At my old employer, I used to take part in a lot of conversations where people got feedback from their peers on how they were doing. We collected feedback in three categories, two of them were:
- “Keeps” – keep doing this
- “Ideas” – further development and room for improvement
Over the years, I observed that feedback along the lines of “take care not to overdo this” in “Ideas” was always a continuations of character traits already in “Keeps”. The pattern was ‘something positive in “Keeps” gets overdone and then it merits a warning’. I found it interesting, how our biggest strengths are also our weaknesses.
And lo and behold, there is a already a model for that. The original idea is by Aristotle. Over the last 150 years it was picked up by Germans, most notably Friedemann Schulz von Thun, who popularized it as a useful tool to think about personal traits. You can use it on your own for personal growth or as a talent development tool.
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Content of 1-Pager:
Values Square – Wertequadrat
Virtue or Vice? A matter of Intensity
Whether a personal trait is a strength or a weakness depends on its intensity as well as the situation. The “Wertequadrat” (Values Square) lets you explore these dynamics for personal growth. Either in self-analysis or as a tool for talent development and appraisal interviews.
Drawing:
- Every virtue has a complementary sister virtue.
- Each virtue, when exaggerated, turns into a vice.
Example:
- “Economical” and “Generous” are sister virtues. When exagerrated, “economical” becomes “tight-fisted”; “generous” can derail into “wasteful”.
The goal is not to achieve some average in the middle but rather to keep the virtues in a dynamic balance, including spikes in either direction when appropriate.
Sources:
This 1-pager was a loooong time in the making. In the end, the following sources helpd me cross the finish line: