Investing in Character: The 11 ‘Assets’ That Deliver Higher Returns Than Technology

Introduction: The Next Frontier for Investment

Companies have mastered the art of managing technological and financial assets. But while they compete on the speed of AI implementation, the true source of competitive advantage remains overlooked. In today’s economy, the next frontier for creating exponential value is investing in a new, systematically undervalued asset class: organizational character.

The scale of the problem is enormous. The “State of Organizations 2023” report from McKinsey reveals that only 25% of leaders genuinely inspire their teams. This indicates a massive deficit in the most important asset class of all—the human one.

The 11-Asset Portfolio: The Anatomy of Character

It’s time to stop treating character as an abstract virtue. Research from the Ivey Business School, published in “Leader to Leader,” presents it as an investment portfolio of 11 interconnected assets: Courage, Humanity, Accountability, Drive, Collaboration, Humility, Integrity, Temperance, Justice, Transcendence, and Judgment.

As with a financial portfolio, value is created not by a single “asset” but by their balance. A company that makes an excessive bet on Drive while having a deficit in Humanity doesn’t get hyper-growth; it gets burnout and a toxic environment that destroys long-term value.

Portfolio Diagnostics: How to Measure the ‘Intangible’

The skeptic’s main question is, “How can you measure character?” The answer: through observable, concrete behavioral patterns. And this “portfolio” has a clearly measurable return on investment. The Ivey Business School study shows that a shift from weak to strong leader character directly leads to a growth in key business indicators:

+14% in leader effectiveness.
+16% in psychological safety.
+18% in employee voice.

AlbiCoins: Your Platform for Investing in Character

Purposefully managing this asset portfolio requires a technological tool. The AlbiCoins platform is, in essence, a “trading terminal” for investing in your organization’s character. It allows you not just to declare values, but to purposefully “buy” (encourage) the right behavioral assets.

To build the Courage asset, you launch an Internal Startups competition.
To increase the value of your Humanity and Collaboration assets, you use Peer-to-peer Recognition.
To grow the Humility asset—the willingness to learn—you implement Upskill & Reskill Rewards.

Conclusion: The Highest Return is Human

While competitors continue to pour budgets into technologies that quickly become obsolete, the most strategic leaders are building a durable competitive advantage by investing in the character of their people.

This is the approach that leads to the ultimate prize. As McKinsey’s research shows, companies with top-quartile organizational health (the result of a balanced character) have a Total Shareholder Return (TSR) 3 times higher than their competitors.

Learn how to start systematically investing in the character of your organization: https://albimarketing.com/employee-tech/

References

Crossan, M., Furlong, B., & Crossan, C. (2025). “Diagnosing and Strategically Implementing a Character-Based Culture“. Leader to Leader, 2025(117), 26-35.
Edmondson, A. C., & Lei, Z. (2014). “Psychological Safety: The History, Renaissance, and Future of an Interpersonal Construct“. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 1, 23-43.
Karjalainen, M., & Rangarajan, N. (2021). “Trust and leadership in public organizations: a systematic literature review“. Public Management Review, 23(11), 1633-1654.
Gagnon, C., John, E., & Theunissen, R. (2017). “Organizational health: A fast track to performance improvement“. McKinsey Quarterly.
Kuvaas, B., Buch, R., Weibel, A., Dysvik, A., & Nerstad, C. G. (2017). “Do Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation Relate Differently to Employee Outcomes?“. Journal of Management Studies, 54(3), 244-265.