results.

Team Workshop

We held a workshop where we learned about each other’s talents and openly discussed areas of attention.

Team Profile

The assessment results were compiled into a shared team profile, giving us a picture of where the team’s strengths and areas of attention were.

Values and Vision

Using the team profile as a foundation, we subsequently defined our shared values and vision.

TT38 in Recruitment

Afterwards, we used TT38 whenever we recruited new people into the team. We looked at cultural fit, which talents would best complement the team, and which talents matched the specific position.

The Result

The way we worked with ourselves left a lasting impact on the team:

• An incredible level of psychological safety and openness emerged within the team because everyone understood both their own talents and those of their colleagues.
• Everyone was able to support one another based on talents rather than chance.
• Development and learning became less about fixing weaknesses and more about becoming even better at what people were already good at.
• Very low employee turnover – the only people who left the team did so as part of their natural career development within IKEA.
• 100% engagement and top rankings in the annual employee engagement survey, year after year.

The experience from our own team became the very foundation of how we have worked with TT38 ever since, both in team development and recruitment: understanding talents creates psychological safety, and psychological safety creates a team that has the confidence to build on each other’s strengths.