Onlly 40% of top execs reach their full potential. How would you show that??

tallaght01

There was a guy on the radio today, who was a pretty senior figure in the Michael Smurfit business school at UCD.

Anyway, while talking about something, he said "There's good research that shows only 40% of top executives achieve their full potential" I'm paraphrasing slightly here, but that was the jist of it.

Now well here crappy stats like that all the time, and we ignore them. But this guy was a head of department at our best business school, by all accounts.

I'm not familiar with any business research, and I'm not sure how it's done.

But how would you go about researching something like this? If your research question was "How many top execs reach their full potential?" how would you go about it?

I reckon a qualitative approach could be used to ask about their own perceptions regarding their potential. But that's all I could think of.

Anyone got anything better and more generalisable?

2Scoops

Define 'true potential' as some semi-arbitrary progression through career ranks (veep?).
Count the total number of people who reach this level.
Turn into throwaway sound bite.
Contact local and national press.

tallaght01

you feckin cynic :P

djpbarry

I'm curious to know how someone knows when they've reached their full potential? Is it like completing a video game?

JuliusCaesar

I think Maslow appears to you.