Research Revelations

into the Strongest and Weakest Natural Skills of the Stars at Work

If you think you know what it takes to be a top performer in the work arena, think again. Trailblazing neuroscience investigator and bestselling business author Chuck Martin devoted two years of rigorous research to mapping core cognitive functions or “Executive Skills” of over 2,500 high-performing individuals to what they do and where they work. As he reveals in his new book, WORK YOUR STRENGTHS (AMACOM 2010), the stars in different fields and at different levels have many surprising similarities as well as differences.

 High-performing employees, managers, and executives have different strengths, but they all share a common weakness: Task Initiation, the ability to begin tasks or projects without procrastinating. More than half of senior executives are weak in this Executive Skill. More high-performing males than females are weak in it.

 High-performing males and females have different leading strengths. In high-performing males, the most commonly found strength is Metacognition, the ability to stand back and take a bird’s-eye view of your actions in a situation and then make changes. In high-performing females, the most commonly found strength is Organization.

 High performers in finance share a common leading strength with high-performers in sales: Working Memory, the ability to hold information in memory while performing complex tasks.

 High performers in information technology (IT) share a common dominant strength with high performers in healthcare clinical departments: Planning/Prioritization. High performers in IT and healthcare clinical departments also share are common weakness: Stress Tolerance.

 IT executives are better at handling stress than IT employees.

 High performers in marketing, advertising, and promotion departments share a common leading strength with high performers in general management: Metacognition.

 Sales managers and executives frequently claim a strength that is rarely found in top performing sales employees: Metacognition.

 High performers in customer services share a common dominant strength with high performers in administrative departments: Organization.

 Of all high performers strong in this Executive Skill, 35 percent are either a CEO or CFO: Goal-Directed Persistence.

Adapted from WORK YOUR STRENGTHS: A Scientific Process to Identify Your Skills and Match Them to the Best Career for You by Chuck Martin, Richard Guare, Ph.D., and Peg Dawson, Ed.D. (AMACOM 2010).