The book we have read this month is The Right and Wrong Stuff. How brilliant careers are made and unmade written by Carter Cast, in which the author aims to explore the career derailment that most people suffer at some point of their professional development.
“The derailment research shows that careers stall more from having the ‘wrong stuff’ (such as being insensitive to others) than lacking the ‘right stuff’ (for example, having strong analytical skills). The author claims that the topic ‘career derailment’ should be included as part of career development dialogues instead of focusing only on strengths, just because people need to know fully personal feedback they could use to improve their careers.
According to him, “It’s important to discover our strengths, BUT when we fail it’s because we do not understand and manage our weaknesses and vulnerabilities.” And companies have lot of work to do in this, because if they focus excessively on the positive, they do not take into consideration that “not all strengths are of equal importance. What you are good at might not be what your firm needs you to be good at”.
At the end of the book, readers can also find an interesting “derailment assessment”.
