Evaluation for Excellence

Whether you're competing in the business world or the job market (or competing to keep the job you have), the key to success is excellence. Employers and clients with their heads screwed on straight want to keep excellent service because excellence represents more value for each dollar spent.

That means to recession-proof your business, employment or present job, you need to rise above the mediocre. This raises the question: if excellence is the key to success, what is the key to excellence?

Henry over at assessment.com provides a great insight into what it takes to rise to excellence in one's work:

One comment that is heard time and again about those who demonstrate excellence is, "He/she is a natural at it." They don’t seem to struggle to be excellent; it just flows. That is always a sign of motivation, and therein lies the first key: Motivation is required for excellence. Motivation is what we like to do naturally. It’s like being right or left-handed. We don’t even think about it. We just write. The same is true for people known for excellence. They have a group of motivations that work in concert to help them perform at a higher level. Like all motivations, these were inborn and are as much a part of them as being blue-eyed or tall. But there is a second key: Motivation can be developed. People who demonstrate excellence have identified their motivations and worked hard to develop them. They have added knowledge, skill, experience and practice to consistently produce at the highest levels. By the way, there is a flip side to these two keys, and it is this: The best we can be with low motivation is adequate. No matter how hard we work and desire it, in the long run we will never be excellent at something without high levels of motivation in that area. In other words, if we toil in areas where we have low motivation, we resign ourselves to mediocrity.

He has not told the whole story, to be sure, but what he says makes sense. We tend to be good at what we like, and we tend to like what we're good at.

The Motivational Assessment Personality Profile (a test you can take for free over at assessment.com) will scientifically analyze how various job talents and skills motivate you. You can pay to get more information and insight from the test, but if you are like me, you will be surprised at the insights you get even from the free evaluation.

I recommend you take the free test. But don't buy anything yet, at least until my next post on this subject. Until then, I'd be pleased to hear your reactions to the test results in the comments section.