What does Build look like?

New employees begin by completing a Lumina Spark Portrait that breaks down their strengths and areas for development, supported by the Lumina Explainer available on CGT Catapult’s Learning Management System.

This is followed by a 90-minute online introductory workshop session designed to familiarise participants with the Four Colour Archetypes, the Three Personas, and how to interpret their own Spark Portrait.

Subsequently, participants attend a core workshop, either half-day or full-day depending on team needs, where they explore their behavioural preferences, Overextensions, communication styles, and team dynamics.

The session design is carefully aligned to CGT Catapult’s values and competency framework, with a range of carefully crafted elements underpinning the learning experience and bringing the concepts to life.

How Build made learning stick

The Lumina Spark card game involves participants choosing cards that describe them and exchanging cards with others in the room. They select cards that describe which of the Lumina Spark 24 Qualities they bring to the team as well as cards that reflect an overplayed strength.

The Lumina Splash app. Participants use the app to explore their own Splash that visualises their personality, and navigates through their Underlying, Everyday and Overextended Personas to intuitively view the triggers that cause their style to shift between effective and ineffective. They then shared their Splashes with a partner and compared. This is an important step to understanding how they might work well with someone, how they might find it difficult to work together and how they could then plan ways to work effectively with each other.

Their digital workbook provides reflection prompts and team activities to reinforce the learning. This resource supports ongoing development and encourages regular conversations between employees and their managers. It also lays the groundwork for the next phase of learning, Boost, by beginning to explore themes of rapport-building and collaboration.

Lumina Spark Coach is also used as a hands-on companion following the Build session to continue learning beyond expert-led sessions. With a ready-made and self-led coaching plan based on their Lumina Spark Portrait, participants can explore key behavioural patterns across their 24 Lumina Spark Qualities and set development goals for themselves.

How Build supports development

The Build programme aligns closely with CGT Catapult’s values and competency framework. It plants the seeds for personal growth and collaboration by helping employees appreciate their unique qualities, understand their communication styles, and recognise Overextensions. Importantly, it also lays the groundwork for the next phase, Boost, by starting to explore themes of rapport-building and teamwork.

Participants gathered around the vibrant Lumina Learning mat, using the full Lumina Spark Mandala as a shared visual language to explore how they work well together, where their Qualities connect or clash, reflect on their own Paradoxes and those within the team, and recognise how strengths can shift into overextensions in a way that makes learning stick.

What does Boost look like?

While the structure varies, most Boost sessions last either half or a full day. They begin with a review of previous learning and then move into deeper territory, exploring communication preferences, team resilience, and strategies for working across diverse behavioural styles. Teams engage in live role plays, scenario-based exercises, and facilitated discussions that reveal how different preferences impact everyday team interactions.

The sessions are for established teams looking to deepen collaboration and tackle team dynamics, usually once they have completed the Build phase.

Sessions are fully customised, shaped through pre-session meetings with stakeholders to identify specific team dynamics, goals, and any existing challenges.

A significant component of Boost is the use of the Lumina Team Viewer to look at the Team Mandala, allowing the group to visualise their collective behaviours so they can spot trends and patterns that might impact their collective performance. They can view this across Underlying, Everyday, and Overextended to see how the team shifts between effective and ineffective and explore what scenarios might trigger them to show up differently as a group.

The theme of “working with your opposite” is emphasised, helping teams transform frustration into fascination and difference into strength.

Typical session elements

• Recap and reflection: Revisiting Lumina Spark and previous team learnings.
• Communication styles: Exploring how personalities prefer to give and receive information.
• Rapport-building exercises: Including role plays, case studies, and real-world scenarios.
• Team challenges: Applying Lumina tools directly to solve real team issues.

How Boost supports development

Each team co-creates a team charter during the session, agreeing on communication commitments and ways of working. A nominated business champion supports the team to embed these new behaviours after the workshop. Teams receive a workbook with pre- and post-session activities, reinforcing that Boost is part of an ongoing journey rather than a fixed destination.

What does Beyond include?

• The Career Accelerator Programme for aspiring managers or informal leaders
• Managers Academy for first-line managers
• A Leadership Programme tailored for senior heads of function
  
  

Lumina Leader and Lumina Leader 360 are integrated to explore leadership from both individual and systemic perspectives. Participants revisit their Lumina Spark Portraits, then layer in Lumina Leader’s domain-based leadership model to examine strengths and areas for growth.

Structured Lumina Leader 360 feedback interpretation sessions help participants reflect on the gap between perceived and actual leadership impact, applying a non-judgemental framework that builds psychological safety and confidence to create change, balanced with data-led clarity on the opportunities to improve.

Immersive leadership simulations delivered through Abilitie, an AI-driven platform, allow leaders to navigate high-stakes scenarios with digital personas. These simulations are closely aligned with CGT Catapult’s leadership framework and provide a safe, realistic environment to test behavioural adaptability and decision-making.

Coaching through Thrive Partners, where coaches are trained Lumina practitioners, ensures consistent language and deep embedding of Lumina across one-to-one and group development.

How Beyond supports development

Beyond emphasises understanding self, embracing paradox (holding seemingly opposite qualities), and leading with empathy and clarity in complex environments. It ensures leadership learning is practical, sustained, and embedded deeply into CGT Catapult’s culture.

Lumina Spark at the Heart of CGT Catapult's behavioural vision

The influence of Lumina reaches far beyond the workshop environment. The language of Lumina Spark is now commonplace across performance reviews, coaching, and leadership discussions. Team members openly reflect on their preferences, strengths, and overextensions. One of the most significant cultural shifts has been in how teams manage tension and communicate under pressure. Lumina Spark is now fully embedded across the organisation:

• 100% of employees have attended at least one Lumina session
• Over 50% have participated in multiple sessions across Build, Boost, and Beyond
• All new starters complete a Lumina Introduction session within their first three months
• Five internal Spark practitioners deliver Lumina sessions in-house, alongside several Select and Leader certifications
• Since its launch, 90 workshops have been delivered, and 651 learners have attended sessions.