CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . X I I I
INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Finding the Right Job . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Playing to Strengths Leads to Goodness of Fit. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Matching Strengths of High-Performing Individuals . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
The Executive Skills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Frontal Lobes and Executive Skills. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
The Spread Between Strengths andWeaknesses: The Differentiator . . . . . 7
CHAPTER 1: DETERMINING YOUR OWN STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES
. . . AND FINDING THE STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES OF OTHERS . . . . . . 9
Skill 1: Response Inhibition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Skill 2:Working Memory. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Skill 3: Emotional Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Skill 4: Sustained Attention . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Skill 5: Task Initiation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Skill 6: Planning/Prioritization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Skill 7: Organization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Skill 8: Time Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Skill 9: Goal-Directed Persistence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Skill 10: Flexibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Skill 11: Metacognition. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Skill 12: Stress Tolerance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Finding Your Own Strengths andWeaknesses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Workload and Executive Skills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Voices from the Front Lines:Workload . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Exceeding Your Cognitive Bandwidth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Knowing in Advance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
CHAPTER 2: FINDING SUCCESS AND AVOIDING FAILURE: WHY YOUR
STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES ARE THE WAY THEY ARE: THE SCIENCE
BEHIND EXECUTIVE SKILLS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Executive Skills in Psychology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Executive Skills and the Brain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Executive Skills and Brain Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
CHAPTER 3: WHAT IS A HIGH PERFORMER AND HOW DO YOU BECOME ONE?
SELECTING THE RIGHT PATH TO INCREASE THE CHANCE OF SUCCESS . . . . 35
Performance-Based: Consistency Is Key . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
Quantitative: Expectations and Results. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Qualitative: Some Subjectivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Position in the Organization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Company First . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Multidimensional . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
How Many Are High Performers? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Voices from the Front Lines: Number of High Performers . . . . . . . . . 48
What Sets High Performers Apart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Voices from the Front Lines:What Sets Them Apart . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
CHAPTER 4: NAVIGATING YOUR ROAD TO HIGH PERFORMANCE: FINDING YOUR
SKILLS COMBINATION TO DETERMINE WHAT INDUSTRY YOU SHOULD BE IN . . 52
Most Prevalent Executive Skills Strengths andWeaknesses . . . . . . . . . 53
Some Skills Go Hand in Hand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Strengths vs. Commonly FoundWeaknesses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
High-Performing Males vs. High-Performing Females . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Executive Skills of High Performers by Age . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Task Initiation: The CommonWeakness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
The High-Performing Pair . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Executive Skills of High Performers by Industry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Financial Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Healthcare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
Manufacturing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
Nonprofits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
Finding the Match . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
CHAPTER 5: WHAT'S THE RIGHT DEPARTMENT FOR YOU?
THE STRENGTHS OF HIGH PERFORMERS BY DEPARTMENT . . . . . . . . . 77
Marketing/Advertising/Promotion: Always Getting Better . . . . . . . . . 78
Sales: Not Falling Through the Cracks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
Systems/IT: All About Road Maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
General Management: Goal-Oriented . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Operations: Good on the Fly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
Customer Service: Strategically Important . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Administrative: Organized and Can Adapt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Finance: Modify on the Fly. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Accounting: Methodical Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
Clinical: Organized and Starting Right Away. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Executive Skills in a Department: Clinical High Performers . . . . . . . . 93
Right-Seating People the First Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
CHAPTER 6: DO YOU HAVE WHAT IT TAKES TO BE IN THE
CORNER SUITE? SKILLS BROKEN DOWN BY TITLE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
` Are You in the Right Job?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
The Brains in the Corner Office. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
The Brains Down the Hall . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
The Self-Correcting Directors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
The Managers with a Plan. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
The Organized Employees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
CHAPTER 7: HOW YOUR STRENGTHS MATCH THOSE OF OTHERS AT WORK:
WAYS TO MATCH BEHAVIORS TO EXECUTIVE SKILLS IN YOUR BUSINESS . . . 108
Shared Strengths in One Organization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
Shared Strengths in Two Nonprofits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
Mapping Characteristics to Executive Skills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
Avoiding Potential Conflicts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
Focus on Executive Skills Strengths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
Voices from the Front Lines: Strengths andWeaknesses. . . . . . . . . . 119
Healthcare: Clinical vs. Nonclinical . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
High Performers in Sales-Buyer Interactions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
Observable Behaviors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Strong Flexibility: Typical Behaviors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Weak Flexibility: Typical Behaviors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
Strong Response Inhibition: Typical Behaviors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
Weak Response Inhibition: Typical Behaviors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
CHAPTER 8: AVOIDING THE WRONG PROMOTION: SORTING THE
STRENGTHS OF EMPLOYEES VS. MANAGERS VS. EXECUTIVES . . . . . . . 129
Voices from the Front Lines: High and Low Performers . . . . . . . . . 131
The Failed Sales Promotion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
Voices from the Front Lines: Promoting Salespeople to Management. . . 134
Sales Employees vs. Sales Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
Working in a Comfort Zone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
Voices from the Front Lines: Job Satisfaction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
IT Executives Can Shield the Heat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
Operations: Order and Organization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
Administrative: Organization Is Key . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
Customer Service: Recalling Past Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
Can Performance Be Predicted? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
CHAPTER 9: DETERMINE YOUR FIT—THE HIGH-PERFORMANCE
EXECUTIVE SKILLS MAP: WHERE DO HIGH PERFORMERS WITH
YOUR STRENGTHS WORK? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
Response Inhibition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
Working Memory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
Emotional Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
Sustained Attention . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
Task Initiation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
Planning/Prioritization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
Organization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
Time Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
Goal-Directed Persistence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
Flexibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
Metacognition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
Stress Tolerance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
The High-Performance Executive Skills Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
Industries by Executive Skills Strengths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
Departments by Executive Skills Strengths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
Job Functions/Titles by Executive Skills Strengths . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
CONCLUSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
APPENDIX A: HOW THE TWO-YEAR STUDY WAS CONDUCTED:
HIGH PERFORMERS AND THE EXECUTIVE SKILLS PROFILE . . . . . . . . . 179
Determining High Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
Using the Executive Skills Profile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
Selecting Subjects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
Selecting Industry Types and Departments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
Job Functions and Titles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
High Performers by Age and Gender . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
High Performers by Company Size . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
The Questionnaire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
Organizations in the Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
The Study Continues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
APPENDIX B: THE HIGH-PERFORMANCE EXECUTIVE SKILLS TABLES . . . . 197
Top Six Industries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198
Executive Skills by Department: Top 10 Departments. . . . . . . . . . . 200
Job Function/Title. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
Employees vs.Managers vs. Executives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206
Males vs. Females . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
Profit vs. Nonprofit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
Profit vs. Nonprofit (Excluding CEOs) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
Healthcare: Clinical vs. Nonclinical . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214
APPENDIX C: ABOUT NFI RESEARCH. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
NOTES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225
