How the SmithFellow Core thinks about self-knowledge.

The MBTI is a self-report instrument developed by Isabel Briggs Myers and Katharine Cook Briggs, building on Carl Jung’s theory of psychological types. It produces one of sixteen types via four dichotomies — Extraversion/Introversion, Sensing/Intuition, Thinking/Feeling, and Judging/Perceiving. It has been used for over fifty years in corporate team-building, career counseling, leadership development, and education. Lives in HR departments, university career centers, and counseling offices.

The SmithFellow Core borrows the four-dichotomy structure as a lens for reading the build memories participants share in Session One. We do not use the formal MBTI instrument; we use its frame. Whether a participant makes alone or with others, follows a plan or feels it out, focuses on what something does or what it means, finishes because it works or because it feels right — these are the questions the dichotomies make legible. MBTI faces real academic critique for test-retest reliability; we use it anyway because the frame is useful for self-recognition even where the instrument is imperfect.

The Big Five is the dominant personality framework in academic psychology, measuring five continuous traits: Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism. Each trait is a spectrum, not a category. Developed through decades of factor-analytic research across cultures, it is the most empirically validated personality framework available. Used in research, clinical assessment, workplace selection, and increasingly in HR analytics. Lives in psychology departments and large-scale data work.

The SmithFellow Core does not use the Big Five directly because its continuous-trait grain is harder to recognize yourself in during a single session. We mention it because it is the academic gold standard, and because a participant who keeps doing self-exploration after the program will run into it. Knowing it exists is part of being literate in the field. The reader who prefers data over story will find the Big Five rewarding to study further.

The Enneagram is a nine-type system organized around core motivations and fears, with each type linked to others through dynamics of stress and growth. It has spiritual and contemplative origins (Jesuit, Sufi, and various Christian traditions) and was popularized in the late twentieth century through the work of Don Riso, Russ Hudson, Helen Palmer, and Richard Rohr. Used in therapy, spiritual direction, executive coaching, and relationship counseling.

The SmithFellow Core does not use the Enneagram directly, but we score it higher than the Big Five because the Enneagram’s narrative grain matches the kind of work we do. When a participant gravitates toward the Enneagram in their own reading, that pull is itself useful information — it suggests a person more drawn to story-shaped self-knowledge than to trait-shaped self-knowledge. We honor the framework even where we do not formally use it.

DISC is a four-quadrant behavioral model — Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, Conscientiousness — derived from William Marston’s 1928 work Emotions of Normal People. It is heavily commercialized, used widely in sales training, team communication workshops, and management development. Lives in corporate L&D and is sold by multiple competing vendors with proprietary instruments. Built for behavior-in-the-workplace, not deep introspection.

The SmithFellow Core does not use DISC. We include it because anyone who works in a corporate environment is likely to encounter it, and we want participants to recognize what it does and does not do. DISC is good at predicting how someone will show up in a meeting. It is less useful at surfacing who someone actually is. We name that distinction so participants can tell which kind of framework is which.

Developed by Donald Clifton at Gallup, CliftonStrengths (formerly StrengthsFinder) identifies a fellow’s top themes from a list of thirty-four “talent themes.” The premise is that you should develop your strengths rather than fix your weaknesses. Used heavily in college career centers and corporate engagement programs. Lives within Gallup’s commercial ecosystem — the assessment is paid, the certification is paid, the coaching network is paid.

The SmithFellow Core does not use CliftonStrengths. The strengths-based premise is genuinely valuable and shapes how we think about participant development; the proprietary test and its commercial wrapper are not how we work. If the strengths frame catches a participant’s interest, Gallup’s material is widely available and worth reading. We borrow the principle quietly without licensing the instrument.

HEXACO is a six-factor extension of the Big Five, developed primarily by Kibeom Lee and Michael Ashton. It adds Honesty-Humility as a sixth dimension — a trait that captures sincerity, fairness, modesty, and lack of greed, and which the Big Five does not measure cleanly. Used in academic research and emerging in clinical contexts. Notable for capturing dark-triad traits (Machiavellianism, narcissism, psychopathy) that the Big Five misses.

