It will come as little surprise to many employees to be told that managers are often obsessed with correcting what’s wrong with processes, systems and in particular people. I’ve just spent time talking with a group of managers about strengths and weaknesses.

Identifying people’s weaknesses a priority
Many companies put systems in place to identify people’s weaknesses, weaknesses in the sales process and so on in the belief that if management can identify the weaknesses and remove them then the result will be to end up with “strengths”.

The problem with this process is that it assumes that strengths can be ignored because they will remain constant. But this just isn’t true. I often get asked to solve a problem of good talent leaving a company. One of the first questions I ask is, “Why do people join and stay in the business?”.

Blinded by weaknesses
I’ve found that most senior “new hires” are greeted like saviours and are seen as ideal fits into the organisation. In time, too often, this opinion changes. Now I can hear loads of people say that if you point out weaknesses and then fix them that everything will be all right. But could this be missing an opportunity to concentrate on strengths so that they become greater. Time spent on just improving minor weaknesses doesn’t leave much time to increase strengths.

A few weeks ago someone sent out a very informative newsletter with a couple of minor spelling errors. When I visited a business the small errors were pointed out to me by a manager. When I asked what they thought of the content I was told that they had only noticed the mistakes. Later on that day the same individual was complaining that her boss “only ever found fault” in her work.