Don't focus on your strengths and just ignore your weaknesses but, rather, focus on your strengths and find ways to manage your weaknesses. So what is the most effective way to manage a weakness?

To begin with, you need to know what a weakness is. Our definition of a weakness is anything that gets in the way of excellent performance. To some this may seem to be an obvious definition, but before skipping past it, bear in mind that it is not the definition of weakness that most of us would use. Most of us would probably side with Webster’s and the Oxford English Dictionary and define a weakness as “an area where we lack proficiency.” As you strive to build your life around your strengths, we advise you to steer clear of this definition for one very practical reason: Like all of us, you have countless areas where you lack proficiency, but most of them are simply not worth bothering about. Why? Because they don’t get in the way of excellent performance. They are irrelevant. They don’t need to be managed at all, just ignored.

Once you know you have a genuine weakness on your hands, a deficiency that actually gets in the way of excellent performance, how can you best deal with it? The first thing you have to do is identify whether the weakness is a skills weakness, a knowledge weakness, or a talent weakness. For example, you might be struggling as a medical device salesperson not because you lack the talent to confront but because you are wasting your time selling to doctors when the reality of today’s healthcare market is that the chief financial officer is the real decision maker. Or perhaps as a manager your difficulties in delegating effectively have less to do with inability to lead and more with simply not knowing how to conduct a focused goalsetting session with your staff. In instances such as these, the solution is clear: Go and acquire the skills or knowledge you need.

How can you know for certain that the missing ingredient is knowledge or skill and not talent? Well, since developing excellent performance is hardly an exact science, it’s difficult to know for certain, but our advice is this: If, after acquiring the knowledge and skills you feel you need, your performance is still subpar and you really hate doing this particular activity, then by process of elimination the missing ingredient must be talent. At which point you should stop wasting time trying to study your way to excellence and, instead, turn to a more creative strategy. Consider the following five creative strategies, distilled from our interviews with excellent performers, for managing a talent weakness:

1.  Get a little better at it.

2.  Design a support system.

3.  Use one of your strongest themes to overwhelm your weakness.

4.  Find a partner.

5.  Just stop doing it. This strategy is a last resort but, if you can just stop doing it, who would you need to talk to, if anyone, to make this happen?

But you can't always choose one of these strategies - often a job just doesn't allow for even one of these. If so, here are four strategies to help you figure out how to minimize the amount of time your weaknesses take or the amount of distress they cause. As you did with your strengths, first select from your top three weaknesses the one that is currently proving most damaging to you.  Then consider each of these four strategies:

1. Stop doing the activity and see if anyone notices or cares. Ask yourself:

a. Is this activity/weakness critical to your success on your job?

b. If you can't stop doing the activity, how can you reduce the amount of time you spend on it? Who would you need to talk to, if anyone, to make this happen?

2. Team up with someone who is strengthened by the very activity that weakens you.

c. Who do you work with that really likes to do this activity? Can you swap activities? (you do what he/she doesn't like and vice versa)

d. Who could teach you a trick or technique for how to do this activity more quickly/efficiently?

e. How can you make this activity more fun to do? (is there somebody you can do this activity with, or can you make a game out of this activity?)

3. Offer up one of your strengths, and gradually steer your job toward this strength and away from the weakness.

f. Which of your strengths can you use to get this activity done more easily?

g. How can you gradually carve a new role for yourself by regularly volunteering your strengths?

4. Perceive your weakness from a different perspective.

h. How can you shift your perspective on the way you do the activity?

i. Would it be helpful to do this activity at a different time of day?

j. How can you look at this activity through the lens of one of your strengths?

k. How will doing this activity support you in maximizing your strengths (example: organizing my desk so I can find customer files more quickly)

l. What connection, if any, can you make between this activity and something that interests you or is really important to you?