Book of the month

People believe that if they improve on their areas of weakness, they can optimize their performance, and that if they work hard, they can achieve anything they want. Such conventional wisdom is wrong, according to author Tom Rath in his book StrengthsFinder 2.0. He builds on the Gallup Organization's decades of experience studying human nature and behavior.

"You cannot be anything you want to be, but you can be a lot more of who you already are," Rath writes. The story of Daniel "Rudy" Ruettiger, made into the movie Rudy, in some ways illustrates Rath's point. The driven but hapless Notre Dame football player got 27 seconds of playing time after thousands of hours of relentless work. At the same time, it sends a wrongheaded message: Rather than figuring out where he could naturally excel, Rudy took the path of most resistance.

Rath encourages the opposite approach: Determine those things we already do well and then focus our energies on doing them brilliantly. When we play to our strengths, we improve our chances of happiness and success.

Just as important is not wasting much time trying to overcome our weaknesses. On the job, employees are often presented with "areas of improvement" and told to get good at what goes against their nature. Don't try to fix the unfixable. Instead, optimize what you do easily and enthusiastically. That's how to deliver genuine value to your organization.

StrengthsFinder 2.0 offers a free, online assessment from Gallup that enables you to determine your five core strengths out of 34 that Gallup identifies, and how to put them to work. If you're a manager, you might want to encourage your staff to participate so that you can excel as a team.