Turn the Right Knobs
Building the best team in the world by focusing on strengths, not gaps
It’s that time of year again. The annual performance review season. Across offices everywhere, you can see the same patterns: colleagues approach it with dread, managers try to postpone it, and HR sends increasingly urgent reminders. Nobody seems excited about it.
I was sitting across from Rob in what was supposed to be his annual performance review. Of course, we followed the official process, talked about ratings and whether he’d hit his targets. But we also went beyond that, deep into something else entirely - his aspirations, what he wanted to develop, what would make him feel he was still growing.
Rob was a few years from retirement, with decades of experience across various fields. This wasn’t about “where do you see yourself in five years?” This was about something more fundamental: at any point in life, at any stage of a career, we still want to grow and develop ourselves - for work, for life.
I’d pulled out a mental model I created: the Five-Button Dashboard. “Rob, imagine you have five critical skills for what matters to you now. Each one is like a button on a dashboard that you can dial from 0 to 10. Of course nobody is perfect, so you cannot have all your buttons cranked at 10. The question is: which buttons are actually worth turning, and by how much?”
We mapped out his buttons together, to each knob a specific skill. His knowledge and experience in managing projects - in both finance and operations? Easily an 8 or 9. That was his signature strength, built over decades. Marketing expertise? Maybe a 3, but so what? He wasn’t in marketing. His ability to get stuff done, to execute? Solid 7. People loved working with him - he was approachable, nice, someone you wanted on your team. That was an 8.
But there was something else. Rob had a tendency to work solo when collaboration would help. That button was at maybe a 4 - room for meaningful improvement. And he could talk... a lot. Not in a bad way, but in meetings, he’d sometimes lose the thread, rambling when others needed the gist. We’d actually established a code between us - a humorous expression I’d use to gently signal “let’s focus on the core point here.”
This last one was delicate. I didn’t want to change who Rob was. But I wanted him to be aware of the impact, to have the choice to dial it differently when it mattered.
We spent about an hour on this. Not judging. Not listing his shortcomings. Just running a skills management project together, figuring out where to invest his development energy for maximum return - even at this stage of his career.
Rob looked at me with genuine surprise. “This is the first time I’ve had a manager spend this much concrete time on my actual development, going through the whole process. In the past, my bosses were either avoiding the conversation altogether, or being the police. Why do you do that, Geraud?”
I’d been asked this question before - by others on my team, at various stages of their careers. My answer was always the same: “I want to have the best team in the world. And it doesn’t happen just by chance, it’s a project in itself. So I work on that. Also, I know I don’t have all the skills and strengths myself, so I make sure that the team around me can cover for my weaknesses while I cover for theirs.”
Then, especially to the more junior ones, I’d add with a smile: “And one day you may be my boss, so I want to make sure you become a great boss who looks after my own development!”
🧑💼 The Business Reality: Excellence Isn’t Perfection
This is really what this article is about: identifying the right strengths and making impactful progress with the right effort. This concept applies across many contexts, not just performance reviews.
In product development
Not every feature needs to be perfect. I’ve seen teams spend months polishing a feature to perfection, only to discover users barely care about it. Meanwhile, a slightly rough but functional feature that solves a real problem gets shipped fast and loved immediately. The question isn’t “is this perfect?” It’s “is this good enough to deliver real value?”
In education:
The same principle applies. When kids are already good at something, encourage them but don’t overinvest - they’ve got it covered. When they’re really struggling, determine if they need professional help from a teacher or tutor. But it’s the middle ground that deserves the most attention - the subjects where they’re just okay but could become confident with focused effort. That’s where you can help them achieve significant progress without grinding. And here’s the bonus: when they gain confidence in those middle areas, I’ve often seen it spill over into the topics where they struggle. Confidence is contagious.
In this very Substack account!
I publish stories on Substack every week. I know each article has weaknesses - the structure could be tighter, the examples more polished, the research deeper. But they also have strengths - authenticity, practical insights, real experiences. While I gradually work on improvements, I focus primarily on what makes the articles achieve my goals: sparking conversations, building relationships with readers, and maintaining the discipline of regular publishing. Waiting until every weakness is fixed would mean never publishing at all.
The pattern is the same everywhere: it’s better to have something imperfect delivered than nothing at all because we tried to make it perfect. Excellence isn’t about being flawless at everything. It’s about being really good at the things that matter, while keeping everything else functional enough.
🧑🔬 The Science Of Strength-Based Development
Over 50 years ago, management guru Peter Drucker challenged conventional wisdom with a radical statement:
“A person can perform only from strength. One cannot build performance on weakness, let alone on something one cannot do at all.”
Decades of peer-reviewed research have proven him right. A systematic review published in the Journal of Happiness Studies found that strengths use in the workplace is consistently associated with job satisfaction, work engagement, well-being, and work performance (Miglianico et al., 2020). Gallup’s study of nearly 1.2 million employees across 49,495 business units found that employees who use their strengths daily are six times more likely to be engaged at work, with strengths-based development increasing productivity by 8-18%.
A Dutch study published in Frontiers in Psychology of 422 employees found that strengths-based performance appraisals significantly increased perceived supervisor support and motivation to improve performance - particularly powerful when the performance rating was relatively low (van Woerkom & Kroon, 2020). Research in Psychotherapy Research demonstrated that strength-based methods outperformed traditional deficit-focused interventions in building therapeutic relationships and motivation (Flückiger et al., 2023).
