While working on the writing for our second and third books in the Success Series, my wife gave me a book to peruse: "Now Discover your Strengths" by Marcus Buckingham and Donald Clifton.  I quickly picked up the upgraded version of this 2001 book, "Strengths Finder 2.0" by Tom Rath (2007).  Both books encompased 40 years of research (over 10 million people worldwide) by Gallop International Research on the topic of engagement in the workplace.

The interesting and overwhelming fact Gallop found is that less than one-third of employed people feel they have the opportunity to do what they do best everyday.  Of those not optimizing their talents, nearly all of them are disengaged from their work leading to a significant number of employees who: dread going to work, have more negative interactions with other employees, treat customers poorly, achieve less on a daily basis, etc...

The issue is that the focus, especially in business, is on improving weaknesses and not on enhancing strengths.  The researchers believe that every person is born with innate talents, and those become their operating strengths.  You can do some work to attempt to overcome these weaknesses, but it will never produce the desired results (think loner trying to be taught to sell).  On the other hand, if people are given training and experiences to enhance their strengths, and recruitment is done to fill in missing talents, organizations would be much more successful.

While I've only touched the surface of this research and its findings, it does pose an interesting question: Would an organization benefit more from giving its talented individuals more experiences and mentoring in their natural talents to make them that much more valuable to the organization?  (They'd be happier and more productive, wouldn't they?)  Is this a better way to manage talent?  Your thoughts?