PrinciplesYou
Earlier this year Ray Dalio appeared on Jay Shetty’s podcast, On Purpose. In the episode they break down success, facing our weaknesses and a lot of other good stuff. One thing that Ray mentioned he was working on, was an assessment that helps determine what archetype you are and how you interact with the people around us. It was still in beta when I listened to the episode, but I checked back recently and it’s up and running. The website is called PrinciplesYou and it contains quite a hefty questionnaire. It took me a little more than 20 minutes to complete, but I was intrigued, so I powered through to see what archetype I might be. The purpose of this questionnaire is to help you understand yourself and others better. It could be a great tool in the workplace to improve teamwork and efficiency and help you understand your colleagues. Below is an image of the 10 main categories with their 28 archetypes. I’m going to go through the main points of my detailed archetype report to give you an idea of what it’s about.
Archetype
The results of the questionnaire were a lot more detailed than I expected. You would expect this much detail from a paid platform. A lot of value can be extracted from this, especially in the workplace. You are given your top three archetypes with detailed explanations of each. My top three archetypes were Growth Seeker, Explorer, and Inventor. Two from the Seeker’s “island” and one from the Creator’s “island”. I wasn’t surprised by the two from the Seeker’s “island”, that’s my current attitude and outlook on things. Seeking to learn new things and self-improvement have been my focus for a while now and is the reason why I write this blog. I was surprised by the Inventor archetype because I haven’t invented much. But they are also described as being excited by novelty and disruptive thinking, which I think sounds a bit like me. I think it’s my interest in people starting new businesses and the idea of me doing the same that caused me to answer in that way. I would like to be a starter of something and maybe I’m holding myself back from making it a reality.
You’re also given two archetypes that you are least like and mine were Enforcer and Implementer. I don’t feel like I’m incapable of taking on these roles, but it’s obvious by the way I answered that I prefer not to take on these roles if I don’t have to. They provide detailed write-ups of each archetype as well as some bullet points to refer back to as a reminder.
How You Prefer to Think
This section of the results gives a score out of 100 and is made up of five categories:
Creative: Creative measures how people like to think and innovate, as well as the kind of environment they prefer. It is comprised of three facets: Originality, Curiosity, and Nonconformity.
Deliberative: Deliberative describes how people process information to make decisions, solve problems, or complete tasks. It characterizes those who tend to work through decisions more systematically, preferring logic and analysis over intuition. It is comprised of three facets: Logical, Systematic, and Impartial.
Detailed and Reliable: Detailed and Reliable measures the way people organize their thinking to control, regulate, and direct their impulses toward the achievement of goals and objectives. It is comprised of three facets: Organized, Detail-Oriented and Dependable.
Conceptual: Conceptual describes a preference for thinking abstractly and philosophically by identifying and understanding the deeper patterns and connections behind phenomena.
Practical: Practical describes the preference to approach work with a focus on pragmatic considerations, constraints, and realities of a given decision or question.
I scored highly in creative, conceptual, and practical and quite low in deliberative and detailed and reliable. Each of the five scores is broken down into sub-scores or ‘facets’ to give you a better understanding of how they are made up. For example, my detailed and reliable score was low, I scored low in the subcategories ‘organised’ and ‘detailed oriented’, but high on ‘dependable’ which is something I do find important.
How You Engage with Others
This section is the same as above. 5 categories made up of 3 facets to help you understand their makeup. I scored moderately in all but one of the categories, but it was interesting to see that I usually scored highly in one of the 3 facets to give it that moderate score. The categories are:
Extraverted: Extraverted describes how people prefer to engage with the world of people, opportunities, and experiences around them. It is comprised of three facets: Gregarious, Engaging, and Adventurous.
Tough: Tough measures one's willingness to be direct, straightforward, and critical. It is comprised of three facets: Feisty, Critical, and Direct.
Nurturing: Nurturing measures one's focus on others' needs and feelings. It is comprised of three facets: Helpful, Empathetic, and People-Oriented.
Leadership: Leadership measures how people engage others in a group, a team, or in the achievement of a shared goal. It is comprised of three facets: Demanding, Taking Charge and Inspiring.
Humorous: Humorous describes the tendency to approach life with a sense of lightheartedness and joy.
Humorous was the only category I scored highly in and the rest seemed like a pretty accurate reflection of how I interact with others.
How You Apply Yourself
This section explains how we apply ourselves to setbacks, goal setting and how we leverage our experiences. It’s broken up into 7 categories with 3 facets in each, similar to the engagement section. They are:
Composed: Composed describes how well people hold themselves together in the face of challenge and stress. It is comprised of three facets: Even-Keeled/Calm, Confident, and Poised.
Autonomous: Autonomous measures the preference to take actions or make decisions in a self-directed way. It is comprised of three facets: Independent, Self-Accountable, and Internally-Motivated.
Flexible: Flexible describes how people think and respond to change by adjusting to it and being adaptable. It is comprised of three facets: Adaptable, Agile, and Growth-Seeking.
Determined: Determined refers to how people focus their personal energies, attention, and conviction in pursuit of their objectives. It is comprised of three facets: Persistent, Driven, and Proactive.
Humble: Humble describes one's openness to understanding what they don't know and what to do about it. It is comprised of three facets: Receptive to Criticism, Open-Minded, and Modest.
Energy: Energy describes the degree of stamina and engagement with which people approach everyday work and life.
Status-Seeking: Status-Seeking describes those who value being liked, being admired, or pleasing others as a measure of success.
Just like the last section, the detail is informative. The 3 facets of each category helped me get a good understanding of how I may approach certain challenges. The two sections I scored low in were determined and status-seeking. Reading these character traits has helped illuminate where my weaknesses are and what I can do to change that. Some things I’m happy about and some I feel like I need to work on.
"You" in Context
This section is just a summary of all the above sections combined and it applies them to real-world situations. It discusses how we act on a team, under stress when learning and a few more. It gives you up to 10 sentences on each situation which can be very helpful for others to understand how you approach things.
The results of this questionnaire were surprisingly detailed and can be personally insightful in some respects. Most people know their main traits and downfalls, but they may be surprised by some results. The real value is in the ability to share your results with others. This could benefit projects and help teams in the workplace. Really understanding your colleagues could save time and help with approaching situations that tend to be difficult. If this seems like something you’d be interested in doing, please give it a go and let me know your results. The site makes it easy to invite people to take the test and compare results.