How to Play to Your Strengths

Submitted by admin on October 8, 2009 - 3:22pm

Laura Morgan Roberts, Gretchen Spreitzer, Jane Dutton, Robert Quinn, Emily Heaphy, and Brianna Barker

Harvard Business Review

January 1, 2005 (All day)

You may have more to gain by developing your gifts and leveraging your natural skills than by trying to repair your weaknesses. Here is a systematic way to discover who you are at your very best.

Most feedback accentuates the negative. During formal employee evaluations, discussions invariably focus on “opportunities for improvement,” even if the overall evaluation is laudatory. Informally, the sting of criticism lasts longer than the balm of praise. Multiple studies have shown that people pay keen attention to negative information. For example, when asked to recall important emotional events, people remember four negative memories for every positive one. No wonder most executives give and receive performance reviews with all the enthusiasm of a child on the way to the dentist.