Over at the Creating Passionate Users blog there is a great post about focusing on strength as opposed to spending too much time on weaknesses or "areas of improvement".
By focusing on "areas of improvement", we're putting a square peg in a round hole. What do we end up with? A crappy, rounded off peg who meets the minimum thresholds at the expense of their most kick-ass attributes. What if let ourselves (and those we manage) spend a lot more energy in the areas where we are—or could be—amazing? I suggest taking a very hard look at the "areas of improvement" list and see if we can rearrange the context so that those things become less important. In other words, why don't we try to make a square hole?
Mediocrity by "areas of improvement" [Creating Passionate Users]