This story is excerpted from the cover story from INSTORE’s January 2026 edition, “The Alternative Manager’s Toolkit” by Chris Burslem.
Challenge/Task: Improvement
Traditional Playbook: Most managers believe in identifying weaknesses — whether in their skills, team members, or processes — and then working hard to fix them. This often involves training, coaching, or restructuring to shore up deficiencies, with the aim of creating an all-around competent, balanced organization.
The Problem: Constantly fixing weaknesses can be draining, costly, and ultimately ineffective, because many weaknesses are hard to improve beyond mediocrity. It can also divert attention from areas where you could excel and make a real difference. Over-focusing on weaknesses can also foster a negative mindset or a sense of inadequacy among your employees and even yourself.
The Alternative Manager’s Fix: Focus on what you and your team are naturally good at — their strengths — and leverage those to drive excellence. Instead of wasting time trying to dramatically improve weaknesses, accept that some areas will remain average. Build a business based on peak strengths, where talent and passion naturally thrive, and weaknesses become less critical.
How to Make It Happen
- Identify and cultivate core strengths in yourself and your team—what do people naturally excel at? Look for signs of what they enjoy doing, pick up quickly, volunteer for, and what gives them feelings of accomplishment.
- Ask yourself and your staff, “What was the best day you had at work in the last two months? What were you doing?” Similarly, ask, “What was the worst?” And make adjustments so they are doing more of what they have a predilection for and less of what drains them.
- Minimize focus on fixing weaknesses—consider outsourcing, finding a technological solution, or accepting mediocrity in less critical areas.
- Use strengths-based coaching to elevate performance in key areas rather than fix everything.
- Replace traditional, backward-looking annual reviews with regular, informal conversations focused on immediate priorities, performance, and how strengths are being used and developed.
- Celebrate and amplify existing talents rather than obsessing over shortcomings.
The Takeaway
Elevated performance doesn’t come from being good at everything; it comes from leveraging your strengths. Tiger Woods was an average player from the sand. But his driving was so superior it didn’t matter—he rarely ended up in bunkers. By focusing on what you and your team do best, you create a more energized, high-performance culture and avoid the trap of average effort by trying to fix every flaw. And when it comes to yourself, you’ll likely enjoy your time in the store more.