Why does this work? Self-determination theory suggests that strengths-based approaches fulfill our psychological needs for competence and relatedness (Deci & Ryan, 2008). When we focus on what people do well, they feel supported rather than threatened. This creates a foundation of trust that makes even difficult conversations more productive.
But what about very junior workers who may not have developed their skills yet, or don’t even know what they’re good at? Research in the Journal of Applied Psychology shows this approach becomes even more valuable early in careers (Kooij et al., 2017). Early identification of potential strengths - where people learn fastest, what tasks energize them, what comes naturally even when inexperienced - guides development more effectively than trying to fix weaknesses from day one.
Meanwhile, only 14% of employees believe traditional performance reviews inspire them to improve. The deficit-focused model creates anxiety, damages relationships, and ironically reduces the very motivation it aims to increase.
The science is clear: we grow faster and further from our strengths than from our weaknesses - whether we’re seasoned professionals or just starting out.
🧑🎨 The Art Of Strength-Based Performance Management
So how do you actually apply this in practice? Here’s how I work with my team using the Five-Button Dashboard framework:
Understanding the Moves: Four Examples
The 8→9 move
You’re already excellent at something. Pushing it to world-class takes enormous effort for marginal gain. Sometimes it’s worth it - if this is your signature strength, your true competitive advantage, the thing that makes you irreplaceable. But often? Diminishing returns. That energy might be better spent elsewhere.
The 5→7 move
This is the sweet spot. You’re competent but not exceptional. A focused effort here creates noticeable impact. You go from “does the job” to “really good at this.” This is where I see the biggest return on development investment. The effort is reasonable, the improvement is visible, and the confidence boost is real.
The 3→6 move
You have the basics but you’re still struggling. This takes significant effort but can be worthwhile if it’s a skill you actually need for your role. You’re moving from “barely functional” to “competent” - that’s a meaningful leap that can unlock new opportunities. The question is: is this skill critical enough to warrant the investment?
The 1→3 move
You’re missing a skill entirely. Bringing it from zero to “barely adequate” takes massive effort and you’re still below par. Unless this is a mandatory skill for your role, question whether this energy is worth it.
When and how to address weaknesses?
This strengths-focused philosophy has important limits. Sometimes you do need to invest in weak areas:
Mandatory skills: If you’re missing a critical skill needed to perform your job at all, you have to address it. But honestly, if you’re missing too many of these, question the career choice. Are you in the right role?
Career pathway skills: If someone wants to become XYZ, they’ll need to acquire new skills to get there. This is about intentional growth toward a specific goal. The 0→3 grind becomes worth it when it unlocks the next level.
Context matters: Sometimes what looks like a weakness is just a skill in the wrong context. You can be brilliant at something and suddenly, for some reason, it doesn’t work as well. Or the opposite: you feel weak at something, and in a certain context, you still shine.
When weakness creates real problems
Let’s be clear - focusing on strengths doesn’t mean ignoring problems. When someone’s weakness is actively creating issues, you need to address it directly. But you can do it objectively, focused on “what skill is missing or misused?” and “what do we do about it?” rather than letting negative emotions pollute the discussion.
Kindness is not weakness. Someone has to understand that “this is wrong” and that there will be consequences if not handled properly. This can still be done without blaming or shaming, with a focus on solutions.
You have four options:
Press the ON-Button: Teach just the basics - just enough to function, the minimum required
Teach the skill (move from 1→5) - if they’re able and willing to learn it, invest in bringing them to competence
Acknowledge the gap and plan to fill it - with other team members, tools, or processes - the skill stays where it is, but the problem gets solved differently
Press the OFF-Button: Recognize they’re in the wrong role - and make a change.
This isn’t about being soft. It’s about being strategic and performance-driven. We may spend less focus on gaps, but we still demand excellence where it matters.
Making It Work in Practice
Before your next evaluation conversation - whether you’re giving or receiving one - try this:
Map the skills: Identify the five most critical skills for the role or career aspiration. That can be in general, for all the positions in the organization. It can also be related to certain programs or situations.
Assess honestly: Where is each button currently set (0-10)? This is best done in a dialogue with the involved people.
Find the moves: Which button changes would create the most impact with the right effort?
Be strategic: Where should you invest energy, where should you work around gaps, and where is “good enough” already excellent?
💡 The Key Insight
Performance reviews fail when they focus on fixing everything that’s broken. They succeed when they become strategic projects about amplifying what works.
The shift is profound: from judging someone to running a skills management project together. From “here’s what you did wrong” to “here’s where we’re going and what we need to get there.” The goal isn’t compliance - it’s alignment between what benefits the organization and what benefits the individual.
This requires trust. Your team has to believe you genuinely care about their growth, not just their output. Some will say a manager is responsible for performance, not wellbeing. But there’s no distinction between the two.
The uncomfortable truth: not everyone can excel at everything. Investing heavily to move from incompetent to barely adequate delivers poor returns - exhausting effort for mediocre results. Build teams where individuals excel in specific areas while gaps are covered strategically through collaboration, tools, or design. That’s not accepting weakness. That’s maximizing organizational capability. Excellence is about ROI. Invest development energy where it compounds - where focused effort yields measurable impact. Avoid the trap of grinding toward mediocrity in areas that will never be strengths.
That’s the shift from police to partner. From judgment to collaboration. From exhausting obligation to genuine development.
And that’s not just better performance management. That’s how you build the best team in the world.
This story has been anonymized to protect privacy, but the insights it contains are as real as the day they were discovered. Each one changed how I see some aspect of business, leadership, or life. I hope a few of them might do the same for you.