I am curious if you still feel this way (and about the Level Above Mine) after 14 years. While I agree all the execs I have met have a high level of competence and energy, what they have competence in tends to vary greatly. ie. some are well rounded; fit, great at managing at all levels, charismatic, and able to discern information and value in ideas, business and people with relative ease. On the other hand, I’ve met execs that are incredibly good at a small selection of skills: ie. having energy, working hard, and able to relentlessly fine tune a budget until not a single penny is wasted and margins are maximized. The latter results in a very different type of business or organization than the former, especially if the person in question doesn’t fill in for their own weak spots with complimentary staff. (If one’s high competence areas are not in identifying strengths of staff, trying to identify a potential staff member that is good at identifying strengths is very difficult, and I really don’t believe gimmicky tools like StrengthsFinder can fix this little conundrum.)
I’ve also met ill-intentioned execs. This is tricky to discern because they usually had polished charisma and even had claims to good intention that they believed at one level or another, even while simultaneously seeing no issue with ie. laying off $1 million of essential staff members and giving themself a $1 million raise. (“As long as new staff are hired next year, no damage had been done to the business, right?”) This type of irrational thinking and behavior is such a damaging flaw that its very easy to see how reviewers may consider the person’s weaknesses to outweigh their strengths enough to summarize their net skillset as bad. A boat with a high-end navigation system and a hole in the hull will not get you as far as a dinghy.
All that being said, I also find it noteworthy that many many people I’ve met have high levels of competence in skills that aren’t conducive to climbing the socioeconomic ladder (and they’re even sparkly!). In this occasion. it is especially understandable to see them make an estimation of their highest competency, their summed competency, or both, and deem someone that doesn’t meet their own level as not praise worthy.
I am curious if you still feel this way (and about the Level Above Mine) after 14 years. While I agree all the execs I have met have a high level of competence and energy, what they have competence in tends to vary greatly. ie. some are well rounded; fit, great at managing at all levels, charismatic, and able to discern information and value in ideas, business and people with relative ease. On the other hand, I’ve met execs that are incredibly good at a small selection of skills: ie. having energy, working hard, and able to relentlessly fine tune a budget until not a single penny is wasted and margins are maximized. The latter results in a very different type of business or organization than the former, especially if the person in question doesn’t fill in for their own weak spots with complimentary staff. (If one’s high competence areas are not in identifying strengths of staff, trying to identify a potential staff member that is good at identifying strengths is very difficult, and I really don’t believe gimmicky tools like StrengthsFinder can fix this little conundrum.)
I’ve also met ill-intentioned execs. This is tricky to discern because they usually had polished charisma and even had claims to good intention that they believed at one level or another, even while simultaneously seeing no issue with ie. laying off $1 million of essential staff members and giving themself a $1 million raise. (“As long as new staff are hired next year, no damage had been done to the business, right?”) This type of irrational thinking and behavior is such a damaging flaw that its very easy to see how reviewers may consider the person’s weaknesses to outweigh their strengths enough to summarize their net skillset as bad. A boat with a high-end navigation system and a hole in the hull will not get you as far as a dinghy.
All that being said, I also find it noteworthy that many many people I’ve met have high levels of competence in skills that aren’t conducive to climbing the socioeconomic ladder (and they’re even sparkly!). In this occasion. it is especially understandable to see them make an estimation of their highest competency, their summed competency, or both, and deem someone that doesn’t meet their own level as not praise worthy.