The Smart Performance Book (Concise Advice): How to be your best business self

By Kevin Duncan

To succeed and perform in today’s business and work environment, you need to harness a broad spectrum of skills and people. This book enables you to highlight your self-improvement areas and establish how to work with your colleagues more effectively. It covers every aspect of high-functioning business performance – from attitude, action, creativity and communication to efficiency, empathy, strategy, and sustainability. At the heart of this book is an ingenious diagnostic tool (ACES System®) that enables anyone to assess their personal strengths and identify self-development areas to perform successfully in the modern business world. Whatever your stage in your work life is, at whatever age, the methods in this book can help you play your best career game, give you the winning edge, and allow you to ace it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: LID Publising
• Release date: Oct 24, 2024
• ISBN: 9781915951663

Book preview

Gray cover featuring a stylized spade symbol at the top, with bold text reading 'BACKGROUND TO THE BOOK AND THE ACES SYSTEM®' below.

Smart performance means having a broad range of skills that enable you to be a success. It’s not enough to be good at just one thing. You don’t have to be top at everything, but the broader the range of your skills, the better you are likely to perform.

Successful modern businesses need to harness a broad spectrum of skills and people, and that means they need you at your best. At the heart of this book is the ACES System – a diagnostic tool that enables you to assess your personal strengths and identify self-improvement areas to help you succeed in the modern business world.

It covers every aspect of high-functioning business performance, from attitude, action, creativity and communication to efficiency, empathy, strategy and sustainability. In short, it ensures that you can be your best, get along with people and get ahead.

Smart performance is not about being competitive or winning. It requires social intelligence as well as good technical skills. It requires you to be inquisitive and thoughtful, taking a responsible approach to learning and self-improvement. The more you discover, the better you will feel and the better you will perform.

The ACES System shows you how to be your best business self. It asks ten carefully conceived questions in eight skills areas, which enables you to discover your typology based on the 56 possible permutations. Yours is formulated based on your top strength and your second best. This then signposts you to the relevant sections in the book. All of this can also be done online.

Training over 20,000 people has allowed us to identify skills capabilities in these eight important areas. There are 56 possible combinations, based on the relationship between these primary and secondary skills.

The system puts the power in the hands of the individual. It celebrates self-assessment by allowing you to summarise your own skills rather than succumb to an arbitrary construct imposed upon you. So you don’t need to wonder whether you are being subjected to trick questions or questionable profiling techniques.

The ACES acronym is derived from the eight skills areas:

A = Attitude and Action

C = Creativity and Communication

E = Efficiency and Empathy

S = Strategy and Sustainability

Quote: 'Excellence is perseverance in disguise.' - Katie Boulter, Tennis player. Text is centered on a dark background.Gray background with a white gear icon featuring a clock in the center. Text reads: 'THE ACES SYSTEM IN DETAIL AND HOW TO USE IT' with 'PART TWO' in the top right corner.

The eight skills areas have been researched and analysed over 25 years of training 20,000 people. They cover the main capabilities that people need in order to be successful at work.

Before you answer the self-audit, here are some notes to help you get the most out of it.

• This is not a psychometric test. It does not ask trick questions and it does not force you into an A/B answer.

• If you answer the same number to every question in a section, you will generate a result with no variation, so try to avoid doing that.

• Try to avoid scoring yourself with a middling three too often. You can if you want, but it is better to go higher or lower to create relative differences.

• Don’t worry about overscoring or underscoring. Some people give themselves a five for a skill; others would give themselves a lower score.

• Don’t compare yourself to others as you complete the audit. It’s about the relative difference between your own skills, not a competition with others.

• Most of the questions are based on being a member of staff working in a salaried company. If you are self-employed or in different circumstances, don’t worry. Just use your skill and judgement.

• There is no endgame other than suggested areas for self-improvement, signposting you to helpful learning content.

Title 'ATTITUDE STATEMENTS' in bold text at the top. Below, a horizontal scale from 1 to 5, labeled 'Strongly disagree' to 'Strongly agree'.A horizontal scale from 1 to 5 labeled 'Strongly disagree' to 'Strongly agree,' with a spade symbol and the title 'ACTION STATEMENTS.'A scale labeled 'Creativity Statements' ranging from 1 to 5, with 'Strongly disagree' on the left and 'Strongly agree' on the right.A scale from 1 to 5 labeled 'Strongly disagree' to 'Strongly agree' with the title 'COMMUNICATION STATEMENTS' above it.A scale from 1 to 5 labeled 'Efficiency Statements' with options ranging from 'Strongly disagree' to 'Strongly agree.'A scale labeled 'Empathy Statements' ranging from 1 (Strongly disagree) to 5 (Strongly agree), with a spade symbol at the top right.