SAME Personality Assessment

From the book "Springboard" more info at www.grichardshell.com

Below are 16 short descriptions of personality traits that give you a chance to characterize someone along
four key dimensions of personal difference: Social styles, Action-orientations, Mindsets, and Emotional
temperaments. The first letters of these four areas make the acronym SAME. They constitute the facets of
personality that I believe can help most in defining pathways to success. Mark the place on the continuum for
each trait that seems most true, most of the time. If its easy for the subject of the profiler to switch between
the two labels given, mark the spot halfway between the two.

Filled out by:

Filled out for:
Date:

Instructions: Write an "x" in the box underneath the place on the continuum for each trait that seems most
accurate most of the time

SOCIAL STYLES

1 “Introverts” are people who thrive on quietness and reflection, and prefer social interaction with other
people in smaller, more intimate groups. Socializing with large groups often depletes their personal energies.
“Extroverts” are socially gregarious – people who enjoy large social gatherings and feel energized by
socializing. Being alone for too long can sometimes make an extrovert uncomfortable and anxious.

Introvert Extrovert
100 75 50 25 0 25 50 75 100
highly expressed moderate no preference moderate highly expressed

2 “Agreeable” people are warm-hearted. They strive to get along with everyone and to be liked by all. They
prefer to follow. “Dominant” people have assertive, take-charge personalities. They prefer leading to
following. They like to take command.
2 “Agreeable” people are warm-hearted. They strive to get along with everyone and to be liked by all. They
prefer to follow. “Dominant” people have assertive, take-charge personalities. They prefer leading to
following. They like to take command.

Agreeable Dominant
100 75 50 25 0 25 50 75 100
highly expressed moderate no preference moderate highly expressed

3 “Cooperative” people are quick to compromise in conflicts and negotiations. They prefer to measure
themselves against internal rather than external benchmarks and like to measure success in terms of solving
everyone’s problems. A “competitor” enjoys winning the negotiation game, feels satisfaction when he or she
hits external benchmarks that separate the “great” from the merely “good,” and can turn even the most
boring activity into a game of some sort to make it interesting.

Cooperative Competitive
100 75 50 25 0 25 50 75 100
highly expressed moderate no preference moderate highly expressed

4 “Adaptable” people can fit into almost any social setting. Like a good actor or actress, they can play many
social roles with ease depending on the demands of the situation. “Direct” people are blunt and greatly value
authenticity. Less socially smooth than adaptable people, they pay more attention to problems and facts than
to subtle social cues. With a direct person, “what you see is what you get.”

Adaptable Direct
100 75 50 25 0 25 50 75 100
highly expressed moderate no preference moderate highly expressed
Action-Orientations

5 “Planners” are orderly people who like to make lists, stick to their agendas, and sometimes err in the
direction of perfectionism. “Improvisors” are people who prefer to act based on intuition, instinct, and
spontaneity. They are messier than planners, but they think that’s fine.

Planner Improvisor
100 75 50 25 0 25 50 75 100
highly expressed moderate no preference moderate highly expressed

6 “Strivers” are ambitious. They live for their work. They are passionate about getting ahead, getting things
accomplished, staying busy, and working toward their long-term goals. They tend to measure success in
terms of accomplishments. “Relaxed” people are less intense and industrious than strivers. They have jobs to
make money so they can have time to relax, enjoy themselves with friends and family, and take in the
pleasures of life. A comfortable early retirement sounds good to people who are relaxed. They tend to
measure success more in terms of overall quality of life rather than career accomplishments.

Striver Relaxed
100 75 50 25 0 25 50 75 100
highly expressed moderate no preference moderate highly expressed

7 “Deliberative” people take their time making up their minds between various alternatives, weighing all
possibilities. They want to minimize regret and are more likely to second-guess themselves. “Decisive”
people like to make decisions quickly based on the information at hand. They are biased toward taking action
to see what happens, learning, and then making another move.

Deliberative Decisive
 100 75 50 25 0 25 50 75 100
highly expressed moderate no preference moderate highly expressed

8 “Risk-Takers” seek out novelty and thrills. They like roller-coaster rides, the steeper -- the better. They
would be more inclined to start a company with their own money, try their hand at professional poker, or
think about becoming a stunt pilot. “Cautious” people like to play it safe, prefer the tried-and-true, and avoid
needless risk. They dislike gambling and consider it foolhardy to seek out dangers simply to experience a
thrill.

