Insight from the Ray Dalio Adam Grant personality test vs F4S

in depth comparison of principals Ray Dalio and Adam Grant's Personality Test vs F4S in the workplace

Teams are only as strong as the personalities within them. That's why personality tests are used by 80% of Fortune 500 companies to screen senior roles in the workplace3. Employers have realized they can build better teams by understanding their employees' personalities. Ray Dalio's PrinciplesYou is a research-backed personality assessment. It's based on expert psychologists' research and Dalio's decades of business experience.

So what exactly is PrinciplesYou? How does its personality assessment compare to Fingerprint for Success (F4S)?

There are plenty of personality assessments out there. We've compared two of the most popular to help you make an informed choice for your organization.

Table of contents
What is the Principles Ray Dalio personality assessment?
What is Fingerprint for Success?
Principles Ray Dalio features
Fingerprint for Success features
What does Principles Ray Dalio cost?
What does Fingerprint for Success cost?
Principles Ray Dalio test reviews
Fingerprint for Success reviews
F4S coaching jobs
Bottom line: Principles Ray Dalio vs. Fingerprint For Success

What is the Principles Ray Dalio personality assessment?

PrinciplesYou is an assessment tool intended to help individuals learn about themselves. When you understand your personality, you can develop and maintain meaningful relationships. PrincipleYou's team of experts claims this is true both at work and at home.

PrinciplesYou is based on the work of Ray Dalio, founder of Bridgewater Associates. Bridgewater is one of the world's largest and best-performing hedge funds. Dalio is also the bestselling author of Principles: Life & Work. This New York Times Bestseller outlines Dalio's strategies, rules, and principles - ones that have guided him to success.

Dalio and expert psychologists Dr. Adam Grant, Dr. Brian Little, and Dr. John Golden created PrinciplesYou.

The PrinciplesYou assessment is carried out by individual users. You'll get your individual results report, but you can also compare your results to colleagues or to your team. This allows team leaders to understand the strengths and weaknesses of their team.

PrinciplesYou provides individuals with in-depth insights into what they "are really like." Users can apply this information in the workplace and in their personal lives. The assessment focuses on three core areas:

  • Archetypes: this section gives feedback on an individual's talents, tendencies, and growth opportunities.
  • Personality assessment: PrinciplesYou provides insight into how you think, engage, and apply yourself. These are based on 17 core personality types.
  • Real-life examples: Your insights show how you act in the world. Your reactions, actions, and tendencies are all informed by your personality.

What is Fingerprint for Success?

F4S was founded by Michelle Duval, a highly-successful personal and professional development coach. Duval spent decades coaching some of the world's highest-achieving individuals. Over time, she realized that there was a certain level of exclusivity to her clientele. Duval made it her mission to make coaching available to everyone. F4S was born.

Duval has spent the past two decades learning about what drives people to success. Her findings are clear - attitude and motivation are the two X-factors that lead to success.

F4S's unique approach to personality tests is the best way to help you understand yourself better. By enabling you to bring your best traits forward, you can empower yourself and others at work and in your private life. F4S utilizes human and AI-powered coaches to help individuals and organizations reach their goals. Whether it's leadership development, well-being, or team performance, F4S can help.

At the core of F4S's success is an evidence-based assessment. This assessment examines the motivations and drives of individuals and teams. Once you've completed the assessment, you'll receive a personalized report. This report details your "fingerprint" across 48 motivation traits. Once you understand your fingerprint, you'll understand a whole lot more about yourself. This includes your preferred communication style, approach to work, and leadership style.

Accurate self-knowledge will help you bring out the best in yourself and others. One way to gain accurate self-knowledge is by identifying your major motivational traits. This will help you understand how they shape your actions and thoughts. You'll be able to improve your performance and even answer some of your most existential questions.

You can complete your online F4S assessment at home or at work. Once you have your results, choose whether AI-powered or human coaching works best for you and turn your results into an actionable plan.

