Sprint 1 - Identity, Values and Strengths Activity

Using the evidence gathered, describe your core personal values.

I personally value acceptance, variety and pushing myself to do things that help me to grow. I will always try to be a good person and do what I think is right.

Explain a situation where you have had an ethical decision to make. Discuss how you weighed up the values involved in that decision, the decision you made and the consequences of the action you took.

I was working as a Grocery Sales Manager for a large juice company in Nz. While I was waiting for a meeting one day one of my competitors arrived before me and left a copy of their prices and margins behind as they went into their meeting. I had to decide if it was right of me to pick it up (and almost definitely receive praise from my boss) or leave it behind. I decided to give it back to them as they left their meeting much to their surprise. When I went in to meet the buyer they told me the competitor had just hiked their prices up and gave me a copy of the price sheet anyway.

Describe how your culture has influenced your values and identity.

Culture is an interesting thing, mostly due to how varied it is. If I look at most people who identify as Nz-European I don't feel like I always share the same values as them. I definitely feel like I've learned most of my values from my parents, my siblings and friends.

Using the evidence gathered, describe your strengths and limitations.

As described by many friends, I am a socialite. I thrive in social environments, I get a real kick from getting to know new and exciting people. I'm hugely passionate about things that take my interest however I also find it hard to motivate myself to do things that don't excite me. It's not uncommon for me to get involved in new things only to loose interest when they don't meet my expectations.

Evaluate your strengths and limitations in terms of your learning and career development.

As long as my interest is kept I'm a great student or employee. I will work as hard as I can to achieve in whatever field I'm a part of however if I'm finding something really hard and I'm not making the progress I want to be making I find it hard to motivate myself.

Identify which of your strengths might help you in your learning journey and how they might intersect with learning obstacles.

I think my competitiveness will be real asset in my learning journey. Drawing motivation from healthy competition will help me to stick with my goals. I also like to think of myself as a real team player and would be very disappointed in myself if I let my team down.

Share an example from your experience of where you were trying to work productively with others, but there was resistance or tension. Discuss the strategies you used at that time, how effective they were, and your reflections on what other strategies you would try now, and why.

It's not something that I run into with any degree of regularity, however I was assigned with teaching a sales team I was managing on how to sell ultra-fast broadband. Most of the people in the team were not very tech savvy and I had to start at the beginning with a lot of them (even to the point of explaining what downloading/uploading is). It was pretty hard stuff, progress was fairly slow but by empathizing with my team, by reassuring and encouraging them we got through it and ran a very successful campaign.