Risk-Taker Cautious
100 75 50 25 0 25 50 75 100
highly expressed moderate no preference moderate highly expressed

Mindsets

9 “Intellectuals” like to play around and explore abstract ideas. They enjoy learning for the sake of learning and
seek to understand current situations in terms of their histories. “Practical” people value ideas mainly in
terms of how they will work. They do not enjoy abstract thinking or academic study unless they see the
connection to concrete problems that need solutions.

Intellectual Practical
100 75 50 25 0 25 50 75 100
highly expressed moderate no preference moderate highly expressed

10 “Analytical” people look for objective data and proof to make sense of the situations they face. They are
systematic thinkers who prefer clear lines. “Creative” people are open-minded, subjective, and more often
live in the worlds of their imaginations. They prefer to scribble all over the page, or even tear the page into
pieces and make something original with it.
 10 “Analytical” people look for objective data and proof to make sense of the situations they face. They are
systematic thinkers who prefer clear lines. “Creative” people are open-minded, subjective, and more often
live in the worlds of their imaginations. They prefer to scribble all over the page, or even tear the page into
pieces and make something original with it.

Analytical Creative
100 75 50 25 0 25 50 75 100
highly expressed moderate no preference moderate highly expressed

11 “Traditionalists” are conservative when it comes to change. They see the virtues in the way things are and
seek to preserve the values and tested practices of the past before endorsing some uncertain plan for the
future. “Revolutionaries” like to challenge the status quo. They value change, are quick to notice the flaws
and unfairness in how things are working, and have idealistic visions of how to create a better world.

Traditionalist Revolutionary
100 75 50 25 0 25 50 75 100
highly expressed moderate no preference moderate highly expressed

12 “Knowledge Specialists” see the world through the lens of a few “defining ideas” (such as religion, politics, or
science) and prefer to know a great deal about a few subjects. “Knowledge Generalists” are integrators of
information and traditions. They read widely and constantly seek out a variety of experiences to enrich their
overall judgment and understanding – but seldom think they have “got it all figured out.” Isaiah Berlin once
wrote an essay called “The Hedgehog and the Fox” in which he described these two mindsets. “Hedgehogs”
are the specialists. “Foxes” are the generalists.

Knowledge Specialist Knowledge Generalist

100 75 50 25 0 25 50 75 100
highly expressed moderate no preference moderate highly expressed

Emotional Temperments
13 "Passionate" people experience their emotions deeply and consider them central to their experience of life.
When they fall in love, their love is all-consuming. When they hate, their hatred burns like fire. "Even-
Tempered" people are more into their heads than their hearts. They experience themselves more as thinking
than feeling – even though they are aware of their emotions as being an aspect of their personality. They,
too, fall in love. But they have to “figure it out” whereas a Passionate person immediately knows what has
happened.

Passionate Even-Tempered
100 75 50 25 0 25 50 75 100
highly expressed moderate no preference moderate highly expressed

14 “Optimists” place a positive emotional spin on most events. They see the cup as half full and are able to
quickly recover from setbacks to find the silver lining in whatever happened. “Realists” take life as they find
it: happy, sad, heroic, and tragic. Although realists are not “pessimistic” all the time, they are pessimistic
much more often than is an aptimist. Where the aptimist sees the silver lining in every cloud, the realist sees
the clouds – and plans for the rain to follow.

Optimist Realist
100 75 50 25 0 25 50 75 100
highly expressed moderate no preference moderate highly expressed

15 “Emotionally Expressive” people show their feelings and are easy for other people to read. When they are
happy, others know it. When they are sad, they cannot hide it. They tend to be emotionally self-aware,
demonstrative and volatile. “Emotionally Restrained” people appear cool and collected on the outside and
do not indulge themselves in emotional displays. They are harder for others to read and tend to rely more on
their thoughts than their feelings to guide them. They have great poker faces.

Emotionally Expressive Emotionally Restrained

100 75 50 25 0 25 50 75 100
highly expressed moderate no preference moderate highly expressed
16 "Easily Stressed" people dislike the anxiety that often comes with pressure, deadlines, and emergencies.
They look for guidance from others to get through the storm. "Calm-Under-Pressure" people thrive on crisis
or deadline pressure. When the emergency is on, these people slow down, stay composed, and remain
focused. Indeed, they sometimes need the stress of deadlines to stay motivated and alert.

Easily Stressed Calm-Under-Pressure

100 75 50 25 0 25 50 75 100
highly expressed moderate no preference moderate highly expressed