Extraordinary You: The Untapped Performance Opportunity in Your Workforce

Published: May 28, 2026

Executive Summary

Most organizations have a performance problem they haven’t fully identified. They invest heavily in developing senior leaders, building succession pipelines, and accelerating high-potential talent. Meanwhile, roughly eighty percent of their workforce—individual contributors—are left to navigate development largely on their own.

This gap is one of the most significant untapped opportunities in the modern workforce. Zenger Folkman introduces Extraordinary You—a research-based development experience designed specifically for individual contributors—as a practical, scalable solution. The data is compelling. People are only half as accurate in assessing their own strengths as others are.

Individual contributors with no identified profound strengths perform at the 39th percentile in overall effectiveness. When they develop even one profound strength, their effectiveness jumps to the 73rd percentile.

One profound strength. A 34-percentile jump in effectiveness. That is not marginal improvement. That is transformation. Extraordinary You delivers structured, objective, strengths-based development at scale. It solves the performance gap hiding in plain sight in most organizations—and does so in a way that is practical, affordable, and designed for how people actually work.