Using the role cards
Discover how you make decisions.
Role play
Select a role card, then try to apply the role’s approach to your situation.
Does anything shift about the decision when you adopt a different approach? Try on two or three roles, including one that seems dissimilar to you. Changing perspectives can shed new light on an issue and help you come up with creative options.
Your decision-maker profile
You can use the role cards to determine your decision-making preferences. Do you like to think like a theorist or perhaps you like to look to traditions as guide? Select the card that most resonates with you by title then read the decision-making profile to learn more about the strengths of that role.
The Decision Making Profiles
A-D
Activists make decisions by forming a deep and empathic understanding of what motivates others. With care and compassion they use their awareness of people’s feelings and experiences to craft a clear and practical vision for change that benefits all. The activist inspires others to help themselves by turning their ideals into action.
Adventurers make decisions on the go and preferably in thick of action. They trust that their resourcefulness and adaptability will help them solve problems along the way. Adventurers are responsive to issues, quickly taking in facts and organizing them in real-time. When Adventurers apply their reasoning minds with energy and optimism they can turn life’s obstacles into a game.
Analyzers make decisions with steadfast loyalty to facts by taking an objective approach. They can see the systemic whole and carefully develop logic based principles to guide a course of action if the outcome is clearly defined. Analyzers’ competence and care for practicality engenders confidence. They set sensible and attainable goals rooted in lessons from past experiences or data.
Charmers make decisions based personal values, particularly those that support harmony, co-operation and growth. They are able to use their energy to guide people toward their potential as trusted advisers. And in a quest for the higher good, they will apply their infectious warmth and personality to facilitate creative collaborations; uniting people to tackle tough challenges.
Directors make decisions by scouting the globe for intelligence on the topic and then winnow to the most effective ideas. Taking a big picture perspective they use their intuition to connect what they learn to what to what they rationally believe the world needs. Directors strategically mobilize resources and talent to execute their vision precisely as they imagined it to be.
E-M
Experiencers make decisions by placing themselves in the context of a situation. There they can sense existing realities and gain clarity on what is meaningful; and how they might contribute to others. Experiencers highlight the possibilities that emerge when the assumed parameters are pushed. What if there were no timelines? What if we changed our environment, our perspective, our hearts?
As caring protectors of people, Guardians make decisions by considering data that reveals the most practical to benefit to people and teams to which they belong. They seek harmony and cooperation and sense details that might upset a harmonious balance; storing this information for future reference or to develop new procedures that will mitigate risks.
Idealist make decisions with a sense loyalty to their values, following pursuits that have intrinsic meaning. Idealist seek congruence with their inner and outer lives by prioritizing personal growth. Curious and creative, they delight in finding meaning and connections in a world of possibilities. Staying true to their ideas, idealist find ways to effectively communicate to spread their vision.
Imagineers feel their way into decisions, using their intuition and empathy as guides. They apply their ability to synthesize the connections they make from encounters with new people, ideas and experiences to form new possibilities that others miss. Imagineers use their creative energy and enthusiasm to motivate others to build upon their insights or adapt to new and challenging situations.
Makers amass hard facts as the raw materials from which they will fashion their decisions. They creatively problem-solve using resources that are immediately present. And dig to quickly find the root of an issue. Makers find it a worthy challenge to devise the most streamlined ways of doing big tasks; re-configuring elements until the specified vision is a achieved.
O-T
Organizers prefer to make decisions in real-time by identifying the clear and present facts on the ground. Armed with this information they devise unambiguous steps and deadlines to reach very practical aims. Organizers draw upon proven systems that will deliver tangible results, and have a knack for coordinating the necessary people and resources to ensure a task is completed.
Questioners make decisions by asking why. They use their natural curiosity to build up a wealth of knowledge on the seemingly unconnected; generating information that they creatively analyze and integrate to develop new options. Questioners try on alternative perspectives to gain deeper insights. They will stress test any idea to ensure that their actions are spurred by honesty and truth.
Theorist arrive at decisions by intellectually challenging conventional wisdom. They diligently strip down an issue to bare bones, uncovering the first principles that explain its existence. Having gained their own understanding of causes they connect and reconstruct ideas to develop a new framework that would suggest the conditions for a desired effect. Presenting a pathway that is original and sound.
Trend Keepers make decisions by sensing the current moods of the time and the facts that are present. They weigh the needs of those around them and what might maintain a sense of order, comfort and consistency. Trend keepers are attuned to the role that traditions and social customs play in making choices. Ultimately, they seek harmony and community.