Smarts: Are We Hardwired for Success? [Hardcover]

Chuck Martin (Author), Peg Dawson (Author), Richard Guare (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 15, 2007

"Smarts" contains the groundbreaking 'Executive Skills Profile': a powerful self-assessment tool that identify, once and for all, a person's innate strengths and weaknesses, twelve specific cognitive functions that begin developing in the brain at birth. These "skills" are built in to every individual and are fully developed - and unchangeable - by adulthood. Supported by proprietary primary research and grounded in widely accepted principles of clinical and neuro-psychology, "Smarts" is a truly eye-opening book that will change how we think about ourselves - and others.

Editorial Reviews

Book Description

"Twelve specific and very important cognitive functions begin developing in the brain at birth. These ""skills” are built in to every individual and are fully developed -- and unchangeable -- by adulthood. Everyone has these same capabilities, but to varying degrees. And it is this unique and unalterable combination of one’s strengths and weaknesses that determines success or failure in any given role.

Smarts contains the groundbreaking Executive Skills Profile: a powerful self-assessment tool that will identify, once and for all, a person’s innate strengths and weaknesses. The results offer tangible proof of why we gravitate to certain tasks and struggle with others. With this newfound clarity, readers will learn to play to their stronger skills, and avoid wasting time on lesser ones they can never improve upon. Most important, they will discover their own unique potential for excellence.

Supported by proprietary primary research and grounded in widely accepted principles of clinical and neuro-psychology, Smarts is a truly eye-opening book that will change how we think about ourselves -- and others."

From the Inside Flap

It remains one of the great mysteries in life--what qualities truly define successful people? While we are all destined for greatness, we also possess one or two weaknesses that may be holding us back. While you consider yourself to be highly focused and cool under pressure, you may lack flexibility. You know that you are talented, gifted, and great at what you do, but in trying to overcome your shortcomings, you may be frustrating yourself and others and neglecting those strengths that will lead you to excellence. We all possess twelve specific and very important cognitive functions, including Time Management, Organization, Working Memory, and Stress Tolerance, which begin developing in the brain at birth. Everyone has these same capabilities but to varying degrees. These skills are largely unchangeable by adulthood, but the good news is that they can be enhanced. Smarts reveals what separates those people who continue to excel in their lives and in their careers. These highly successful people know that the real opportunities lie in playing to their strengths, not trying to improve their shortcomings. And in understanding their own innate assets and limitations, they are more tolerant and more patient with the strengths and weaknesses of others, making them better bosses, exceptional workers, and more understanding partners.

Using groundbreaking new research, best-selling author Chuck Martin reveals how embracing our two or three strongest Executive Skills can help us achieve excellence, while denying our weaknesses can undermine our progress. This book includes the revolutionary Executive Skills Profile you can use to spot your own strengths, and leverage them both at work and at home. You will begin to understand why you--and those around you--act or behave the way they do. Smarts shows you how to nurture your positive skills; identify, accept, and deal with your own weaknesses; and manage those characteristics of the people with whom you live and work.

Impeccably researched and grounded in proven scientific principles, this is a truly eye-opening and empowering book that redefines the way we understand the potential for greatness--in ourselves and others.

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 17 and up
  
• Hardcover: 226 pages
• Publisher: AMACOM (January 15, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0814409067
• ISBN-13: 978-0814409060
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (32 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #314,331 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Hardwired" for Peak Performance, March 6, 2007

By 

Robert Morris (Dallas, Texas) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Smarts: Are We Hardwired for Success? (Hardcover)

In one of Chuck Martin's previous works, Tough Management, he recommends "seven winning ways to make tough decisions easier, deliver the numbers, and grow the business in good times and bad." None of the "ways" is a head-snapper, nor does Martin make any such claim. The substantial value of this book is derived, rather, from responses by more than 2,000 senior executives and managers in 50 countries who participated in a survey conducted by NFI Research, Martin's firm. They completed a brief survey segment every two weeks over a period of 24 months. That is a key point because, over time both circumstances and respondents' reactions to them change. The final survey results thus have much greater credibility. Martin operates a global idea exchange and research engine with a network base of more than 2,000 senior executives and managers from more than 1,000 companies in more than 50 countries, including half of the Fortune 500. His observations and recommendations are thus based on an abundance of real-world data that he and his NFI associates continue to accumulate and then evaluate with meticulous care.

In this volume, which he co-authored with Peg Dawson and Richard Guare, Martin develops in much greater depth many of the core concepts introduced in his previous books. For example, insights concerning how both individuals and collaborative teams can achieve and then sustain superior performance by leveraging their strengths (i.e. talents, skills, temperament, and experience) when completing tasks for which those strengths are most appropriate. In this volume, the authors assert that there are certain brain functions starting at birth "and they are "`hardwired'" into every individual. Brain researchers have found that these skills are fully developed by the time you become an adult. These skills are called `Executive Skills' because they help you execute tasks." OK but so what?

