Know Who You Are

In Its not About the Coffee, Howard Behar reflects on his life at Starbucks and principles that led to his and his organization's success. When discussing the importance of values, and knowing yourself, he recommends answering the following questions:

• What gets you up and excited to the point of anxiety to do the work?
• What are you willing to sacrifice for this job, this role, this dream?
• How competitive are you? How do you treat people? Do you value and practice honesty?
• What rewards satisfy you?
• How important is it that you live near where you grew up? How willing are you to travel?
• How important is independence to you?
• What is your threshold for stress? What brings you into a "flow" state of intense time-stopping engagement?
• Are you most comfortable and excited to work in entrepreneurial and start-up settings or in established "knowable" environments with more secure resources and capital?
• What will you regret not doing or not trying?
• What is the one thing that makes you comfortable being who you are?

He suggests thinking about where you are on a scale of 1 to 10 for the following traits (1 being lowest, 10 highest):

• Risk orientation
• Working as part of a team
• Independence
• Being in charge, being autonomous
• People-driven (as opposed to project-driven)

Where do you stand?