Profiling

Why would an organisation want to profile its staff?    profiles exist to examine the various stages of a person’s interaction.   First comes a thought (so there are thinking profiles), next comes the behaviour (so their are behavioural profiles) and finally one’s behaviour is interpreted by others (we call these personality profiles).  The different profiles are useful for different things.

Personality and behavioural profiles tend to be retrospective (the behaviours concerned have already be demonstrated) and help us understand who we are, and where we have come from.  They also provide valuable insight into how we (and our behaviours) are likely to be interpreted by the those around us.

Personality Profiles:

As a broad category these are profiles that place labels on sets of behaviour that an individual exhibits – probably the most common of these is Myers Briggs (MBTI).   These profiles are really brilliant at assisting people who have not previously considered themselves in a broader work or home context to understand a lot more about who they are and how they interact with others who are different.

Behavioural Profiles:

Behavioural profiles look at specific capabilities.  Literally can a person do something or not.    There are many different behavioural profiles and possibly the most common is the DiSC profile.   Profiles in this category are often used to assess a persons capability to perform a particular function.

Thinking Profiles:

Thinking tools are somewhat different from personality and behavioural profiles because they look at the thinking that precedes behaviour..   If you are looking to improve behaviour in any aspect it is very important to increase flexibility in the thinking that precedes that behaviour otherwise we become a slave to our habits of behaviour.   One of the most widely respected profiles in this space is the HBDI (Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument) which allows us to edit our thinking patterns before we act making this a more future oriented tools and ideal for culture and performance change programs.