Work your strengths: a scientific process to identify your skills and match them to the best career for you

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Finding the Right Job

Playing to Strengths Leads to Goodness of Fit

Matching Strengths of High-Performing Individuals

The Executive Skills

Frontal Lobes and Executive Skills

The Spread Between Strengths and Weaknesses: The Differentiator

Chapter 1. Determining Your Own Strengths and Weaknesses and Finding the Strengths and Weaknesses of others

Skill 1. Response Inhibition

Skill 2. Working Memory

Skill 3. Emotional Control

Skill 4. Sustained Attention

Skill 5. Task Initiation

Skill 6. Planning/Prioritization

Skill 7. Organization

Skill 8. Time Management

Skill 9. Goal-Directed Persistence

Skill 10. Flexibility

Skill 11. Metacognition

Skill 12. Stress Tolerance

Finding Your Own Strengths and Weaknesses

Workload and Executive Skills

Voices from the Front Lines: Workload

Exceeding Your Cognitive Bandwidth

Knowing in Advance

Chapter 2. Finding Success and Avoiding Failure: Why your Strengths and Weaknesses are the Way they are: The Science behind Executive Skills

Executive Skills in Psychology

Executive Skills and the Brain

Executive Skills and Brain Development

Chapter 3. What is a high Performer and How do you become One? Selecting the Right Path to increase the Chance of Success

Performance-Based: Consistency Is Key

Quantitative: Expectations and Results

Qualitative: Some Subjectivity

Position in the Organization

Company First

Multidimensional

How Many Are High Performers?

Voices from the Front Lines: Number of High Performers

What Sets High Performers Apart

Voices from the Front Lines: What Sets Them Apart

Chapter 4. Navigating your Road to High Performance: Finding Your Skills Combination to Determine What Industry you should be In

Most Prevalent Executive Skills Strengths and Weaknesses

Some Skills Go Hand in Hand

Strengths vs. Commonly Found Weaknesses

High-Performing Males vs. High-Performing Females

Executive Skills of High Performers by Age

Task Initiation: The Common Weakness

The High-Performing Pair

Executive Skills of High Performers by Industry

Financial Services

Healthcare

Manufacturing

Technology

Education

Nonprofits

Finding the Match

Chapter 5. What's the Right Department for you? The Strengths of High Performers by Department

Marketing/Advertising/Promotion: Always Getting Better

Sales: Not Falling Through the Cracks

Systems/IT: All About Road Maps

General Management: Goal-Oriented

Operations: Good on the Fly

Customer Service: Strategically Important

Administrative: Organized and Can Adapt

Finance: Modify on the Fly

Accounting: Methodical Approach

Clinical: Organized and Starting Right Away

Executive Skills in a Department: Clinical High Performers

Right-Seating People the First Time

Chapter 6. Do you Have What it Takes to be in the Corner Suite? Skills Broken Down by Title

Are You in the Right Job?

The Brains in the Corner Office

The Brains Down the Hall

The Self-Correcting Directors

The Managers with a Plan

The Organized Employees

Chapter 7. How your Strengths Match Those of Others at Work: Ways to Match Behaviors to Executive Skills in your Business

Shared Strengths in One Organization

Shared Strengths in Two Nonprofits

Mapping Characteristics to Executive Skills

Avoiding Potential Conflicts

Focus on Executive Skills Strengths

Voices from the Front Lines: Strengths and Weaknesses

Healthcare: Clinical vs. Nonclinical

High Performers in Sales-Buyer Interactions

Observable Behaviors

Strong Flexibility: Typical Behaviors

Weak Flexibility: Typical Behaviors

Strong Response Inhibition: Typical Behaviors

Weak Response Inhibition: Typical Behaviors

Chapter 8. Avoiding the Wrong Promotion: Sorting the Strengths of Employees vs. Managers vs. Executives

Voices from the Front Lines: High and Low Performers

The Failed Sales Promotion

Voices from the Front Lines: Promoting Salespeople to Management

Sales Employees vs. Sales Management

Working in a Comfort Zone

Voices from the Front Lines: Job Satisfaction

IT Executives Can Shield the Heat

Operations: Order and Organization

Administrative: Organization Is Key

Customer Service: Recalling Past Solutions

Can Performance Be Predicted?

Chapter 9. Determine your Fit-The High-Performance Executive Skills Map: Where do High Performers With your Strengths Work?

Response Inhibition

Working Memory

Emotional Control

Sustained Attention

Task Initiation

Planning/Prioritization

Organization

Time Management

Goal-Directed Persistence

Flexibility

Metacognition

Stress Tolerance

The High-Performance Executive Skills Map

Industries by Executive Skills Strengths

Departments by Executive Skills Strengths

Job Functions/Titles by Executive Skills Strengths

Conclusion

Appendix A. How the Two-Year Study was Conducted: High Performers and the Executive Skills Profile

Determining High Performance

Using the Executive Skills Profile

Selecting Subjects

Selecting Industry Types and Departments

Job Functions and Titles

High Performers by Age and Gender

High Performers by Company Size

The Questionnaire

Organizations in the Study

The Study Continues

Appendix B. The High-Performance Executive Skills Tables

Top Six Industries

Executive Skills by Department: Top 10 Departments

Job Function/Title

Employees vs. Managers vs. Executives

Males vs. Females

Profit vs. Nonprofit

Profit vs. Nonprofit (Excluding CEOs)

Healthcare: Clinical vs. Nonclinical

Appendix C. About NFI Research

Notes

Index