The SmithFellow Core does not use HEXACO. We include it because the addition of Honesty-Humility as a measurable dimension is itself a useful idea — character is not separate from personality. Anyone curious about why integrity is sometimes hard to read in colleagues, partners, or family will find HEXACO useful for that specific question.

Howard Gardner’s theory, introduced in his 1983 book Frames of Mind, proposes eight distinct intelligences — linguistic, logical-mathematical, spatial, musical, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalist. The idea was a deliberate broadening of what counts as intelligence beyond IQ tests. Used widely in K–12 education and curriculum design.

The SmithFellow Core does not formally use Multiple Intelligences but borrows its central premise — that a person has more than one kind of intelligence, and that the kind they have shapes what work suits them. The build memories participants share in Session One often surface intelligences they did not know to claim. The participant who built a tree fort with friends may have stronger spatial and interpersonal intelligence than they have ever credited themselves with. Naming Gardner’s frame gives participants permission to count those capacities.

Robert Sternberg’s framework names three forms of intelligence: analytical (problem-solving), creative (generating new ideas), and practical (knowing how to navigate real-world situations). Used in some university admissions experiments and in gifted-education contexts. Less commercially adopted than Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences but conceptually cleaner — three dimensions are easier for a fellow to hold than eight.

The SmithFellow Core does not lead with Sternberg, but we may surface the analytical/creative/practical distinction in later sessions when a participant is locating their own pattern. Many participants are strong in two of the three and weaker in the third. That asymmetry is often the most useful single piece of self-knowledge a person can carry into a career decision.

Benjamin Bloom’s 1956 taxonomy organizes cognitive skills into a six-level hierarchy: Remember, Understand, Apply, Analyze, Evaluate, Create. Used universally in curriculum design and pedagogy — every teacher-education program in the country teaches it. Bloom’s Taxonomy is not an introspective instrument but a task-design tool: it helps an educator think about what they are asking learners to do.

The SmithFellow Core uses Bloom’s Taxonomy as part of how we design sessions and assessments. Participants do not take a Bloom test. We use Bloom to make sure that across the eight sessions, a participant is moving up the cognitive ladder — from remembering, to applying, to creating. We score it 7/10 because it is structurally important to the program even though it is not an introspective tool for the participant. We include it in the directory because transparency about how the program is built is part of the deal.

Daniel Goleman’s 1995 book Emotional Intelligence popularized a framework that names four core capabilities: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management. Reuven Bar-On developed the EQ-i 2.0, a formal assessment instrument used in leadership development, counseling, and HR. Measures a capability the fellow can develop, not a type the fellow is.

The SmithFellow Core does not use a formal EQ assessment, but emotional intelligence develops naturally through the cohort work — the ten seconds of silence, the second round of memory-sharing, the way the room learns to listen to itself. A participant who reads about EQ and recognizes that they have been doing it in the room is having exactly the kind of recognition the Core is built to produce. We score it high because the capability it names is one we actively cultivate, even though we cultivate it without naming it most of the time.

Originally developed by John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth in the mid-twentieth century to describe how infants bond with caregivers, attachment theory has expanded into adult attachment research that names four primary patterns: secure, anxious, avoidant, and disorganized. Used in clinical psychology, couples therapy, and increasingly in workplace coaching. Lives in clinical training programs and the work of writers like Sue Johnson and Dan Siegel.

The SmithFellow Core does not use attachment theory directly. We include it because the patterns of how a person approaches collaboration — including collaboration with AI — often map onto attachment patterns formed in early life. Someone who tends to over-rely on a partner, or to keep a partner at arm’s length, may find that attachment theory clarifies a pattern they have been living with for decades. We do not work on this directly; we point to it as a door a participant may want to open elsewhere.

Robert Kegan’s Orders of Mind and Jane Loevinger’s Ego Development frameworks describe stages of meaning-making — how adults construct increasingly complex understandings of self, other, and the world over the course of their lives. Used in graduate-level adult learning programs and in executive coaching, especially at the senior leadership level. Sophisticated, hard to operationalize, and powerful when it lands.

