Suppose that your business depends on four expert teams working together at split-second speed in one of Europe’s most volatile markets. Nothing is broken. Yet you know that even small misalignments in how people think and communicate can cost you dearly. This was the situation at Axpo Solutions AG, headquartered in Baden, Switzerland, when it approached Thinkergy at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. In a liberalized, decarbonizing, and digitizing energy market, success is no longer just about megawatts; it’s about diverse talent working together. In other words, Axpo Solutions wasn’t looking to fix a broken team. It was looking to decode a high-performance one.

The company’s success hinged on the razor-sharp collaboration of four very different teams. Energy Modelers forecast generation, market prices, and usage patterns. Traders buy and sell power across Europe’s interconnected exchanges. Dispatchers ensure plants deliver energy in real time. Controllers validate flows, revenues, and compliance across the chain. As the market grew faster, more complex, and more data-driven, the interfaces between these teams became critical. Left unaddressed, unspoken differences in how people tick, decide, and interact could erode trust or dampen performance, not because of ill intent, but simply because nobody had made them visible.

That’s where TIPS came in. Working with Dr. Gaudenz Koeppel, Chief Data & Analytics Officer, we rolled out a virtual engagement that ran from 2020 to 2024. It brought together pan-European learning cohorts from Baden, Madrid, and Genoa. The first step was a cognitive x-ray: 27 key leaders and team members took the TIPS Profiling Test.

Then came the moment that changed the conversation. We plotted all 27 profiles on one TIPS Profiling Map, each team in its own color, and the four teams fell into clearly distinct territories. The Modelers clustered among Conceptualizers and Ideators, with a few Theorists: conceptual powerhouses who model energy scenarios. The Controllers sat with Technocrats and Systematizers: the number crunchers and guardians of data integrity. The Traders gathered around Partners and Promoters, grounded in the moment with a strong feel for prices, and plenty of People Energy. The Dispatchers anchored in Organizers, Experimenters, and Systematizers: hands-on people who get things done under pressure. Suddenly, the “why” behind occasional tensions made perfect sense. People are different, and the system needs every one of these energies to succeed.

We turned this awareness into action through a series of online training sessions, where delegates didn’t just learn about their own style; they experienced it. The TIPS Line-Up Game, the TIPS Staffing Game, and the TIPS Conflict Game revealed differences and synergies. The TIPS Empathy Exercise and the TIPS Bases Role-Play let people step into each other’s shoes. The TIPS Hot or Not Game, the TIPS Celebrity Game, and the TIPS Innovation Roles Game kept it playful. Conflict transformed into understanding. Difference became mutual respect.

What followed was not a one-time workshop win. It became cultural practice. New data scientists and engineers joining the modeling team are now TIPS-tested by default. Candidates must fit the cognitive requirements of the role (ideally Conceptualizer, with Ideator or Theorist as a secondary option), but also show enough People Energy to collaborate across silos. TIPS helps them hire for fit, not just function. Ultimately, in a sector increasingly powered by algorithms and AI, Axpo Solutions realized something vital: people intelligence is what makes technical intelligence work.

Do your expert teams each excel on their own, yet lose speed at the interfaces between them? Contact us to find out how TIPS may help your people decode their cognitive diversity, speak a shared language of talents, and hire for fit, not just function.