---
title: "What You Lack May Be Exactly the Abilities Beyond Your Profession"
description: "In the eyes of bosses, what kind of employees are considered 'excellent'? There may never be a standard answer, but when asked, CEOs often give surprisingly similar responses. This article lists nine key abilities that CEOs value but most people lack, including expressing ideas clearly, asking good questions, storytelling, selling, reliability, knowing when to stay silent, accepting feedback, self-management, and connecting dots."
author: "New Distribution"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2016-07-06"
language: "en"
canonical: "https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/what-you-lack-may-be-exactly-the-abilities-beyond-your-profession-8afba41e/"
markdown: "https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/what-you-lack-may-be-exactly-the-abilities-beyond-your-profession-8afba41e.md"
original_source: "https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/ZIY-Skbc3vXYWGkgf08nLg"
translation: "https://xinjignxiao.com/zh/articles/%E4%BD%A0%E6%AC%A0%E7%BC%BA%E7%9A%84-%E6%81%B0%E6%81%B0%E6%98%AF%E4%B8%93%E4%B8%9A%E4%BB%A5%E5%A4%96%E7%9A%84%E8%83%BD%E5%8A%9B-8afba41e.md"
attribution: "New Distribution — https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/what-you-lack-may-be-exactly-the-abilities-beyond-your-profession-8afba41e/"
usage_policy: "https://xinjignxiao.com/ai-policy.txt"
---

# What You Lack May Be Exactly the Abilities Beyond Your Profession

> In the eyes of bosses, what kind of employees are considered 'excellent'? There may never be a standard answer, but when asked, CEOs often give surprisingly similar responses. This article lists nine key abilities that CEOs value but most people lack, including expressing ideas clearly, asking good questions, storytelling, selling, reliability, knowing when to stay silent, accepting feedback, self-management, and connecting dots.

In the eyes of bosses, what kind of employees are considered 'excellent'?
This question may never have a standard answer, because everyone's position and industry are different, and the abilities and qualities required are also different. However, when you ask company CEOs, you will find that most of the answers are surprisingly similar.
What are the abilities that CEOs consider important but most people lack? Read on.

**1**
**Expressing ideas accurately with language**
This is truly a skill.
Honestly, most of us lack this skill, but it is extremely important.
Expressing your thoughts accurately can help you build relationships and leave a deep impression on others. Mastering this skill allows you to communicate ideas freely with others.
Although I am not an expert, I believe the key to improving your expression skills is to be brave and speak up.
You can try talking to strangers, striking up conversations with train seatmates, or contacting a first love you haven't seen in years. Chat with those you need to muster courage to talk to, which forces you to articulate your thoughts clearly.

**2**
**The ability to ask the right questions**
People love those who ask them questions, but they don't like those who always tell them answers.
(People love people who ASK them. People don't like people who TELL them.)
We can't always come up with the right answers, but we can ask the right questions.
A right question leads to another new question. Only countless right questions can lead to a right answer, an effective solution.
To ask good questions, you need to have genuine curiosity about the matter. Delving deeper step by step, constantly exploring the essence or original state of things, not only helps you think but also helps the person being asked to think together.

**3**
**The ability to tell stories**
Many people are remembered for a long time because they know how to tell a good story.
Over the decades of your life, you will meet countless people, and you will forget most of them, but you will definitely remember those who can tell stories.

**4**
**The ability to sell**
Once upon a time, selling skills were the key to the success of all retail businesses.
Today, even though click-through rates and exposure mean everything, good selling ability is still not to be underestimated.
But if you are not a salesperson, do you not need selling ability?
The answer is definitely no, because the 'product' you sell can be your opinions, your business plan. Think of it this way—if you can't convince someone to buy a bar of soap, how can you expect others to approve your project proposal?

**5**
**The ability to 'walk the talk'**
If there is one skill that will help you through any test in your career forever, it is being a reliable person—doing what you tell people you will do.
Honestly, this is harder than it sounds.
If you can keep your promises and do what you say, you will be needed by all companies, because you will make superiors feel at ease entrusting tasks to you, and subordinates will feel assured to complete what you assign. Conversely, no one wants to work with unreliable people.