The SmithFellow Core does not use Kegan or Loevinger formally. We include them because some participants are already doing the kind of meaning-making these frameworks describe, and naming the stages helps them see why they sometimes feel out of step with peers, family, or workplaces operating at a different stage. Anyone who reads Kegan and feels recognized has discovered something that will repay further reading for years.

Shalom Schwartz’s framework names ten universal values — achievement, benevolence, tradition, conformity, security, power, hedonism, stimulation, self-direction, and universalism — arranged in a circumplex showing which values reinforce each other and which conflict. Used in cross-cultural psychology research; less commercially adopted than other frameworks. Lives in academic social psychology.

The SmithFellow Core does not use Schwartz. We include it for completeness and because anyone making a major career decision benefits from knowing that values can be mapped, not just felt. The Schwartz framework is particularly useful for participants who have lived in multiple cultures or who feel pulled between conflicting commitments.

Edward Deci and Richard Ryan’s framework names three core psychological needs: autonomy (acting from genuine choice), competence (feeling effective), and relatedness (belonging). Used widely in education, healthcare, workplace motivation, and increasingly in product design. Lives in motivation research and applied psychology.

The SmithFellow Core does not formally use SDT, but its three needs run underneath every session we design. The room is built to give participants autonomy (the prompts open rather than direct), competence (each session adds capability), and relatedness (the cohort is real). A participant who reads SDT will recognize what we have been giving them all along. We score it 8/10 because the framework is integrated structurally into the program even though we do not test for it.

A Japanese framework, popularized in the West through Dan Buettner’s Blue Zones work, that names the intersection of four questions: what you love, what you are good at, what the world needs, and what you can be paid for. The intersection is your ikigai — your reason for being. Used in life coaching, career transitions, and retirement planning. Lives in popular self-help and Japanese cultural traditions.

The SmithFellow Core does not formally use Ikigai but holds its four-question structure in reserve as a late-program tool. By Session Eight, a participant has produced enough self-data through the program to take a serious run at the Ikigai questions and answer them with substance rather than aspiration. We borrow the structure; we leave the wellness-industry packaging alone.

Hubert and Stuart Dreyfus’s 1980 framework names five stages of skill development: novice, advanced beginner, competent, proficient, expert. Used heavily in nursing education, military training, and professional development. Foundational to how Patricia Benner shaped clinical-nursing-skill progression. Maps directly onto how someone moves from following rules to operating intuitively in a domain.

The SmithFellow Core uses the Dreyfus Model as the spine of how the credential progresses. The eight sessions are designed to walk a participant from novice (Session One) toward at least competent (Session Eight) in working with AI as a thinking partner. We borrow the stage names quietly — participants do not take a Dreyfus test — but the design of each session reflects the stage we expect a participant to be operating at. We score it 9/10 because it is load-bearing for the credential’s design, not just useful as a self-assessment tool.

A four-stage model — unconscious incompetence → conscious incompetence → conscious competence → unconscious competence — that names the path from “I don’t know what I don’t know” through “I can do this without thinking about it.” Origin is contested (often misattributed); the model has circulated in coaching, training, and adult education for decades. Folk-psychology grain but durable because it names something fellows can verify in their own experience.

The SmithFellow Core uses the Conscious Competence Ladder as a way for participants to locate themselves. At multiple points in the program, participants are asked to place themselves on the ladder relative to specific skills. The honest answer early on is often “conscious incompetence,” which is itself an upgrade from “unconscious incompetence.” Naming where you are is part of moving forward. We score it 8/10 because it is one of the most useful single tools a participant can carry into the rest of their life.

Carol Dweck’s framework, developed at Stanford and popularized through her book Mindset, distinguishes two beliefs: that abilities are fixed (you have what you have), or that abilities are developable through effort and learning. Used in education, parenting, and corporate L&D. Less a type and more a stance a fellow can recognize and choose to shift.

