Those who are familiar with Marcus Buckingham's works will know where I'm coming from. Though I want to go beyond his call for a strength-focused approach, as I believe it is incomplete.
Buckingham suggests that focusing on developing strengths is superior to "fixing" weaknesses. By doing so, the potential of a person's excellence greatly increases.
Having applied this theory in my own business (client-based), I strongly believe in it. By leveraging on my staff's strengths, they have been able to provide their own versions of customer excellence to their respective clients.
Of course, the naturally thing to ask is: what about weaknesses? Now, everyone will have weaknesses, and not every weaknesses can be ironed out (god forbid this! Humanity will become boring!)
Focusing on ironing out weaknesses will produce common individuals, while able to handle daily responsibilities without a problem, will be without the ability to handle situations requiring a special mojo.
Focusing on developing strengths will prepare an individual to handle difficult cases in spite of their weaknesses. When that particular case arise, they will realise that they were readying themselves for this moment. They were readying themselves to shoot for the stars.
But beyond the focus of strengths, there are also "critical weaknesses", and these must be ironed out. These are weaknesses which will cause failure FOR SURE. Imagine an insurance agent with bad habit of lateness, making every client of his wait for 30-60min for every appointment. No matter what strength he may have (good at selling, extreme care for the client, expert at saving money for clients etc), no one is going to trust a person who cannot keep the promise of time. That is a "critical weakness". And it must be sorted out.