F4S's comprehensive motivation assessment and AI-powered coach, Marlee, are free to use (it only takes 15-20 minutes to complete).

Principles Ray Dalio features

Ray Dalio is one of the most influential people in business. He is the world-famous founder of the biggest hedge fund in history and the author of the bestselling book Principles: Life & Work. In his professional life, Dalio believes in the principle of radical transparency1. He believes this is the key to becoming successful at work and in personal relationships.

The PrinciplesYou assessment is an online personality assessment. Users complete it by reflecting on each statement shown and indicating how strongly they agree. At the end of the test, users can access their results report, which is available immediately.

How long is the Principles Ray Dalio test?

The assessment takes approximately 40 minutes to complete and includes over 200 questions.

Is the Principles Ray Dalio test accurate?

The Ray Dalio PrinciplesYou assessment is based on contemporary organizational and personality research. The assessment also measures traits and facets identified by Ray Dalio as crucial to success. Dalio would know; he's had a lifetime of experience running one of the world's largest hedge funds.

The PrinciplesYou assessment is based partly on the Big Five personality assessment. The Big Five is a well-regarded and established assessment. It groups people into five categories: conscientiousness, neuroticism, openness, agreeableness, and extraversion. PrinciplesYou is unique in clustering individuals into archetypes.

The PrinciplesYou team claims their assessment is similarly accurate to other personality assessments. High internal reliability and good test-retest outcomes show the platform works. It's a great tool for predicting career success and personality traits.

A 2021 article in Quartz2 noted that parts of the assessment raised questions of relativity. Users questioned how bold, daring, or creative they are compared to others. They also raised concerns that a person's emotional state could impact their results. For instance, someone having a particularly tough week is unlikely to feel energized. But, two weeks ago, they may have been very energized. Their temporary emotional state could impact their results and the archetype they are assigned.

What will my Principles Ray Dalio test results look like?

Your PrinciplesYou assessment results will be available instantly.

The report contains three core pieces of information:

  • Your archetype
  • Your traits and facets
  • Your insights

So, how do you interpret this information? What does it mean?

Your results will include the archetypes your personality most identifies with. PrinciplesYou has developed archetypes that lay the foundations for behavior. Your report will include the archetype you most identify with, as well as that with which you least identify.

Your assessment results will detail your traits and facets. These results are grouped into three areas:

  • How you think
  • How you engage with others
  • How you apply yourself

Understanding your traits and facets will give you insight into your personality. For example, your results will show how nurturing or extroverted you are. These results can help you understand many things about yourself. From your approach to decision-making or team leading to your preferred method for engaging with others.

The insights section of your results report aims to provide you with a closer examination of how you react to certain situations. Your insights will give you an opportunity to reflect. Do you feel they accurately reflect your actions? Do you identify with the actions outlined?

How can I access my Principles Ray Dalio results?

Once you've taken the PrinciplesYou assessment, the platform will generate a report. You can access the report online or print it at home. If you've created an account, you can access your results anytime. You can also share your results with friends and request to see their results.

The PrinciplesYou assessment is a one-off assessment. If you want to find out whether your archetypes have changed over the years, you'll need to retake the assessment.

PrinciplesYou also offers certified coaches who can help you turn your assessment results into an action plan.

Can I invite my employees or team to take the Principles Ray Dalio test?

While PrinciplesYou was developed for individuals, the platform does allow for results sharing. The team behind PrinciplesYou has also recently launched PrinciplesUs. PrinciplesUs includes workshops and coaching options for enterprises. Individual results can be imported into PrinciplesUs, allowing team leaders to see their team's results. Colleagues can also share their results with each other.

Fingerprint for Success features

How long is the F4S assessment?

The F4S assessment is quick and easy to take. While comprehensive and research-based, it consists of only 40 questions and takes 15-20 minutes to complete. As you go through the assessment, you'll rank statements on how you feel they relate to you in the workplace. If you need a coffee break, don't worry. The platform saves your progress as you move through the assessment.

Is the F4S assessment accurate?