**6**
**Knowing when to stay 'silent'**
This is also a skill.
We speak 10,000 sentences a day, but when you speak, you are actually emitting energy. Each of us may have 6,000 thoughts in our heads every day, but unfortunately, 95% of them are the same as yesterday's.
Silencing some of those thoughts, having more calm and reflection, will bring us less stress, less fear, and less regret.
More often, we need to know when we should not speak and when we should think. Next time you can't help but refute a colleague's new idea, or when you want to stand up and tell your boss something immediately, please calm down for 5 seconds and think: what would be the consequences of saying this? Is there a better way to express it?

**7**
**Truly listening to feedback**
For most people, hearing 'you made a mistake' from bosses and colleagues is not only embarrassing but also psychologically hard on themselves.
Ed Batista, an instructor at Stanford Graduate School of Business, also says that receiving feedback can be stressful. However, the more often you ask for feedback, the less stress you will feel when initiating requests and receiving feedback.
An important skill is to set aside emotions and focus on absorbing information and feedback. Use your rationality—not emotions—to determine which feedback is valid and which is not.
Afterwards, you will find that this feedback—especially negative feedback—brings you more growth than you expected.
In the workplace, don't always think others are against you. Don't take it personally.

**8**
**Managing yourself is a skill**
Mentally mature people can manage themselves well, whether it's deadlines or their quick temper.
They can quickly recover from any setback, and they can prioritize the trivial tasks at hand.
If you can complete all tasks and deliverables without reminders, if your boss or colleagues don't need to remind you to submit a project or email, they can save a lot of energy.
Excellent employees naturally have a timeline in mind, and every project follow-up doesn't require others to remind them; instead, they regularly report to superiors and get feedback. This not only shows your rigor and seriousness but also ensures the direction of your work, so you don't waste time and energy going in the wrong direction. This is often the most underestimated skill.

**9**
**The ability to connect the dots**
**'I really want to work hard, but I just don't have a direction.'**
Stop obsessing over 'direction.' Sometimes pursuing a so-called direction is not as good as doing one thing down-to-earth.
If we pay attention to learning from details in everything in life, if the task your boss assigns seems unrelated to your major or current job, don't worry. In the end, you will always find opportunities to connect all your experiences into a line, just as Steve Jobs once said: all your past experiences will connect from points to lines, and they may point to every bit of your progress.
'You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.'
——Steve Jobs

**Source: LinkedIn China (ID: LinkedIn-China)**
**At the request of many distributor friends, the third B-end e-commerce inspection class of this public platform will be held from July 9 to 12, visiting three platforms: Wanshang Yizhan, Yunbao Shangmeng, and Weijie Chengpei. Distributor friends interested in transformation can join us for on-site inspections:**
**Organization format**
1. Company visits
2. Actual market case visits
3. On-site explanations
4. One-on-one exchanges
Participating distributor friends only need to pay a registration fee of 200 yuan. Time: July 9-12, 2016. Location: Changsha, Xiamen.
Interested distributor friends can register by long-pressing the QR code below.
When adding friends, please reply 'Third Registration'.
**Previous inspection enterprise cases:**
**Yishang Logistics Model Inspection**
(Second B-end e-commerce inspection group Yishang Logistics)
**Caiba Model Inspection**
**Jinhuobao Model Inspection**
**Beiquan Model On-site Inspection**
**Piduoduo Model On-site Inspection**
-END-
The best FMCG distributor learning platform in China
Focusing on providing professional, practical, and applicable tutorials for enterprises and distributors
Committed to helping Chinese FMCG distributors grow rapidly
**The most professional and practical knowledge base in the FMCG industry**
Reply with the red numbers below to get corresponding content
Reply with number 1 to view the complete knowledge base
| **001** Excellent article selection | **002** Distributor market operations | **003** Terminal visit management | **004** Sales supervisor skills | **005** Sales improvement techniques | **006** Channel expansion | **007** Managing distributors | **008** Distributor development | **009** Distributor internal operations management | **010** Team management | **011** Efficient distribution techniques | **012** Sales manager's eighteen skills | **013** KA operation methods and strategies | **014** First lesson for new salespeople | **015** Internet, brands | **016** Distributor B2B transformation |
[Long press QR code to follow]


---

## Copyright and AI use

This article is sourced from New Distribution. Search, quotation, summarization, and model training are permitted, but every use must credit New Distribution and retain the canonical source URL.

Contact: zhaobo258@gmail.com · +86 158 5481 7671