Put Your Mindset to Work
The One Asset You Really Need to Win and Keep the Job You Love
By: James Reed, Paul G. Stoltz, Ph.D.
Published: May 11, 2011
Format: Paperback, 288 pages
ISBN-10: 1591844088
ISBN-13: 978-1591844082
Publisher: Penguin/Portfolio
"You can multiply your chances of getting the job you want and enjoy uncommon success at work while enriching your life immensely along the way", write recruitment and resiliency experts James Reed and Paul G. Stoltz, Ph.D., in their eye opening and essential employment traits developing book Put Your Mindset to Work: The One Asset You Really Need to Win and Keep the Job You Love. The authors describe how specific mental traits not only help the job seeker more desirable to employers, but also how those traits make the individual more likely to succeed and be more engaged on the job once hired.
James Reed (photo left) and Paul Stoltz understand that employees need strong skillsets to complete their assigned job tasks. In most jobs, skills are critical to performing the employment responsibilities. The authors point out, however, that skills alone are not an assurance of being hired, or of being a success in the new employment position. The authors emphasize the importance of what they call mindset for the employee to set themselves apart from the other job applicants and co-workers. A superior mindset includes such traits as integrity, resilience, tenacity, and perspective. For the authors, skills are what a person does, while the mindset is what a person sees, thinks, and believes. The authors describe these mindset qualities as being ever more important as the nature of employment changes, and as the economy becomes ever more globalized in scope.
Paul G. Stoltz Ph.D. (photo left) and James Reed consider mindset to be crucial to not only landing the job, but for being successful in the position following the hiring process. The authors consider mindset to be the lens through which a person views and perceives the world. The power of the mindset creates opportunities for personal growth and the learning and application of the success tools shared in the book. The authors offer the insight that mindset is what employers are really seeking when they hire new people.
Evidence is presented in the book that employers overwhelmingly prefer mindset to skills. They see skillsets as being something they can teach new hires, while mindset is not something they can teach to their employees. In other words, the authors provide strong evidence that for employers, mindset overwhelmingly trumps skillset, when hiring new employees. The authors narrow the concept of mindset even farther to a certain type of important mindset they call the 3G Mindset, based on the premises of:
• Global: openness and big-picture perspective in a global market
• Good: positive force with a firm moral compass
• Grit: tenacity and resilience to achieve success despite adversity
For me, the power of the book is how James Reed and Paul G. Stoltz combine their theoretical framework for the 3G mindset with practical advice for putting the concepts into practice. The book is well structured with each chapter ending with a recap of the ideas presented for review and continued study. The authors also provide hands on self assessment tools, including access to their 3G Mindset site. The book provides the concepts and techniques for gauging, developing, and strengthening these crucial traits. The authors not only describe mindset as critical to being hired and successful once on the job, but they also demonstrate how to put the power of mindset into action.
I highly recommend the insightful and talent management building book Put Your Mindset to Work: The One Asset You Really Need to Win and Keep the Job You Love by James Reed and Paul G. Stoltz, Ph.D., to anyone seeking a definitive guide to discovering the critical personal strength of mindset. This book changes the talent and leadership search and success emphasis, away from skills toward the more important lens of mindset, better suited to a globalized marketplace.
Read the essential career strengthening book Put Your Mindset to Work: The One Asset You Really Need to Win and Keep the Job You Love by James Reed and Paul G. Stoltz, Ph.D., and discover why mindset is more critical to the hiring process and career success than skills. This book provides the background and positive steps toward capitalizing on the power of mindset.