With reliability up to 98%, the F4S assessment is incredibly accurate. This is largely due to Duval's 15 years of qualitative research that informs the assessment. Not only does Duval have hands-on experience, but she's done the research to back it. In 2013 she ran a study examining the attitudes and motivations of individuals in entrepreneurial contexts. The study outcomes contributed original findings to several business fields. F4S prides itself on being research-based.

What will the F4S assessment report look like?

Once you've completed your F4S assessment, you'll be eager to see your results! The assessment will deliver a report explaining your unique motivational fingerprint. F4S determines your fingerprint by measuring your responses against 48 different motivational traits. You can use your results to better understand how your motivations impact you. Both personally and professionally.

Armed with your F4S report, you'll be able to discover areas for growth as well as areas of excellence. You can use your results to set objectives for your coaching - and the best part? You can retake the assessment as many times as you want. Take the assessment again a few weeks later and see how far you've come. Perhaps your fingerprint has changed, and you can assess your development. The assessment is free to take as many times as you like.

F4S dashboard shows your personal insights

Your F4S assessment report will also show similarities and differences with your team. This is a great first step to understanding how your team can work more cohesively. Armed with this information, you can develop strategies to manage real-life situations.

How can I access my F4S assessment results?

Accessing your F4S results is easy. Before you get started, create a free F4S account. Once that's done, complete the assessment, and you'll have your results before you know it!

Track your progress: Your account includes a personal dashboard. Here, you can access your assessment results, track your progress, and keep notes on your coaching experience. It's all in one place, so you'll be able to reflect on your journey with ease. The website is mobile-optimized, so you can see your results no matter where you are.

Coaching done differently: Professional coaching can be costly. Not at F4S, where AI-powered coach, Marlee, is available for free. Marlee delivers personalized online coaching and will help you achieve your goals. Whether it's increased emotional intelligence or better teamwork, Marlee can help. Marlee offers a level of flexibility that's rare in professional coaching. You can access AI-powered Coach Marlee whenever and wherever suits you.

Human coaching: Both teams and individuals can take advantage of F4S's highly-trained human coaches. These professionals will help steer your development journey. Get even more insight into your and your team's personality compositions with a human coach.

Can I invite my employees or team to take the F4S assessment?

It doesn't matter whether you're a billionaire founder, leading a start-up, or running a small business. Understanding your team is crucial to your business's success.

Your F4S dashboard includes a 'teams' tab. Here, you can view comprehensive insights into your teams' personalities. This will help you understand opportunities for growth and collaboration in your team. Build a workplace personality inventory and quickly determine the best person for the job.

f4s team dashboard show individual and team workplace motivations on a visual scale
F4S team dashboard

Benchmarking: Use the benchmarking tool in your dashboard to better understand your team. You can use this tool to compare your team's results against working populations from 14 different cultures.

Global networks: Working across several cultures can be tricky. That's why F4S offers culture maps.  These maps dive into the cultural differences between your teams and offices worldwide. Use this tool to support your business's global objectives and enhance cross-cultural bonding.

F4S app makes results accessible

Hiring the best: Hire only the very best next time you look for new talent by taking advantage of F4S' valuable insights. Proven success factors form the basis of F4S' helpful hiring tool. Understand where candidates' skills and talents would benefit your business. Pick the 'lens' you'd like to view your candidates through, and away you go. A 'Business Builder' can help you scale your business, while an 'Entrepreneur' could be right for your high-growth venture. More lenses coming soon!

F4S results show workplace motivations like initiation

Launching soon: F4S is about to take coaching to the next level. A new coaching marketplace will match users to human coaches based on their assessment results. This mentor-matching program has been very successful. F4S has delivered it to multinational organizations worldwide, including software giant SAP. The upcoming marketplace will build on this success and use AI to create the best matches possible between users and coaches.

What does Principles Ray Dalio cost?

