How technology can free humans to find where their natural talents fit.

How do people end up in a job they don’t like?

They may be passable at the role from years of experience. They might want to keep going because the pay, the security or the prestige is good — but…. are they happy?  Are they really good -a true high performer? And if they’re in your organisation, do you really want them there in that particular role, if that role doesn’t match their inherent capabilities?  

Unfortunately this happens more than we’d like to admit. Did that person follow their passions along a logical path through job after job until they happily came to their ideal career?

Rarely. Humans are not that rational.

More often, an event in school swayed them toward a particular path – a teacher they liked, an idol they admired, or something their peers or parents said to them. 

Then they took whichever job was available when they entered the workforce. When that ended, they got another job based on the experience of the first. And the next. And the next.

Thus people can be stuck in the “Experience Trap”. People reach upwards to the best job available to them, and experience is an asset to reach higher in a certain area. Career leaps sideways are risky, so without further education in a different field, they tend to stay in the one they chose in the first place. 

And so, someone could end up in a long sales career just from having good product knowledge, without ever asking if something else suited their inherent talents better. 

If sales itself is not a skill for which they had natural motivation, they may feel drained and purposeless. This can cause friction and unpleasant behaviours both at work and outside of it which just add to the stress. This continues until they quit and look for a new job, which will again be based on their experience, and the cycle continues.

The problem being that at no point was an assessment made as to whether their talents lay in that area at all. Many recruitment tools rely on learned skills, which really just reinforce the cycle.

This is where the right kind of human assessment technology can liberate both the individual and the organisation. This technology takes a deep look at an individual’s inherent capabilities and then maps them against qualities required for the role. 

As a result, next generation human assessment technology allows a person to know where their natural talents lie and an organisation to know where that person fits best. This enables the individual to seek training or experience in an area that more suits their nature, and so follow a more rewarding career path.  And it allows the organisation to avoid the frustration, cost and loss of productivity that comes with a bad role fit.

Within a company, staff managers are able to work best with the talent they have. In recognising talents for certain areas, managers can guide employees to make sure that their staff are in the best positions for them, or working towards them.

Directing training efforts towards people’s areas of strength and enthusiasm creates engagement. They will be more involved and contribute more when they are in their element. Happier, healthier, more creative. A boon for the team!

This is a boon for culture too. As you move people with natural people skills toward managerial roles, the more they will find ways to create a better team culture. Good leadership that recognises each person as a valuable member of the team in meetings and communications go a long way to making people feel safe and valued, enabling them to rise into their role and contribute without fear.

Fortunately, next generation human assessment technology takes away the guesswork and puts the power back into your hands when it comes to identifying and managing talent. It allows you to define the critical capabilities that drive success in a role, compare your team members against this profile, identify skills gaps, then take high-impact action with targeted training, coaching and mentoring that unlocks talent development ROI. 

As you apply this across more areas of your company, more and more of your teams will be filled with energetic, engaged people full of creative ideas.  When you examine people’s inherent skills to make sure they are in the right role you rescue people from the curse of their own experience to be fully engaged in their best role in a great company.

Watch the video of Apprento Founders, Scott Freeman and Alex McNaughten, as they share how using AbilityMap has brought them closer to achieving their mission to drive business productivity by defining salespeople’s inherent human capabilities.

Seeing is believing

See how AbilityMap’s technology can provide detailed insights into your people and organisational dynamics.

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