UCD: Unyielding Conviction & Design

Purpose

You are ideologically driven, seeing the world as black and white.

There is nothing in between. This perspective applies to professional situations and people. As a UCD you have no problems clearly using words or labels to define these black and white ideologies either, during meetings or conversations at the water cooler.

You strategically assess situations in very short periods of time.

If there is a problem, you not only have a strong opinion about it, but you have an immediate and fearless plan to fix it. In fact, sometimes you take on challenges without really considering the risk of underperformance. But it is the challenge that draws you towards chaos or a void that needs to be filled. UCDs can see strategic solutions where others can’t.

You enjoy new initiatives.

You love start-up situations or being asked to rescue a broken deal. Therefore, you are not really designed to maintain the status quo. You need to know where your team or entire organization is going. Just being comfortable or even worse, stuck in mediocrity, is extremely de-motivating.

You are a visionary with a passion for initiative.

This extends to the organization you work for and the people you work with. Of the all the gifts, a UCDÊs vision extends the furthest. You can instantly embrace a vision that spans your entire career and even beyond. And once you have a conviction about your vision and the initiative required for attaining it, nothing especially the opinions of people can stop you from driving towards it.

You judge and always account for liabilities.

This applies when working with people, especially leadership. Although you believe everybody deserves a chance, including leaders, your ability to assess character inconsistencies and potential liabilities cannot be ignored. You possess a particular intolerance for perceived hypocrisy and lack of integrity because of your principles. Even when you are communicating with others (for example, prospects or clients), you find yourself upfront with the potential liabilities around the product or deal.

You are an innovator.

Out of all the gifts, you are a one-person R&D department. This does not necessarily mean you are inventing new products. Innovation can apply to service, process and leadership. This is based upon an intense desire to understand how things work on principle and strategic levels. Therefore, you can birth new ideas quickly. However, you can also abort these ideas just as rapidly for newer ones.

Passion

You are opinionated and verbally expressive.

On the spectrum of gifts, you are the first. Therefore, you have no problem being the first to speak with passion and intention. Some people will enjoy the way you can clearly articulate opinions, principles and strategies. Others will receive your style of communication as overtly blunt and cranky.

You are passionate with widest spectrum of emotions.

Of all the gifts, your emotional range is the widest but not the deepest. One moment you may be excited, only to be angry or filled with grief the next. Your emotional gears shift faster than anybody else but don’t necessarily stay in one gear for very long.

You require virtually no social connection to be competent and productive.

Again, because you are first in the MDNA spectrum, you do not need relational engagement from any of the other gifts to draw from the principles within and make things happen from nothing. This can be mistaken for being anti-social. But in reality, it is one of your strengths.

You are fiercely competitive.

There is nothing casual when it comes to your commitments. To you, nobody is ever an underdog. Nothing is impossible. Yielding is not an option. UCDs are very well known for „front-loading‰ an investment into a challenge or initiative without the assurance of victory. And do not talk to a UCD about traditional policies and procedures. Feeling stuck or stagnant is just as bad as defeat.

You can be impulsive and emotionally intense.

You are generous with your resources and quick to make decisions, but you do not always think everything through. “Intense” is a common word to describe you. For you, this is normal. Yet you may not even realize how intense you actually come across at times. While you can’t change who you are, for professionalism’s sake, it is important to be aware of this.

Potential

You possess the ability to see hidden strategies and patterns to implement solutions.

You are not afraid of the chaotic or the unknown when it comes to professional and personal challenges. You have no problem initiating new strategies and creating solutions for complex problems. When properly developed, you can see the world in cause-and-effect patterns. Where there is a pattern of effects, you seek the cause. And with this, you trigger the necessary causes to accomplish the desired effects.

In other words, you are a problem fixer.

Managers and co-workers will or already have come to know you and rely on you for this. The bigger the problem, the more motivated you are. That is, of course, if everybody is willing to buy into your ideological approach to the problem.

Therefore, you are typically the advisor to leaders, if not the leader.

Those in positions above you (if they are personally secure people) come to you for advice. They appreciate the way you articulate solutions, strategies and principles regarding their issues, especially when they are not sure how to define the issue in the first place. When working with these leaders, you know when to be bold with your insights, but also when to take a backseat and let those in positional authority do their thing.

You see and desire to unlock potential in everybody.

Just because you see the weaknesses and potential liabilities of others, does not mean you write them off, especially if they are earnestly trying to grow and change. Yes, you gravitate towards leaders with integrity, but you also have the gift to work with broken people and see them achieve personal and professional redemption.

You are very generous, sometimes to a fault as you can be impulsive with your resources.

For you, generosity is a principle you have a conviction of. Whether it be donating to a cause or simply leaving a good restaurant server a nice tip, you enjoy giving above and beyond especially when others are not. To avoid being overly impulsive, use wisdom to temper your generosity and avoid being taken advantage of.

You are an idea generator.

Nobody comes up with ideas—often abandoning—them just as fast like you. The practice of ideation is second nature. And ideas that are based on universal principles, or solutions to patterns of issues, are what you generate best. This does not necessarily mean you need to brainstorm in a group either.

Co-creation is not necessary.

You are just as comfortable in stepping away and generating those ideas in isolation: in the shower, during a long drive, playing golf, it does not really matter.

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