Taking the assessment as an individual through Ray Dalio's PrinciplesYou is free. You can create an account or take the assessment as a guest and access your report without paying a cent. PrinciplesUs is a paid platform, and users can purchase 30-day access for US$45 or pay per user at US$8 per user. Alternatively, larger enterprises can contact PrinciplesUs directly to discuss billing options.

What does Fingerprint for Success cost?

Duval's vision when developing F4S was that coaching should be available to anyone. That's why the F4S model is accessible to everyone. Individual users don't pay to access the evidence-based assessment or AI-powered coaching programs.

Small businesses can access the F4S platform free of charge for up to five users. Medium to large enterprises pay a small per-user fee of US$9.60.

The F4S team also offers a free demonstration of the platform. If you're interested in human coaching or tailored enterprise packages, book a demo.

Principles Ray Dalio test reviews

PrinciplesYou has positive reviews, particularly for its coaching add-on.

  • "Eye-opening for self-discovery, team dynamics, and ideas for management approaches."
  • "The three most exciting moments of our company were when we got our first check, when we launched our IPO, and when we decided to adopt the Principles approach - it has had a huge impact on our company."

Fingerprint for Success reviews

F4S is proud to have many happy clients from organizations across the globe. Hear what they have to say:

  • "F4S is a central component of our people growth strategy at Canva and empowers us to harness our unique culture and optimize performance as we scale."
  • "F4S is an indispensable tool in any team's arsenal. With easy-to-understand insights, it is my most highly utilized and recommended business management tool."
  • "F4S has been crucial for our Baraja teams. We have a debrief every time a new team forms or we have additions to existing teams. It gives us direction for team compositions, hiring, and conflict resolutions. There are so many "AHA" moments."

F4S coaching jobs

If you've always dreamed of working in the coaching space, look no further than a coaching job with F4S. You'll have the opportunity to support individuals, teams, and organizations worldwide. Help them plan for success and meet their potential; it's very rewarding!

F4S is always looking for dedicated individuals to join the coaching team. If you have experience in methodologies such as meta-coaching, this could be the perfect opportunity for you. You may already have transferable skills, too - such as in nutrition, life coaching, or personal training.

As an F4S coach, you'll have access to learning and development opportunities, competitive pay, and flexible paid time off.

Sound like you? Find out more about how to become an F4S coach and join the global community of coaches. You'll work with clients to offer the very best that personal development has to offer.

Bottom line: Principles Ray Dalio vs. Fingerprint For Success

Both bestselling author Ray Dalio's PrinciplesYou and Fingerprint For Success are excellent platforms. They offer evidence-based personality assessments that allow users to understand their motivations better.

PrinciplesYou is based on the research and experience of one of the world's most successful leaders. But, the platform only offers paid coaching services. If you want to access a coach to support you and your team in turning your assessment results into actionable plans, you'll need to pay.

F4S boasts extremely high reliability - up to 98%, so you know your assessment results reflect your personality accurately. The F4S platform also harnesses the power of AI to provide free coaching on a scale not seen before.

Uncover motivations, not personality

Answer these questions to get a free report on what gives you and your team energy and fulfillment at work. The F4S assessment measures 48 work motivations (with up to 98% reliability) so you know exactly how to bring out the best in you and your team.

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1. Montag, A. (2017/CNBC) 'Billionaire Ray Dalio: Bridgewater’s radically transparent culture evolved from ‘painful mistakes’'. Available at: CNBC (https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/12/bridgewaters-ray-dalio-the-leadership-strategy-behind-my-success.html)

2. Todd, S. (2021/Quartz) 'Ray Dalio’s new personality test gave me and my co-workers a shared identity crisis'. Available at: Quartz (https://qz.com/work/2000975/ray-dalio-says-his-new-personality-test-is-better-than-interviews)

3. Ben Dattner Ph.D. (2008/psychologytoday) 'The use and misuse of personality tests for coaching and development'. Available at: (https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/credit-and-blame-at-work/200806/the-use-and-misuse-of-personality-tests-for-coaching-and#:~:text=Around%2080%20percent%20of%20the,reliability%20or%20validity%20than%20horoscopes.)

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