I heard on a podcast recently that some personality types really like doing personality assessments and delving deeper into what makes them and others tick… Such a revelation (to me!) that it made me chuckle at myself. Aside from that meta insight from the podcast, at Protagion we also suggest personality assessments to our proteges to help them to understand themselves better (as part of the professional development cycle). In that vein, this post is about a relatively new assessment co-created by Ray Dalio.

Regular readers will know that I’ve written about Ray and his principles, including his five steps to success, previously. He’s shared his perspectives in a variety of formats, including a book and animated video (shown in the original ‘Inspiration’ post). And, he continues to “pass along what he’s learned about how to be successful” - which is great news for all of us!

Ray recently launched a free personality assessment aimed at helping us to improve our understanding of ourselves and others, and helping others to understand us. This is linked to his first step to success. The “PrinciplesYou” assessment was built with psychologists Dr Adam Grant, Dr Brian Little, and Dr John Golden.

While the assessment itself has more personalised detail, in this post I’ll summarise its 28 archetypes, which offer insight into our tendencies, talents and opportunities for growth. These archetypes fall into 10 groups which share fundamental traits – PrinciplesYou represents these groups as islands in an archipelago. 

The 10 groups/islands are: Advocates, Architects, Creators, Enthusiasts, Fighters, Givers, Individualists, Leaders, Producers and Seekers. Read more to explore these groups, as well as the 28 archetypes. And, for the psychologists and psychometricians wanting to dig even deeper, I’ve included a box on the traits and sub-traits/facets in the assessment too. You can take the assessment yourself to see your own results – it takes roughly 40 minutes to complete the questions.

As you would imagine, a number of our proteges are quite ambitious, seeking to fast-track their professional careers in a variety of ways. Often these proteges are aiming to get ahead, work their way up into the C-suite and/or manage a business one day. And, fortunately, a number of our professional mentors have themselves worked in senior and C-suite roles, so are able to guide these proteges!

So, it’s not a surprise that we regularly have conversations about whether MBA (Masters in Business Administration) or Executive MBA (EMBA) programmes would help these proteges in their executive ambitions. Some of our professional mentors and coaches have themselves done MBAs at different schools globally, or altMBAs, or MBA Essentials courses... There is naturally a wide range of considerations at an individual level, including location, part-time vs full-time, specialisations or alternatives like Masters in Business Leadership or Masters in Business Analytics, entrance requirements, application processes and personal statements, and more… Given how specific and personalised these are, this article concentrates on career goals and whether an MBA could help. It’s not just those aiming at the C-suite who consider an MBA...

At a very high level, MBAs are particularly helpful to add broad ‘business skills’, especially if you’re coming from a highly technical professional background like an engineer or doctor. It’s unlikely that these professionals, unless they’ve also run an entrepreneurial venture, would have developed business skills at undergraduate level or in their working careers to date. These include aspects like strategic analysis, negotiation, marketing & branding, communication, networking etc, all of which are required for executive leaders. 

MBAs are a very significant investment of money as well as time (which can also have a financial consequence if forgoing a salary for a full-time programme). Some programmes are hundreds of thousands of dollars (!) although you may be able to get a scholarship and/or convince your employer to pay part of the cost. So, are they worth it?! As you’d expect, it depends… Read more as we unpack career goals that our proteges have where an MBA might help, including C-suite ambitions, making a career switch into management consulting or a transition into a new field or industry, entrepreneurship, personal growth and more...