Personal development profiles, also known as personality profiles, are a tool I frequently use before starting a course of coaching with a client. The client answers a series of questions about preferred behaviour styles and their responses generate a report which outlines their strengths, areas for improvement, blind spots, their contribution to the team, ways they could improve their communication and how to deal with challenging people.

I find personal development profiles are a great start to the coaching process as the profile helps the client to begin looking at their own behaviour in ways they have probably never done before. It helps to develop rapport as the coach is not providing the feedback at this stage it has been generated by their own responses. The coach provides assistance in understanding the report and I find that many clients experience an aha! moment when they suddenly realise why they find certain kinds of people or situation difficult. Occasionally I have been asked if I have been talking to their mother!

As mentioned, the report will identify blind spots. For obvious reasons these are not evident to us, and often friends and colleagues are hesitant about giving feedback. If they try, we may reject it as the mind does not like the idea we may have a failing. For an executive or leader in business, the situation can be even more difficult, as none of their colleagues may be brave enough to point out the reality of the situation until a crisis has arisen.

Looking at the profile is a taste of what is to come during coaching when the coachs job is to provide feedback and ask challenging and provocative questions designed to get below the surface behaviour to understand whats driving it.

I know that some people are cynical about personal development profiles the most common criticism I have heard is that they put people in a box. To that I would reply that they are merely a good starting point for a process of understanding self and others. They do not provide the whole picture of an individual, but they are a useful guide to how they might behave in certain situations.

Andy Britnell

Andy Britnell has worked as a professional musician, a cheesemonger and in hotels, including Claridges and the Savoy in London. He spent 15 years with BT, latterly designing and delivering international management, sales and graduate development programmes. He now lives in Cornwall, UK, where as well as enjoying the surf and the coastal footpath, he runs a training and coaching practice specialising in sales, customer service and personal development training for the private and public sectors. He is an accredited coach and trainer of the Insights Discovery System which is a model based on the pioneering personality profiling work of Carl Jung. Using colour as a common language for better understanding of self and others, it helps people operate and communicate more effectively. Andy gains great satisfaction from helping his clients to grow and learn, and from the rapid progress they make in their business and personal lives. He works constantly on his own development and practises Ki Aikido, the ancient Japanese art of working with energy.