Sometimes I think consultants in the people development world are not all that different from religious fanatics. You see, when meeting a people development consultant, or anyone in the organisational development/human resources world, you'll find that they have aligned themselves to a particular profiling tool and will very quickly ask you as to your own alegiance. Not dissimilar to the way in which religious folk align themselves to a faith orientation.

Is it the Myers-Briggs? Disc Profiles? Belbin Team Roles? Enneagram? The list goes on ...

But now I wonder? In this age of religious plurality, there are some fairly solid arguments along the lines of the "don't all religions lead to God?" discourse. Hmmm.

I wonder if all profiling tools invariably lead to ... well, Personality?

Yep, I can sense it - you die-hard MBTI fanatics are wanting to lynch me for suggesting such a heretical notion.

Seriously though, I wonder to what extent the tools we use for capturing and measuring traits as complex as personality and psychological dispositions are just measuring a particular take on that elusive, intangible beauty we call personality?

I guess this is why I prefer to be rather eclectic in my use of profiling tools. Call me an Agnostic, call me a Humanist, call me a Pluralist, call me a fool. Call me whatever you like, but I do think there is a fairly solid argument underlying my suggestion.

And so, fellow Profilers, let me be brave enough to suggest that we need to become more tolerant of each other. No, I'm not saying we need to accept each other's orientations! But we need to at least be seen to support Profiling Tool tolerance - even if it means we stop biting our thumbs at each other. We may even need to refrain from making insinuating comments about the evil principalities who inspire certain tools.

Can we not at least just get along and realise that all of our paths lead to Personality?