Aligning Your Talent with Your Business Goals
The Highlands Ability Battery

A law firm's strategic business plan sheds light on the overarching talent requirements necessary for meeting the firm's business goals. By identifying talent strengths, challenges and gaps at the organizational level, a firm can strategically align talent initiatives with practice group and firm business objectives.

But what would it look like to do this at the individual level? An analysis of where your specific strengths, challenges and talent gaps lie could enable you to be more intentional about what action you take relative to your professional development and to the fulfillment of individual and practice group business objectives.

One way of obtaining this type of self-knowledge is through assessments that provide in-depth data about your abilities and shed light on where and how to target your efforts. With this additional insight you can manage your own practice and career in an informed way, creating a plan that aligns your natural areas of strengths and interests with your particular professional goals.

In addition, the enhanced self-knowledge that assessments provide positions you to make wise, informed and strategic decisions in any number of areas of your daily practice, e.g., how you might:

• uniquely pursue aspects of client development relative to your personality and innate abilities;
• serve your clients more effectively;
• manage your practice more efficiently;
• determine what areas of your professional life require developmental attention;
• determine what practice area or tasks/roles may be the best fit (and/or lesser fit) for you;
• bring clarity, purpose and direction to the management of your career.

In short, whether for organizational or individual awareness, assessments can play a critical role in the alignment of your talent and your business goals, an alignment that is critical for overall success.

One of the helpful assessments for accomplishing this is The Highlands Ability Battery.

About The Highlands Ability Battery (THAB)

The Highlands Ability Battery (THAB) is an instrument that assesses your abilities in 19 different areas. It measures such things as how you learn new information, process information, solve problems, make decisions, communicate and work with others. These abilities are not related to your intelligence but to your natural "hard-wiring". By assessing your abilities in these areas, THAB provides you with very helpful self-knowledge in terms of how to align your natural abilities with your business and professional goals.

Relative to your business goals, for example, consider Tina, a lawyer who scored very high on the "specialist" scale, meaning her natural strength is to focus on and master very specialized areas. Once she became aware of this, she completely changed her approach to building a relationship with a business owner whom she knew to be a "generalist," that is someone who is more naturally interested in a broad range of topics. While Tina still prepared to discuss the details of the client's legal matters, she also forced herself to think more broadly about the bigger picture interests of the client and his business. This was crucial in helping the client to feel that Tina was not simply a legal specialist, but someone who truly understood his business/industry/operation.

In terms of professional development, consider Tim, an IP litigation lawyer who scored in the low to mid-range on the "spatial relations" scale. For the first time, he understood why some aspects of his IP work – particularly matters where product-design analysis was required on sophisticated products – demanded more of his time, attention and energy. With this new self-knowledge, Tim began to partner with another attorney in his practice group who had strong spatial relations abilities asking that attorney to handle the in-depth design analysis portion of this particular type of matter.

Scoring low in an ability does not mean that you cannot do a task requiring it. It simply means that employing this ability will require more energy and take more time for you to complete. And, in most cases, you may simply find that you have little interest or enjoyment in the task that requires it.

Naturally, it is possible to develop both an innate ability as well as a weaker ability (i.e. one that does not come naturally to you). However, you will find that developing an innate ability will come much easier to you and will actually be enjoyable whereas developing a weaker ability will be more challenging. The former will energize you and the latter will demand more of your time, effort and energy.

Finally, your natural abilities are only one factor among others that determine your professional and personal satisfaction and success. Other factors that need to be taken into account include the skills you have developed over the years as well as your experience, interests, goals, values and family history.

What distinguishes THAB from other assessments?

The THAB is an instrument that measures (actually "tests") your natural abilities and is an objective assessment. Other instruments, more self-reporting in nature, measure any number of areas including personality (e.g. Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, DISC), leadership potential (e.g. multirater 360? surveys), cognitive ability, other behavioral-based competencies (e.g. emotional intelligence, motivation), etc.

Any assessment or evaluation method on its own would fail to provide you with a comprehensive picture of your strengths and challenges. And yet a combination of two or more of the instruments above can provide you with insight that offers you a more accurate picture of yourself. Like looking into a mirror, accurate self-insight is crucial for building upon strengths, identifying gaps, being aware of blind-spots, developing areas of challenge and eliminating areas or tasks that are not a good fit with your natural hard-wiring.

How do I benefit from taking THAB?

The THAB offers insight into your natural abilities which in turn can help you to be more intentional about what action you take relative to your professional development and fulfillment of individual and practice group business objectives.

The THAB report will enable you to insightfully assess and draw upon your natural abilities for more effective management of your practice, your daily relationships and your reactions to daily events. For associates and those new to the field of law, THAB results can help you to identify which areas of law you are most likely to excel in and enjoy.

Your THAB results will provide you with information for:

• enhanced self-insight which can play a significant role in identifying the types of positions, projects and tasks that are the best fit for you (as well as what positions, projects and tasks are a lesser fit for you); and
• greater clarity and self-insight for managing your current professional and personal responsibilities and for making future career decisions.

How do I apply my results?

Working with a Coach trained to interpret and to assist you in leveraging your results is highly recommended. Your coach can work with you to create a plan with action steps that is tailored to you and which focuses on the goals most important to you.

Areas the Coach will help you focus on include:

• Client development
• Client service
• Practice management
• Professional development
• Leadership
• Career direction/development

Taking the THAB

Prior to taking THAB you will be asked to complete and return a client intake form. The THAB can be accessed online 24/7. You will receive complete instructions for taking THAB from your Coach.

THAB is made up of 19 different work samples and will take you approximately 3 hours to complete. You can take the assessment at a time most convenient to your schedule and can either complete it in one sitting or in intervals.

Once you have completed the assessment a debriefing session will be arranged with your Coach to provide you with your 37-page individual report and review your results with you. For groups, a combination of workshop and individual coaching will be conducted to explain the results and provide individual feedback.

Finally, professionals will find significant value in talent assessments. The in-depth understanding gained through the process provides vital information for bringing clarity, insight and strategic vision to the alignment of a professional's talent with their business, leadership and professional goals.

Carolyn Davis Sklar is President of Sklar & Associates LLC. She coaches attorneys at all levels from Associate to seasoned Partner on client development, leadership and professional development matters. Carolyn can be contacted at 314-265-9729 or csklar@sklarandassociates.com.