“But not unlike the gremlins in the film of the same name who were transformed into nasty little critters if they were splashed or if they were fed after midnight, irrelevant nontalents can mutate into real weaknesses under one condition: As soon as you find yourself in a role that requires you to play to one of your nontalents-or area of low skills or knowledge-a weakness is born.”

“Each of these strategies-get a little better at it, design a support system, use one of your strongest themes to overwhelm your weakness, find a partner, and just stop doing it-can help you as you strive to build your life around your strengths.”

“But if you find yourself thinking in the future, if you find yourself actually anticipating the activity-'When can I do this again?'-it is a pretty good sign that you are enjoying it and that one of your talents is in play.”

“Third, you will excel only by maximizing your strengths, never by fixing your weaknesses. This is not the same as saying 'ignore your weaknesses.”

“Since the greatest room for each person's growth is in the areas of his greatest strength, you should focus your training time and money on educating him about his strengths and figuring out ways to build on these strengths rather than on remedially trying to plug his 'skill gaps.' You will find that this one shift in emphasis will pay huge dividends. In one fell swoop you will sidestep three potential pitfalls to building a strengths-based organization: the 'I don't have the skills and knowledge I need' problem, the 'I don't know what I'm best at' problem, and the 'my manager doesn't know what I'm best at' problem.”

“Our research into human strengths does not support the extreme, and extremely misleading, assertion that 'you can play any role you set your mind to,' but it does lead us to this truth: Whatever you set your mind to, you will be most successful when you craft your role to play to your signature talents most of the time.”

“Lastly, since the greatest room for each person's growth lies in his areas of greatest strength, you should devise ways to help each person grow his career without necessarily promoting him up the corporate ladder and out of his areas of strength. In this organization 'promotion' will mean finding ways to give prestige, respect, and financial reward to anyone who has achieved word-class performance in any role, no matter where that role is in the hierarchy. By doing so you will overcome the remaining two obstacles to building a strengths-based organization: the 'even though I'm now in the wrong role, it was the only way to grow my career' problem and the 'I'm in a pass-through role that no one respects' problem.”