Essentials of Organizational Behavior, 14/e

Ability

Contrary to what we were taught in grade school, we weren’t all created equal in our abilities. For example, regardless of how motivated you are, you may not be able to act as well as Jennifer Lawrence, play basketball as well as LeBron James, or write as well as Stephen King. Of course, all of us have strengths and weaknesses that make us relatively superior or inferior to others in performing certain tasks or activities. From management’s standpoint, the challenge is to understand the differences to increase the likelihood that a given employee will perform their job well.

What does ability mean? As we use the term, ability is an individual’s current capacity to perform the various tasks of a job. Overall abilities are essentially made ...