The Highlands Company has identified eight critical factors in the Whole Person Approach which should be considered in educational and career decisions. These factors are represented as an interlocking wheel.

Natural Abilities. These are identified and measured by the Highlands Ability Battery. A person is happiest and performs best when their natural abilities are employed to the fullest.

Skills. These are those function-driven tasks an individual has learned to do well. They develop over time through study, education, application and practice. To the extent an individual takes advantage of their innate abilities in developing a skill, the skill will be acquired more quickly, easily and fully.

Personal Style. Every individual has developed speech patterns, body language, social devices, and personality traits unique to them. Because other individuals respond either more or less favorably to a person's personal style, it's important to identify its ingredients in each individual to enable that individual to relate better to other people.

Interests. Over the years, a person develops interests unique to them. When these are identified and recognized, the individual can be helped to combine these with her abilities to achieve a fuller and more integrated use of both. Interest assessment is available with the Strong Interest Inventory.

Family of Origin. An individual’s background and family shape their life and work ethic. We encourage the individual to examine and to understand how their family history and intra-family relationships have influenced them.

Values. An individual’s values (i.e., scales for judging good and evil, wise and foolish, moral and immoral) define one's reaction to people and events around them. When a sense of one's values is combined with knowledge of the other factors in the whole person, the individual is helped to bring their plans and choices into sharper focus.

Goals. Every person has goals which control and drive their activities, both every day and over the foreseeable future. The individual may wish to modify these goals in light of their innate abilities. The results of the timeframe worksample may show, for example, that one may be happiest pursuing short-term goals.

Career Development Stage. Each individual confronts critical stages or transition in her life. Some of these are work- or career-related. These career issues are sometimes self-created and sometimes caused by external forces (e.g., company downsizing). By defining and discussing the issues confronting the individual, we are able to help her through these transitions.