Play to Your Strengths An old cliche that's revolutionizing management

Joseph Wise knows exactly what he's good at. The 44-year-oldCEO and chair of eSchool Solutions, an Orlando, Florida, companyproviding information technology systems to schools, is sodisciplined that it's an uncommon day when he doesn't checkoff every item on his to-do list. He's got strong core values,and he rarely strays from them. He's also great at winningothers over, has a powerful drive to be recognized and is a masterarranger. "Basically, I'm a juggler," Wise says ofthis last talent. "I can put many factors in order, aligningpeople, processes and money."

Wise gained such knowledge about his character and talents fromthe results of his Strengths Finder profile, a test designed byThe Gallup Organization to tell people what talents they possessand, conversely, what talents they lack. The flip side is just asimportant, Wise says. Because of the Strengths Finder test, Wiseknows, for instance, that he is not talented in anything involvingmeasurement and numbers.

"I look at everything qualitatively and notquantitatively," he explains. "That's why I have afabulous VP of finance who has a huge measurementorientation." Wise knows his VP of finance's talentsbecause he administers the 180-question, 30-minute exam to othersin his organization. Knowing what everyone is good at helps himhire, promote and assemble teams in the 74-person firm far moreeffectively-and helps him to work better, too. "It'spretty liberating when you can say, 'This is not something I dowell,'" Wise says. "Then you can get a team aroundyou of people who can make sure you don't do that."

Unfortunately, entrepreneurs like Wise are rarities, accordingto a multinational study of millions of employees by Gallup. Itfound only 20 percent of people feel they get a chance to do whatthey do best every day at work. That's more than a shame,according to Gallup ex-chair Donald Clifton. In the best-sellingNow, Discover Your Strengths (FreePress), he and co-author Marcus Buckingham say that the idea ofsticking to what you're good at is the foundation for a wholenew approach to management.

The strengths theory upsets conventional business wisdom bynot saying you should get rid of your weaknesses. Instead,it says you should ignore them and capitalize on your strengths.The only way for a company or a person to achieve maximumpotential, argue the authors, is to identify areas where built-inadvantages exist and then work to become as good as possible atthose. In other words, forget about being well-rounded. If youdon't speak Spanish, don't try to learn. If you don'tseem skilled at selling your products to seniors, don't try toforce it. Instead, become a lopsided but phenomenally successfulspecialist.

The strengths theory is both timely and significant, agreesSusan B. King, a longtime Corning Inc. executive who is now actingas president of Leadership Initiative, a Duke University-affiliatedleadership development organization. "When we are moving awayfrom hierarchical structures in business to greater dependence onteams," she says, "it's really important that peopleunderstand what they bring to the party. In that, [the theory] isrevolutionary."

Stretch Your Strength

Personality, of course, is a very complex and researchedsubject. Psychoanalyst Carl Jung famously began classifying peopleinto introverts and extroverts in the first half of the 20thcentury. Today, such tests as the Minnesota Multiphasic PersonalityInventory, the Meyers-Briggs and other personality tests have beenadministered to millions of people.

The strengths theory differs from its predecessors in the numberof people in its sample study and in the sophistication andcomplexity of its results. While Meyers-Briggs tests classifypeople as one of 16 personality types, the 34 themes of thestrengths theory can be mixed into more than 32 millioncombinations. That means an individual's themes are trulyindividual.

The simple premises behind the strengths theory are, first, thateach person's talents are enduring and unique and, second, thateach person has the most room for growth in the areas of his or hergreatest strengths. These have clear implications for hiring,assigning and promoting individuals as well as designing andimplementing training programs for them. In addition, once you knowa person's strengths, you can manage him or her appropriately.A person who is strong in the analytical theme, for instance,should be given time to carefully sort through all the factorsbefore being asked to make decisions.

The strengths theory has profound applications in planningcompanies' futures as well as in managing their work forces.For instance, if you accept that talents are enduring, you'llbe more careful about hiring the right people in the first place.Strengths-based management techniques also advise entrepreneurs toask people for specific outcomes, letting them achieve results intheir own ways rather than dictating working styles that may notfit employee strengths. And, of course, knowing your personalstrengths can be very handy when it comes to choosing howyou'll spend your own time.

Uncovering Weaknesses

The basic idea behind the strengths theory-that it's betterto concentrate on strengths than to develop weaknesses-does havelimits. Communication, reliability, the ability to get along withothers and some other talents are so important to so many kinds ofwork that almost everybody needs to become as skilled as possiblein those things.

"Anything to do with morals or ethics, there is a baselinerequirement," says Marcus Buckingham. However, he continues,if you know you or another person is weak in, say, empathy, theempathy-impaired individual can be paired with someone whoempathizes well, limiting the damage caused by the blind spot."With self-awareness," he maintains, "anything ispossible."

You can also mess up using strengths theory. It's only toopossible to misdiagnose strengths and put people in jobs theyaren't suited for. "A second and perhaps most pressingrisk is that you'll forget that the point of management isalways the same thing-to cultivate performance," cautionsBuckingham. "The point isn't to become so absorbed in thestrengths of your people that you forget to get the jobdone."

A Strong Future?

Some experts predict significant effects on businesses of allsizes due to the radical ideas behind the strengths theory."If it spreads broadly, it could have a huge impact because itturns much of management and organizational development on itshead," observes King. "It is much more humane. It is muchmore positive. It is not fear- or punishment-based. And companiesthat have implemented it have reduced turnover, increasedproductivity and reduced cost."

Businesses spend so much time training people to repair theirweaknesses, with such disappointing results, that the idea ofachieving greatness by not trying to do everything well is a trulybig one, even if it only revolutionizes training. But, moreimportant than that, entrepreneurs such as Wise hope that cateringto their employees' and their companies' strengths as wellas their own will make their work both more productive and moreenjoyable at little cost.

"It's well worth it," Wise says. "No onebrings everything to the table. This really helps us cut to thechase [and see] how an applicant or team member is wired."

Mark Henricks is an Austin, Texas, writer who specializes inbusiness topics and has written for Entrepreneur for 11years