7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Know Yourself, June 22, 2010
This review is from: Work Your Strengths: A Scientific Process to Identify Your Skills and Match Them to the Best Career for You (Hardcover)
The authors have impressive backgrounds in science, research and psychology. This book is well researched.
Through a questionnaire, they get the prospect to identify their strengths on 12 different scales that they have identified as being crucial for success.
The 12 key executive skills include:
1 - Response Inhibition - the ability to think before you act (I am weaker on that one than the rest)
2 - Working Memory. The ability to remember things while doing complex tasks. I often call this innate intelligence.
3 - Emotional Control.
4 - Sustained Attention.
5 - Task Initiation. Just Do It.
6 - Planning/Prioritization.
7 - Organization
8 - Time Management - I totally agree with this one.
9 - Goal Directed Persistence. practise goal setting.
10 - Flexibility. I have often seen executives struggle with things when circumstances change without warning.
11 - Metacognition. This is the ability to take a birds eye view of of yourself in a situation and understanding what you need to do.
12 - Stress tolerance.
What I notice is many of these overlap. EG - Being able to have Goal Focused Persistence ties to Sustained Attention. Strength in one area is often used to handle a challenge when it could also use strength in another area to handle the same issue.
Strengths are shades of grey. Not Black and White (at least not in most cases)
The one part that I had a knee jerk negative reaction to was "you cannot change your strengths". But as I read the book, I actually came to agree with what this book calls a "truth". I know I always believed innate intelligence cannot change.
My technique for dealing with challenge is to study and learn. Learning does not change inherent strengths but can give us systems and processes to deal with an area. By using tricks, systems and processes to cope in a weak area so you can appear "good" at it.
Work Your Strengths then goes on to review dozens of jobs and areas/industries and point out what areas need key strengths can tolerate certain weaknesses. They list 3 key must have Executive Skills, 3 that are ok with be weak in and then one area that is called a "determining trait" where the theory is having that strength differentiates the true achievers in the field/position.
The research the book is based on is impressive. There are pages of companies that participated in the studies. They survey 1000 people per week.
This is a great book for anyone looking to slot themselves into the perfect position.
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Finally, the answer to the question "What are your strengths and weaknesses?", June 15, 2010
This review is from: Work Your Strengths: A Scientific Process to Identify Your Skills and Match Them to the Best Career for You (Hardcover)
Chuck Martin and company take the job hunt process to the lab in this new and insightful book. Using a quick 5 minute survey and vast cognitive research, Work Your Strengths(WYS) offers fast and accurate career path identification. WYS highlights 12 Executive Skills and compares these skills across numerous high performing executives in a variety of business verticals. After taking the online survey provided free of charge, WYS offers the unique ability to compare your strengths and weaknesses with high performing individuals in order to find the career track that you can thrive in.
WYS provides the answer to the dreaded question..."What are your strengths and weaknesses?" In expert fashion. Just by looking at your top 3 strengths and weaknesses with the guidance of this book, you'll have considerable ammunition for combating tough interview questions.
Having always assumed I knew exactly what career path I'd be best at, WYS taught me a great lesson and provided me with an invaluable understanding of my true skill set and the skills of those whom I am communicating with. By understanding my key strengths and weaknesses and the way my brain works, in relation to others, I have been able to develop 3 successful capabilities to aid my career search: ability to brand myself in a way that employers respond to, ability to position myself properly against cohorts and the ability communicate with effectiveness.
It's as simple as this: Read WYS and you will have all the tools you need to find and nail the best career path for your strengths.
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An insightful look into finding the ideal career path, May 31, 2010
This review is from: Work Your Strengths: A Scientific Process to Identify Your Skills and Match Them to the Best Career for You (Hardcover)
When deciding on a career path, many individuals choose their particular path based on recommendations from fellow peers, by seeing the possibility of lucrative rewards, or simply by choosing the option they "feel" is the best for them. However, pursuing a career path should ideally be based on a scientific approach using the executive skills profile to determine where an individual fits relative to others who perform well in a certain field. In his latest book, Work Your Strengths, Chuck Martin details the 12 skills that comprise the executive skills profile and how they can aid an individual in selecting a career path. His research is based on the skills that high-performing individuals have within their respective fields. The goal of his book is to try to match the reader to a certain career by seeing how their top three strengths coincide with the top three strengths of high-performing individuals. A large portion of the book is dedicated specifically to determining the ideal fit based on very detailed research Chuck and his team have compiled over several months. These skills are hardwired into the brain from a relatively young age, and generally are fixed when an individual reaches their 20s.
The book also goes into how the brain actually functions. Most of the information on this is based on the input of both Richard Guare and Peg Dawson, a pair of top psychologists who aided Chuck throughout his book. They also detail how the brain develops and how the executive skills build to become specifically tailored to an individual by the time they reach maturity. Overall, the detail in which the book describes the executive skills and defines their purpose is superb and highly accurate. The research and knowledge placed into the book shows the dedication and determination of the authors in giving the reader a chance to explore their full potential.
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