The SmithFellow Core names the growth/fixed distinction explicitly in early sessions, because participants arrive carrying assumptions about whether they “are good with technology” or “are not creative” or “are too old to learn this.” Those assumptions are fixed-mindset stances operating invisibly. Surfacing the stance and offering a choice is one of the most consequential moves the program can make.

Developed by Joseph Luft and Harrington Ingham in 1955, the Johari Window names four quadrants of self-knowledge: what is known to self and known to others (open), known to self but hidden from others (hidden), unknown to self but known to others (blind spot), and unknown to both (unknown). Used in group facilitation, team-building, and organizational development workshops. A standard tool for any group doing real introspective work together.

The SmithFellow Core uses the Johari Window as the main lens for understanding what happens between participants in the room. The second round of memory-sharing in Session One is a Johari move — another participant’s story unlocks a memory the listener did not know they had access to, moving content from the unknown-to-self quadrant into the known-to-self quadrant. The cohort is the instrument. The Window is what makes the instrument legible.

David Kolb’s framework names a four-stage cycle — concrete experience → reflective observation → abstract conceptualization → active experimentation — and proposes that different learners have preferences for different stages of the cycle. Used in adult education, leadership development, and corporate training. Less type-oriented than Myers-Briggs; more process-oriented.

The SmithFellow Core borrows Kolb’s cycle — every session moves through experience, reflection, conceptualization, and experimentation in some form. The build memories are experience. The round-two prompt is reflection. The methodology directory is conceptualization. What participants bring to Session Two is experimentation. We do not type participants by Kolb preference, but we use the cycle to make sure no session is all talk or all do.

The GROW model — Goal, Reality, Options, Way Forward — is a coaching conversation structure developed by Sir John Whitmore and others in the late 1980s. It is not an assessment instrument; it is a conversation framework. Used heavily in executive coaching and in any one-to-one coaching context where the conversation needs structure.

The SmithFellow Core uses the GROW structure in one-to-one moments between facilitator and participant — particularly in late-program career and life-decision conversations. Participants are not taught GROW formally. We include it in the directory because some participants will go on to be facilitators themselves — this is a credential, after all — and because knowing GROW exists is part of being literate in adult-development practice.

Donald Schön’s 1983 book The Reflective Practitioner names two distinct activities: reflection-in-action (thinking about what you are doing while you are doing it) and reflection-on-action (thinking about what you did after the fact). Used in teacher education, medical training, and professional practice. Informs the design of the Core Module’s Facilitator Observation Rubric.

The SmithFellow Core’s assessment instrument — the rubric the facilitator uses to observe participants over eight sessions — is built on Schön’s distinction. We watch for participants developing reflection-in-action: the capacity to notice their own thinking while it is happening and to adjust. That capacity is the single most valuable skill anyone can carry into work with AI as a thinking partner. We score it 10/10 because Schön’s framework is not borrowed — it is operationalized as the spine of how we measure progression through the program.

Dan McAdams’s framework, developed at Northwestern beginning in the 1980s, holds that people construct their identity through the stories they tell about themselves — that selfhood is not just personality and not just behavior, but the integrative life narrative a person carries and revises over time. Used in personality psychology research, life-history interviewing, and increasingly in life coaching and meaning-making work.

The SmithFellow Core uses Narrative Identity from Session One forward, through the build memories. We do not lecture participants about it. We just use it. Every session that follows continues to use it — the stories participants tell about themselves are how the cohort comes to know them, and how they come to know themselves. We score it 9/10 because it is operationally central to the program’s first session and remains active throughout.

Bill Burnett and Dave Evans’s framework, developed at Stanford’s Design Program and popularized through their book Designing Your Life, applies design-thinking methodology to life and career decisions: prototyping multiple possible lives, running small experiments, iterating based on what is learned. Used in adult-career-transition programs, the Stanford d.school, and increasingly in mid-career counseling.

The SmithFellow Core does not use Life Design in early sessions, but we hold its prototyping logic in reserve for the program’s closing sessions. By Session Seven or Eight, a participant who has done the introspective work has the raw material to design their next chapter rather than just choose between pre-existing options. Burnett and Evans give participants permission to try multiple futures in low-cost ways before committing.