As the authors then explain, our strongest skills will continue to be our strongest skills and our weakest will continue to be our weakest -- and are not significantly changeable - as we become adults. "The opportunity is how to deal with [strengths and weaknesses], and this book provides a framework for you to do that." They identify and then rigorously examines twelve executive skills that range from self-restraint to stress tolerance. Mastery of these skills by those who comprise the workforce within a given organization (regardless of its size or nature) will enable it to derive substantial improvement of its productivity, quality, employee recruitment, employee retention, training, teamwork, competitive edge, reduction of stress, meetings, operational execution, and information management.

Martin, Dawson, and Guare agree with countless others that organizations must measure only what is most important, and they should do so with consistency. Hence the value of diagnostic tools such as the "Executive Skills Profile" that he provides in Appendix B. It enables each of those who read this book to tap into their greatest Executive Skills strengths and then leverage them when completing whatever tasks to which they have been assigned. At this point, it is important to keep in mind that one of the greatest challenges for supervisors is to make certain that they are locating those for whom they are directly responsible in proper alignment with tasks appropriate to their given strengths. Organizations that sustain such alignment are "hardwired for success" because their people - as individuals and as members of a team - are themselves "hardwired for success."

In my opinion, this is Chuck Martin's most valuable book, thus far, and another brilliant achievement. He and his co-authors, Peg Dawson and Richard Guare, invite those who wish to obtain updates and/or share their own comments to visit www.smartsthebook.com.

Those who share my high regard for this book are urged to check out Martin's other books. I also recommend Bill George's Authentic Leadership and True North, Michael Ray's The Highest Goal, Ram Charan's Know-How, Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman's First, Break All the Rules and Buckingham and Donald O. Clifton's Now, Discover Your Strengths, Buckingham's The One Thing You Need to Know and Go Put Your Strengths to Work, and Success Built to Last co-authored by Jerry Porras, Stewart Emery, and Mark Thompson.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Next Generation of Human Resource Tools, January 3, 2007

By 

Kenneth L. Myers (Chicago) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Smarts: Are We Hardwired for Success? (Hardcover)

Like other experiences in this mind business, Chuck Martin has supplied us with the evidence to support the gut instincts we all use to navigate our daily lives. I am glad that the book does not simply present the problem. It goes on to acknowledge the difficulty in correcting executive behaviors and then provides concrete ways for both self-correction and to assist others in maximizing their strengths and controlling their weaknesses. One of the quotes he used included the phrase, "rises to the level of their incompetence." We have all watched this happen and lamented the bad fortune of someone caught in this trap. What you realize is that the blame is not always the failure of the individual but a failure to recognize a good fit from a bad one.

One of the most glaring examples that reinforces everything this book has to say is the problem most companies face when they advance top performers into management. I know my own company fights the problem that some top performers don't manage as much as they continue trying to contribute doing what they do best. Through promotion you can turn your top performer into your greatest problem or your most depressed employee. It is easy to think of this as a failure for the employee. It is really a failure to look more closely at the fit between employee strengths and the requirements of the job.

I have often lamented that there is a diminishing level of craftsmanship in our world. Here is a new opportunity for craftsmanship -- fitting job requirements to the person rather than shaping the person to fit the job. Martin has offered these new craftsmen a powerful set of tools, background information and realistic examples that will help them maximize their business skills and knowledge. Crafting this proper fit between jobs and people will create the competitive advantage of the 21st Century and improve the outlook of employees in the process.

This is really the most on-target work I have read in the area of performance management and human behavior. As a training professional, I will be more sensitive to the limits of training as a solution when the real problem be crossed wires.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Recognizing and Maximizing One's Executive Skills, January 7, 2007

By 

Peter F. Eder "communications consultant" (Darien, CT, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Smarts: Are We Hardwired for Success? (Hardcover)

Chuck Martin has taken the insights he has accumulated from the ongoing executive panel of his NFI Research efforts and has created an insightful, practical Executive Skills Guidebook.

Identifying twelve "built-in" specific brain (cognitive) functions which he labels as "Executive Skills", the book in a clear and concise fashion provides readers / users a very useful tool to assess their own strengths and weaknesses of each function.

The book goes on to provide guidance and a map on how to maximize one's strengths and minimize one's weaknesses, as well as how to consider positions that intensify and reward the strengths.

Throughout, the authors reinforce their findings and guidance with practical quotes from a wide array of executives, the commentary gathered from the 2000 senior executives and managers globally that have participated in NFI Research during the past eight years.

Using the book in an internal organization seminar format would provide considerable strenghtening of a management team.