The Highlands Ability Battery (HAB) is an assessment tool
used to measure and define natural abilities. An ability
is something that is innate and enduring--unlike a skill,
which you can acquire and lose if you do not use it--an
ability remains whether your use it or not. The HAB comprises
19 different work samples. These work samples are objective
tasks specifically designed to use one and only one ability
at a time. The use of work samples rather than a self-report
or opinion differentiates the HAB from other assessment
tools, and makes the HAB objective rather than subjective.
Each section of the battery is timed in order to identify
those tasks that you can do easily and quickly and those
that might not come easily or quickly. Prior education,
training, and experience do not provide an advantage in
completing the work samples. Upon completion of the work
samples, a 30-page report is generated for you. You review
your report, and then schedule a two-hour feedback session
with me, a Highlands Certified Provider.
Over 10,000 people have taken the HAB during the last twenty
years. HAB continues to be shown to be valid and reliable.
What you can expect from
the Highlands Ability Battery?
The Highlands Ability Battery will not identify a specific
career or job for you. Rather, through the Highlands Ability
Battery, you will discover your:
Personal style, which indicates, among other things,
whether you work best as an individual contributor or
as a member of a team Driving abilities, which indicate how you approach
and react to your work environment Specialized abilities, which help and enhance your
work and life Learning channels, which describe how you take
in information Communication and decision making style
You will also:
Understand why certain
tasks are easier (or more difficult) for you
Identify how you can work
with less stress and greater enjoyment
Achieve greater efficiency in problem solving and
decision making
Identify how you best
learn new information
As you consider various careers or jobs, you can compare
the characteristics of those careers and jobs with your
ability pattern and get a sense of how fulfilling (or frustrating)
the job will be. For example, an entrepreneur is typically
a Specialist with a long time-frame orientation. But a Generalist
with short time-frame orientation can be a successful entrepreneur
when the target market requires strong connections and responsiveness.
How to take the Highlands
Ability Battery
The cost of the battery and feedback session is $400. Upon
receipt of your order and payment with MasterCard or Visa,
I will send you the CD. After you receive the CD, you connect
to the Highlands website so the system can set-up an ID
and password for you. While you perform the work samples,
which will take about three hours, you can disconnect from
the Internet. Although it is not necessary to complete the
entire HAB in one sitting, you must use the same computer
for the entire assessment.
Upon completion of the HAB, you can download your results
and a 30-page report. This report shows your scores and
explains the implications of your ability profile. Then,
notify me that you have completed the battery and give me
your HAB name and password so I can preview your results.
How to schedule
a feedback session
After you have completed the HAB, we will schedule your
customized feedback session. During the feedback session,
which will take about two hours, we will discuss your abilities
and how you can structure your work and personal life to
take advantage of your abilities. Because abilities are
generally developed by the time you are 14 and do not change
over time, your scores and feedback session will be relevant
to you throughout your life. If you like, I can record the
feedback session for you so that you can refer to our conversation
in the future.
View a sample Highlands
Ability Battery report
You can view a sample report on the Internet. As you look
over the sample report, remember that there are no bad scores!
High scores are not better than low scores. Rather they
are indicators of how you are hard-wired and where you can
best apply your abilities. (Think of the sports analogy--if
your game is golf, you want a low score; if basketball,
a high score.)
About the history of the
Highlands Ability Battery
"Success
in the Knowledge Economy comes to those who do two things:
Identify and articulate their talents and place themselves
in positions to use them". Don't Waste Your Talents McDonald
& Hutcheson
In 1990, two successful professionals, Bob McDonald, Ph.D.
and Don E. Hutcheson began to wonder how people figure out
what they do well and how they can position themselves to
do what they are good at every single day. For the next
two years, McDonald and Hutcheson sought a way for people
to answer the question "What am I going to do with the rest
of my life?" They studied the early work of Johnson O'Connor,
who had devoted his life to studying innate human abilities.
McDonald and Hutcheson connected O'Connor's work with their
philosophy--people are happier and more fulfilled when they
are doing things that come easily and quickly to them; that
is when they are using their natural abilities. In 1992,
McDonald and Hutcheson acquired the rights to use the existing
ability battery developed by the Johnson O'Connor Research
Foundation. They used this assessment tool as a key component
in the development of their self-discovery process.
In 1997 the assessment tool was released in a computerized
version, now known as the Highlands CD Battery. In this
format, the Highlands Battery has become more accessible
to the general population. The Battery is distributed on
CD-ROM and is taken by clients on their own PC. Results
are generated electronically over the Internet, and personal
feedback sessions are conducted in person or by telephone.
