It is bad practice to try and improve your weaknesses

I re-read "First break all the rules" over the last week. This book (by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman) was recommended to me by one of my PhD supervisors, Mike Bourne and the key message (apart from the Q12 survey itself) is that the best managers select an employee for talent rather than for skills or experience and how they set expectations for him or her by defining the right outcomes rather than the right steps. Most important is how they motivate people by building on each person's unique strengths rather than trying to fix weaknesses.

This reminded me of a recent edition of Brand Eins, a German economics magazine , which featured an interview with Fredmund Malik, professor in St. Gallen who also has interesting views on the subject (roughly translated by myself now):

"It is bad practice to try and improve your weaknesses, especially in management. In private life yes, it is alright to tell your kids to work on their weaknesses but not in a working environment. There one improves by recognizing his strengths and using them. And this is where people need feedback as sometimes they don't realize what their strength is."

"There is a correlation between not liking work and doing it badly - but this doesn't work vice versa. Just because you like doing something doesn't mean you are good at it. Being good at something sometimes leads to liking it, but only because you are good at it."

"The solution for this dilemma is observing yourself, looking at what you are good at and you will be better in that than others because it is easier for you."

It just doesnt seem logical to focus on improving petty weaknesses and ignore real talents staff have. If people so not fit to their job that they need to improve weaknesses to end up working on something they are or were not good at, then why are they there in the first place?